What You Don’t Know About Me

So this is based on a Daily Prompt from WordPress. If you click the hyperlink, it’ll take you right to the prompt page for July 3.  This is my first daily prompt, and it’s also the first one I’ve seen where I immediately knew what I could write about. So here goes nothing.

It’ll have been two years ago in October I believe, that I became even more afraid of the world than I already was. My now ex-boyfriend and I rode some NiceRide bikes from campus downtown to Target. We had some things we wanted to get and made it an adventure since it was so nice out. After shopping, we had dinner at Chipotle and by this time, it was getting dark outside. We could either ride bikes back to campus and withstand the chill that was coming or we could walk down the street and catch a bus back to campus. Thinking it’d be easier and faster, we chose to take the bus. While walking down the street, distracted by putting our hands in his hoodie pocket, a large group of men approached us from across the street, obviously disturbed by the slight display of homosexuality. We had some haters and we were terrified. We did our best to not provoke them and tried to continue walking, but we couldn’t shake them. They started pushing and swinging and that’s how my first mugging started.

I took off running but soon realized that my ex wasn’t behind me. Terrified for him, I ran back to help. They pushed him down and got a few good kicks to his side. I grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him behind me. We ran all the way to the bus stop and called the cops when we got there. They didn’t pursue us and when the police finally decided to show up, the suspects were nowhere to be found. They were actually going to leave us and make us take the bus and I told them they were taking us back to our dorm. In the back of the squad car, I was fine but my ex seemed to be losing his mind. This role reversed within days: I’m kind of a late bloomer, I guess. I called our friends and had them meet us in the lobby, just to make sure we didn’t die when pulling up. I thanked the rather rude females that answered our call and that’s how I became the open, yet closeted, homosexual I am today! Thank you massive group of assholes downtown. I don’t know what I would have done without you.

I only told my close friends and family that we were attacked that day. And even though the ex convinced me to be interviewed with him for an article for the campus newspaper, I’m still very much scared to venture downtown for any reason and I’d rather spend $30 to take a taxi somewhere than about $2 to take the bus. I don’t talk about it because I’m actually a little nervous that whoever did that might find out how to get to me again. But it’s an important story to share and we need to protect ourselves. So I do share, and I do feel afraid, but I do believe it’ll be helpful in the long run.