< Translator’s note: The original formatting of the stories has been preserved. The translations aim to remain as close as possible to each author's original wording and expression.

 

When my boyfriend’s parents moved to their summer house for the season, I was practically living at his place. One time, he threw a party at home: his friends came over, and among them were a few girls. Two men who were from another city stayed overnight, and one more girl also stayed for the night.

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I went to bed a bit earlier, turning toward the wall. Someone lay down behind me, and I felt how they started to touch my breasts “in some wrong way.” I turned around — and saw that it wasn’t my boyfriend, but his friend. I jumped up “as if scalded,” ran out of the room, saw that my boyfriend was sleeping on his parents’ bed, and lay down next to him.

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I couldn’t fall asleep and heard that in the other room, a girl was trying to kick out the second man — he kept coming back into her room, and she kept forcing him out. The third time, I went in and asked her if I should sleep with her so that he wouldn’t bother her. We blocked the door with a chair and fell asleep.

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And in the morning, my boyfriend, after hearing these stories, said: “Why didn’t you wake me up and tell me?” — like, “you can’t wake someone drunk anyway.”

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Also, I barely drank alcohol, and his friends brought me to tears with their “claims” — trying to force me to explain why I rarely drink. And my boyfriend was sitting right there and heard all of it. And when I finally started crying, he said: “Why didn’t you say earlier that these questions upset you?” 🤦‍♀️

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Svitlana; story shared in 2023 as part of the campaign “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.”