It happened about three months ago, on a chilly Saturday night in the middle of September. Becky's parents had decided to go on a second honeymoon at some beach I don't remember the name of - so Becky, of course, took the opportunity to invite her friends over for a wild party. My mom said it was fine, as long as I didn't drink and made it home before midnight.

At about 6:30, I strode up to the house in my fave leather jacket and a white tee, going for the Danny Zuko look. Becky answered the door with a beaming smile, decked out in a flattering black sleeveless dress.

"Damn, Bobby, you look sharp! Come on in!" And I did.

If you're wondering where my better half was, she got a nasty case of strep throat and had to stay home. I was a little nervous about going to the party without her, but she reassured me that Becky was my friend, too, and she didn't want me to miss out.

I walked in to see that the party was already poppin'. Aside from Lori, all the usual suspects were there. Dana, Joey and Tad were by the couch playing Never Have I Ever. Joey stood up and gave me a fist bump, while the others just waved. Chaz was in the kitchen chowing down on some hors d'oeuvres - looked like stuffed clams, from where I was standing. He waved, his cheeks filled to capacity with food. And then there was Whitney, over by the punch bowl. Her face practically lit up when she caught sight of me from across the room, which was a little weird to me, since we were never all that close.

"Heeey, Bobby!" she sang, greeting me with a hug. "Where's Lori?"

"Oh, she couldn't make it," I said. "Strep throat."

"Mmm-hmm. So how've things been going for you, lately?"

"Well, y'know, same stuff, really," I said with a shrug. "Trying to get myself in gear for senior year. Looking at colleges. That sort of thing."

Whitney just kept smiling and nodding along with everything I was saying. "Y'know, Bobby, there's something I wanted to-"

"Dude! You've gotta try these!" interrupted Chaz, barreling in from the kitchen. In his hand was a plate of the appetizers I saw him eating before. "Breadcrumb-stuffed clams, bro. Becky's an awesome chef. Try 'em!"

I wolfed one down. They were good. Very rich, with just the right amount of spiciness.

"Oh, hey, nice!" I said. I scanned my eyes around the room for Becky, and caught her seated with Joey and the gang. "Hey, Becky, good stuff!" I called, pointing to the clams. She gave me a thumbs up.

"By the way," I said as I turned back to Chaz, "where's Leni?"

Chaz frowned, and his shoulders slumped a little. "Strep throat, brah."

It figured. If one Loud got sick, before long, all of them would get sick. That's just the way things worked in that house.

"Yeah, well, tell her I send my regards," Whitney said before nudging Chaz away from me. She then hooked her arm around mine and dragged me over to the punch bowl. "So have you tried the punch?"

"Well, I just got here, so no," I said with a nervous chuckle. Before I even finished that sentence, she was ladling some into a solo cup for me. I thought it'd be rude to refuse her, so I took a sip.

I winced. It tasted... weird. Sweet, but also really bitter. What kind of punch was this?

A moment later, I noticed a half-empty bottle of vodka sitting next to the punch bowl. Mystery solved.

"I-I really shouldn't," I said, putting the cup down. "My mo- I mean, I promised myself no drinking tonight."

Whitney rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Bobby. Don't be such a prude."

I looked down at the cup, which was still three-quarters full. Truth be told, I couldn't see any reason to take another sip. I tried some and didn't like the taste, so what would be the point of finishing it?

"Come on, Bobby!" Chaz chimed in. "I've already had two. If Chaz can handle it, so can you!"

I squirmed. Whitney was one thing, but Chaz was someone I really hated to let down. There's nothing more depressing than a sad Chaz.

I looked back down at the mixture swirling around in the cup. How bad could it be? I thought. I mean, only a bit of it is vodka. The rest is juice. Plus, I didn't want to be the one guy at the party who wouldn't drink because his mommy said no. So I picked up the cup and took another swig. It actually went down easier the second time around.

"That's my boy!" cheered Whitney.

I laughed, walked over to the gathering by the couch with my cup in hand and took a seat between Joey and Dana. I didn't want to get drunk, so I declined to play Never Have I Ever with them, but I still had a pretty good time watching them play and chatting in between rounds. I told myself that I'd have just one cup of the punch and that would be it.

For the next couple hours I just mingled, drifting from group to group while taking a sip from my cup whenever I felt thirsty. And the whole time, it seemed like Whitney was constantly orbiting around me. I'd take a glance over my shoulder, and there she'd be, giving me a sweet smile. I decided not to say anything about it... which turned out to be a mistake, because she started getting pretty handsy. I told her more than a few times that I wasn't comfortable with her touching me, but she didn't stop. One time when I was talking to Joey, she just snuck up behind me and started massaging my shoulders - and at that point, I cracked. I pulled her aside, and told her flat-out that I knew she knew that Lori and I were together, and there was nothing she could do to make me untrue to her. She said, "Fine," and slunk away, and I took that as a sign that the problem was solved.

It wasn't.

As the night went on, I continued to mingle, and I started getting woozier and woozier. My head was spinning, I was slurring my words, and I was finding it hard to keep my balance. Now you're probably thinking, how do you get drunk off of just one cup of punch? Nobody's that much of a lightweight, right?

Well, here's the thing: I kept sipping it throughout the night, and it seemed like no matter how many tips I took, I couldn't get to the bottom of it. It was like I was drinking a bottomless cup. It wasn't until it was too late that I figured out that someone had been freshening up my drink while I wasn't looking. It wasn't until it was too late that I figured out who- and why.

I was on the couch, trying to get my bearings straight, when Becky suddenly cranked up the volume on her iPod dock, and everyone got on the floor and started dancing. I got up and tried to join them, but the room was spinning and my legs felt like jelly. I stumbled over towards the kitchen through a sea of dancing bodies, trying to find some coffee or water or something that would help me sober up. Before I made it, I lost my balance, fell flat on my face and passed out. The last thing I remember hearing was someone in the room promising to "help me" and "take care of me".

I awoke some time later in a daze, to the sound of bedsprings squeaking. I was on someone's bed, and I could feel something - someone - bouncing on my pelvis, bobbing it up and down. I opened my eyes, and there was Whitney, butt naked, straddling me and riding me.

I panicked. This wasn't supposed to happen. I yelled "STOP" and "NO" as loud as I could, but she didn't listen. I tried to push her off of me, but my arms were too fatigued and sore. I cried for help, but the music was so loud that nobody could hear me. I was trapped, a helpless prisoner in my own body. I could feel her weight, all one hundred and ten pounds of her, pounding into my pelvis, flattening it, pulverizing it, as her meaty thighs wrapped around me like an anaconda. All I could do was flail about, choking, gasping for air, begging for some kind of escape, until I passed out from the strain.

When I woke up, my legs and my crotch were both throbbing with pain, and I was nauseous. Really nauseous. As soon as I lifted myself off the bed, I up-chucked onto the floor. By now, the house was eerily quiet, since almost everyone had left.

Almost everyone. Becky found me a minute later and helped me into a cab. Or tried to, anyway. As soon as she put her arm around me, I panicked and shoved her away. It wasn't personal; I just wasn't in the mood to be touched. But she looked a little hurt, so I apologized.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm just... I can do it myself. You don't have to help me."

I took the next five minutes stumbling my way downstairs while she stood by me, making sure I didn't fall. Afterwards, she called me an Uber and sat with me until it came. I told her that I was just sick from drinking too much - which was kind of true, at least.

"It's okay," she said. "It happens."

But the look she gave me told me that she knew I wasn't telling her the whole truth. I'm sorry, Becky, but you wouldn't have believed me if I did.

Anyway, I took the cab home, walked upstairs and collapsed into bed. I didn't sleep.

I spent the entire day in bed, trying to process what had just happened to me. I kept reliving the incident over and over again, and my mind kept trying to conjure up dodgy ways to describe what happened to me. "Surprise sex", "drunken sex", "sleep sex". Anything but that dreaded "r" word.

In the middle of the day, I was jolted out of bed by the high-pitched ring of my text notification sound. Lori. Checking up on me after the party, like the good girlfriend she was.

hi booboobear. how was the party last night?

I just said I was fine and left it at that.

it was fine. i missed you tho.

It hurt my heart to have to lie to her, but I just didn't have the energy to deal with anything more than a thirty-second conversation.

awww i missed you too! but my strep is getting better so ill see u tomorrow at school 3

wow thats great! see u then. love u 3

The pain of typing out that last sentence was enough to make me nauseous. I couldn't even bring myself to wait for her response; I just shut my phone off and slapped it onto my nightstand. If only she knew. If only I could tell her.

After that I just sat there on the bed, stewing in my own guilt and self-loathing until my mom called me down for dinner. I stumbled downstairs and plopped myself down into my chair with a thud. Mom and Ronnie Anne were both giving me worried looks as I picked at my paella, filing the rice into my mouth one grain at a time.

"Bobby, are you feeling okay?" asked Mom. "You look awful."

"I'm fine," I mumbled, trying to come up with a lie on the spot. "I... I got food poisoning at the party. They had stuffed clams."

"Ohhh, poor baby," she said, in that soothing tone that only a mother can perfect. "Well, don't force yourself. If your appetite's not up to it, you can go back upstairs and I'll save the rest."

"Mm-hmm."

I excused myself with my plate still three-quarters full and clomped back up the stairs. As soon as I got back into bed, the experience played back in my head again. The pain. The helplessness. My cries for help falling on deaf ears.

There was no getting around it. I was raped.

The knowledge made me bawl into my pillow until I ran out of energy and fell asleep.

I had to drag myself to school the next morning, not even bothering to have any breakfast. I shambled through the day like a zombie, barely talking to anyone and only half-listening to my teachers. Lori seemed a bit concerned about me, so I told her that I just didn't get enough sleep last night, which she bought.

After school, I split off from my friends and took myself down to the local police station to file a complaint. I wasn't expecting them to slap the cuffs on her right then and there, but I was hoping that they'd at least help me somehow - maybe by introducing me to a counselor or a support group or something. Nope. They laughed and rolled their eyes and told me to stop wasting their time. I didn't think it was possible to feel even more helpless and alone than I already did.

After all, if the police won't help me, who will? It's not like there's anyone in my life that I can talk to about this. Ronnie Anne is too young to understand. If I told Mom, I'd pretty much have to admit that I drank at the party even though she told me not to. She'd kill me for that. Plus, she's one of those... those "feminist" types, you know? They think that rape is something that men do to oppress women. I don't think she would understand my pain.

And Lori? I'm terrified to even think about it. See, until that night at the party, I was a virgin. I promised Lori that I would save my first time for her, and she would save hers for me. She would never forgive me if I confessed that I broke that promise. Even if I told her that I was raped, it'd be my word against Whitney's, and she's known Whitney for longer.

And even if she believed me over Whitney, what would that say about me? I still let it happen. A real man would have been strong enough to push her off, or responsible enough not to drink, or smart enough to tell what Whitney was planning. I'm pathetic. Lori deserves better than me. If only I wasn't too much of a coward to tell her that.

This all happened months ago, and I'm still an absolute mess. I barely eat anything, I recoil every time a girl touches me, I snap at my friends, and I stay up all night crying. My grades are slipping, too. I haven't gotten anything better than a C+ since the party. Lori keeps begging me to tell her why I've been so distant. Everyone thinks that I'm losing my mind.

But wouldn't you? Wouldn't you lose your mind, after learning that your own body doesn't belong to you? Any girl in my class could just hop on top of me and ride me, and nobody will do anything about it. I don't even have a say in the matter. I'm nothing but an oversized sex toy for girls to use.

I can't live like this. I can't live day by day knowing that every time I go to sleep, I could wake up to some random girl humping the crap out of me. I can't spend my life living in constant fear that one day she'll show up at my doorstep with a baby in her arms, demanding money that I don't have. More and more, I've been drawn to the idea of ending my pain for good - if you know what I mean.

I almost did it one night.

I bought some sleeping pills from the convenience store on the way home from school. Late that night, when mom and Ronnie Anne were tucked away in their beds, I tiptoed downstairs, went into mom's liquor cabinet and poured myself a glass of scotch. I just sat there in the darkness for what seemed like an hour, staring at the glass and the pills.

Do it, I thought.

It's only going to get worse. End your suffering. Set yourself free.

...

...

...

I couldn't do it.

I was too scared.

I dumped the scotch down the sink, put the bottle back in the cabinet, and threw the pills in the garbage. I didn't make it back to my room. I just collapsed around the wastebasket, crying.

My mom found me in the kitchen the next morning. I told her I was sleepwalking. She didn't look like she bought it. I think my lies are starting to catch up with me. Either that, or she's just getting fed up with my refusal to tell her what's wrong, because today I overheard her calling the school to schedule an appointment with my guidance counselor.

My heart sank. I ran upstairs, threw myself onto the bed and screamed into my pillow, pounding the mattress with my fists. I knew my days of keeping this whole thing a secret were numbered. Sooner or later, the guidance counselor would pry the truth out of me, and then my entire world would come crashing down. Mom... Lori... Ronnie Anne... Grandpa Hector... Aunt Frida... Uncle Carlos... they'll never be able to look at me the same way again.

I don't know why you're reading this right now - or how you're reading this right now - but whoever you are...

Help me. Please.

Do something.

Anything.

I'm begging you.