Please help me to do the right thing

**this could be triggering and there are fairly in depth details**

So, I was sexually assaulted by a friend of mine 2 weeks ago.

I've been friends with him for the past 5 years. We were the sort of friends that wouldn't talk for months and then just pick up where we left off without any trouble. We could tell each other anything and it would be completely respected and kept secret. In other words, I trusted him.

Recently, his life has become pretty messed up. He's been strained and stretched thin across issues in school, family and within his relationship (which I've told him multiple times is unhealthy and he shouldn't be in it). I went over to his house to try and take his mind off of things and cheer him up and also because we hadn't met up in over a year or so. I also haven't been holding up so well and needed the break.

We went up to his room as he didn't want the rest of his family to know how bad of a shape he was in. Things got increasingly uncomfortable for me as he kept getting me to get physically closer and closer to him. I didn't want to think that he would do anything and just thought he wanted the physical comfort, and I know of quite a few friends who cuddle and thought he was just looking for comfort.

After a while he turned my head to kiss me and things very quickly changed. He became more and more aggressive in his actions and had a hand over my throat (he wasn't choking me but I didn't want to find out if he would if I resisted). I kind of shut down and became numb to what was happening to me, whilst I could have called for help or actively pushed him away and it probably would have stopped (I of course will never know if he would have or if he would have done something much worse to me). I told him to stop a number of times but he didn't listen and instead just pinned my arm behind my back.

After a while of this aggressive kissing and grabbing (and a bit of light spanking), he pulled down his pants. I blankly wondered if he would rape me. Luckily it didn't come to that.

Instead, he undid my pants and shoved his hand down the front of them and started fingering me. It hurt and I didn't try to hide it. He kept trying for a bit and then eventually stopped.

Afterwards, he had the audacity to say that he shouldn't take all the blame for this and eventually asked if I was alright.

I'm now left with a decision to make. I've got to decide what to do about this mess he's made of me.

I could report him and try get him on a criminal record, but there isn't evidence for this and also I don't want to put myself or his family through that.

I could tell his parents about this and try get them to take him for counselling, but I don't want them to take on any more stress or strain than necessary and I don't want this to spiral and become about what happened instead of why it happened. Otherwise, I could try get him to go for counselling on his own, but I don't know if I'd hold enough sway to manage that.

I don't want this to just be left in the past and not dealt with. But I don't know how to deal with it. We're both 19 and therefore adults by law but that doesn't mean I know what to do.

I was hoping other people who have been through something similar could help.

Below are all the messages we've sent since the incident, if it helps at all...

He says he'll go talk to the school counsellor, but I don't know how seriously he will take it. He didn't come across as wanting to discuss the issue and I know he's the sort of person to bottle things up rather than talk about them.

Also, I know that what I said about things going further only to be criminal, but I actually hadn't thought of what he'd done as criminal, even though I now know it was.