I still don't remember exactly how it happened. 

I remember the night in bits and pieces. I remember drinking. I was 19, in a foreign country, and so being able to legally drink was still a novelty. It was our last week of the summer program and we were having a party. We invited the friends we had made in our 6 weeks there. I had a crush on this guy and I was so excited that he had come. 

The night started out well. Everyone was having fun and dancing. But he kept giving me drinks and shots and eventually I was too drunk to protest. 

I don't know how we got to my room. All I remember is that suddenly we were sitting on my bed. He was kissing me, making me touch him. I remember being confused. I had never had a guy be interested in me before, and I was telling myself I should be happy for the attention. But I also felt uncomfortable and scared. I knew I was really drunk and I was blacking out. But I couldn't seem to get out the words. The rest of the night gets hazy. I remember him forcing me to give him a blow job. I remember the pain when he was inside me, as I protested saying it hurt and i wanted to stop. He didn't listen. It hurt for a week afterwards. 

The next morning my roommate and all the other students in my program were talking about it as though it was a normal hookup. They joked and smiled and I played along, and even managed to convince myself, for a while. That I was just making a big deal out of things. That I was drunk, so it was my fault. I chose to drink, I chose to go with him to my room, even though I didn't consciously remember that decision. I convinced myself it was just a "bad hookup".

But I couldn't stop thinking about it every night. I couldn't sleep. I was constantly thinking about it, replaying it in my head. By the time school started again, I would sometimes cry silently before I finally went to sleep.

But I never told anyone. I never did anything. I was convinced it was my fault, that it was not "that bad", that it couldn't be rape.

That year I took a course on Leadership and Violence Prevention and joined Project Dinah, and it really made me face what had happened. But it also made me incredibly guilty. I was constantly telling other people to report, to speak out, to not be ashamed, that it wasn't their fault. But I couldn't believe those things for myself, and I felt like a hypocrite. How could I tell other survivors to not be ashamed when I still blamed myself? 

At Speak Out that year, I promised myself I would let my story be heard. It is now my last chance to fulfill that promise before I graduate. So here it is.