Of Evils and Betrayal

This is hard for me...
I don't know how to accurately express my feelings...

So, let me start from the beginning:

Tuesday, January 7th, 2014:
I was hanging out with some friends. Good friends that I have known for several years. And we all decided to go out to a bar for karaoke like typical twenty-somethings.

Over the course of the evening, I had 3 smirnoff ices, 3 applesauce shots, and about two fingers worth of sour apple pucker. Needless to say, I was drunk and did not drive home that evening. I stayed the night at the house of two friends I trusted. One of them was our designated driver and did not have anything to drink that evening.

I'll call him Anthony. His girlfriend I will call Reyna.

We left the bar around last call, went back to the house and played video games. I passed out at about four in the morning, a mixture of alcohol and fatigue effectively knocking me out.

About an hour later (this time frame is a guesstimation based on how drunk I still felt), after Reyna and I had passed out on the bed and our other friend, Ryan, in the other bed next to us, Anthony went to bed.

Rather than climbing into the other bed with Ryan, Anthony climbed into bed between Reyna and I. This woke me up slightly. I remember being in a state that my mind was awake and had thus awoken all my senses, but my body was still heavy and sluggish.

It was shortly after that that Anthony began touching me.

I remember thinking that there was no way this was really happening. And I was scared. I didn't know what to do, didn't know how he would react if I reacted, so I stayed perfectly still. I remained quiet and still because I didn't know what else to do. Couldn't think of anything else to do.

He continued to take advantage of me for several minutes. And every so often, he would stop and lift my hand to check to see if I was awake. And I let it drop every time because I didn't know what else to do.

I kept thinking that if maybe I stayed still and passive, he'd get bored and leave me alone. That he would just turn away and go to sleep.

He did turn away after a while. He turned and decided to mess around with Reyna instead. I don't know how long that was after he started messing with me. I didn't have any concept of time. Just the sound of my heart pounding in my ears and the desire to run away as quickly as I could.

I remember him shaking me at one point, calling my name softly, trying to wake me up.

And I remember him turning my head towards him slightly as he kissed the edge of my mouth.

The next day, I remember him waking me up, telling me that his dad was coming over so I could hang out with them or head home. I told him I'd go home. And I remember him asking me very pointedly how I slept. I just mumbled okay as I gathered my things.

The entire drive home to my house, I kept thinking, "I've trusted these two so many times. I've gotten blackout drunk at their house before. I've passed out and slept through the night in a dreamless, drunken stupor. Has this happened before and I don't remember? How many times had I been taken advantage of? Is this why Anthony always tries to get me to drink excessively?"

I thought a lot about it throughout the following day. I didn't really know how to tell anyone. Mostly because I half feared that everyone would blame me for not stopping it. For not being stronger. And I thought about just acting as if everything was fine and that nothing had happened. So I wouldn't complicate anything, or see anyone hurt or angry.

All of these things played through my mind over and over and over. And it wasn't until my boyfriend got home that night and I shied away from him, when I slipped into the shower to clean myself and hide, that I finally broke. I started sobbing. He heard me and asked me what was wrong. He asked me if I wanted to talk about it.

...it took me at least thirty minutes to actually say aloud that Anthony had molested me.

I haven't had contact with them since. Although, they have tried to contact my boyfriend since then. Specifically Anthony. Desperately trying to salvage his friendship since he'd been caught.

Anthony tried to tell Peter, my boyfriend, that it wasn't intentional. That he had been asleep. That the act of him sexually assaulting a woman had happened before while he was sleeping. Reyna went so far as to say that Anthony had sex with her once while he was asleep.
I was appalled that someone could expect another person to believe that.
I was sick to my stomach about it. I am still.

What's worse is that others took his side. People I knew and trusted decided that, after a couple months (or mere weeks in some cases), it was okay to associate with him again as long as they didn't add me to the mix.
There were some people I thought were being sincere when they looked me straight in the eyes and said "Yes, that's wrong and unacceptable. I won't be dealing with those two anymore."

Those people lied to my face and went behind my back to spend time with Anthony. (Reyna, from what I've been told, is no longer in the picture.)

Why is that acceptable? Why is it alright to absolve someone of something like that? What if it had been the other way? What if the friends who now still associate with him had been in my situation and I lackadaisically pal'd around with their abuser still? Would they be hurt? Would they feel betrayed?

The thing that I find most irritating about this whole situation is the response I'm getting from people.

"You can't pick people's friends, Maddie."

"Now you know that they aren't a friend you can tell your secrets to because they don't see you that way."

Why in the fuck does some shitbag who sexually assaulted me get to keep his friends and get to go on to a job in law enforcement?!
WHY IN THE FUCK IS THAT OKAY WITH PEOPLE?!

Why does it feel like I lost more in this struggle than he did?

...how did he come out on top?

How is that fair?

...the fact that I felt like everyone would blame me for this situation, that I was more afraid of people abandoning me and turning their anger on me because I was afraid and didn't know what to do to stop it, is idiotic and wrong.

That the only people to stand steadfastly by my side were family...is wrong.

Anthony is an abuser. He was verbally abusive to Reyna when they were together. He was sexually abusive to me.
He tried to play the loyal, honest man. The righteous do-gooder. The cop.

He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. And people know it. They just choose the lie. Because it's easier.

I'm sick of people taking the easy way out.