It was 3:00 AM and I was awaken by the ring of my phone. Looking around my surrounding I noticed I did it again. I accidentally passed out of the coach after a long day at work. But this time it was different, no one was home to wake me up to carry me to my bed.

I take a look at my phone to check that notification that had awoken me. To my surprise, it was a Facebook friend request. As I was navigating through my phone to get to Facebook I was falling in and out of sleep. I finally managed to get to the app and check who sent me a friend request. It was Maruis. That name sounded familiar to me, but I was trying to remember the history behind that name. As I started to remember the history, I became more aware of my surroundings and I was wide awake.

Maruis was the older cousin that I grew up with. He was the person who sexually assaulted when I was 5 years old. He is the history that I push myself to forget every day. But this night, at 3:00 AM I was forced to remember. After 17 years of never crossing paths with him, a Facebook friend request has shattered this streak.

I thought to myself what the fuck does he want with me. How dare he send me a friend request? I was trying to go into his mind to thinking about what that friend request meant to him but I stopped myself as I started to remember all the pain this man had caused me.

I looked at my surroundings and I felt more alone. The silence in the room got louder. And in this silence, it gave me the time to reflect on how far I’ve come since the 17 years. And it reminded me of the type of work I care about and why I chose to be a Women and Gender Studies major. At that moment I was okay. I took my phone and declined his friend request, took myself to my bed and went to sleep knowing that I will be okay.