Page 73 of Saving Barrette

Did you think it was him? Did you want it to be? Or did you pray, please, don’t be him? I think in some ways, I thought all of the above.

He says I asked for it and verbally told him yes.

Even with the overwhelming amount of evidence and injuries conclusive to me being brutally raped, his attorney insists it’s consensual and that given my small frame, Roman might have been a little rough with me without meaning to.

And yeah, Asa has to be detained, again, at this point.

Honestly, I couldn’t believe the injustice I experienced in those first few days of the trial. It was no wonder women didn’t report sexual assault if this was the treatment they received.

Unfortunately for me, this is how Roman’s attorney paints a picture of me.

I flirted so I asked for it.

I drank so obviously I was making poor judgments.

I willingly took drugs, so it’s okay.

I told him I wanted it, so it was his word against mine.

As the trial moves forward, they accuse me of targeting a star athlete and Roman refuses to cooperate with who else was present and state multiple times, “I don’t know who was there. It was just me. We had sex, she was fine, and I don’t know what happened to her after that.”

Later, his story changes. He knows who was there. He just, you know, forgot he knew the other two men. I’m horrified to know the other two other guys took turns with me, because why not? She’s unconscious, she won’t remember.

Three times throughout the trial, Asa is detained and eventually banned from the courtroom because of his outbursts when he finds out the other two men who raped me were in fact, the ones who helped him carry me to the car after he found me. I didn’t know them up until the trial, but when I see Greg, and the tattoo on his hand, that’s when I knew where the memory came from.

For a while I thought maybe it had been Xander, but it wasn’t. He willingly took a DNA test. I never knew Xander to be that kind of guy. He could be a douche, but a rapist? Truth is, I don’t think there is any single trait to define a rapist. I certainly never thought Roman would be one.

And then comes the verdict because that’s the part that matters, right? That’s the part of all this when you find out who is guilty, and who is simply a victim of circumstance.

Six months from the day I stepped foot in the Olympia Police Department, a jury finds Roman Winslow guilty of aggravated sexual assault and sentences him to three years in jail. He’s required to register as a sex offender for life. He’s suspended from UW and had his scholarship revoked. His football career is over.

But it’s not enough.

Nothing is enough when I look the judge in the face at the sentencing where he overrules the jury and he says the words, “Low-risk to re-offend,” and gives him one year in county jail and three years of probation.

Probation. That’s like fucking detention. Asa loses his shit on the judge, nearly costs him his own scholarship and career, but if you ask me, it’s justified for us to feel this way. Toby and Greg, they receive a maximum sentence of five years. They, in many ways, take the fall for Roman.

Even after all that, the pain, the reminders, the anxiety and the depression that follows, it’s unbearable. Though I don’t know how, I manage to continue on. I keep pushing forward. I go to therapy, and I go again, and the next day, and the day after that. I talk to Joey. I talk to Cadence—who testifies against Roman. I talk to Remy—who also testifies against him. I talk to two other cheerleaders who came forward that they, in fact, don’t remember, but think something might have happened in Roman and Codey’s dorm room. None of that matters because in this case, the justice system failed me. They failed us. They failed women all over the world because regardless of being guilty, justice doesn’t always follow.

And finally, I talk to my boyfriend. I let Asa hold me at night. I confide in him and let him help me through it all. I don’t turn away from him and I keep moving forward. It’s not easy. There are still days when it’s too much. Days when I think I can’t take this any longer. I also have days when the nightmares are so bad I can’t sleep. Before they had no face, and now that they do, it’s terrifying.

I keep going because if I don’t, me, Waylon, Joey… our voices mean nothing. I keep going because they might have broken a piece of me, but my attackers, they don’t get to decide how I live my life regardless of the decision. I’m taking back my power. I’m rewriting my own story.

There comes a day when you have to decide. Are you going to turn the page or close the book?

I’m going to the next chapter.

THE NIGHT AFTERthe trial ends with the verdict shocks us all, Asa and I lay together in bed, in our home we’ve been sharing for the last six months. We try to make sense of what it means.

“What happens now?” I ask him, my head on his chest as I listen to his breathing, my eyes on the mason jars lining our headboard. Each one displays a quote he’s put inside to remind me that I can and will get past this. My favorite one?

Asa turns his head, his breathing light, his words whispered like a feather touching my skin. “We move forward.”

In the last six months, I didn’t think we could ever get past this, especially with the rage and aggression Asa showed through the entire process. “How?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs, his chest expanding with his breath. His hand moves to my cheek. I twist my head slightly and look up at him. “I love you.”

“I don’t know how you do.” It hurts to say that, but it’s the truth. I’ve put him through hell. Asa would have been better off to let me go that night and went on with his life without me. I’m thankful he didn’t, but it will never stop those feelings.

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