tw: r*pe, sexual assault
I couldn’t sleep last night. My head rejected the pillow. The sheets felt like sandpaper against my skin.
Fuck. Did I take my Adderall too late? Maybe I shouldn’t have had that Alani at 2 p.m.
I finally drifted off around 2:30 a.m., but it didn’t last.
It happened again. The night terror that has stalked me for years — crashing in uninvited, like someone you pray never to see again but still run into on the street.
I bolted awake, hand pressed to my chest, struggling to breathe.
October 16th. The anniversary of his release. Had it really been five years already?
My body must have remembered before my brain did. That’s how it always goes — my chest seizes, my breath gets shallow, and the nightmare plays on a loop. It’s not even the same exact scene every time, but the feeling is identical: trapped, voiceless, desperate to wake up.
Two dates haunt me: March 8th, 2019, and October 16th, 2020.
Two anniversaries that remind me of what I became: a statistic.
Not the kind you brag about. The kind that makes you feel dirty. Smaller. The kind that feel like you’ve been branded by a hot metal rod. Over and over.
It took years of therapy and slow work to really sit with what happened. I sat in an emotionless shock stage for 6 months after it happened, followed by grief and shame, followed by a global pandemic that forced me to sit in isolation with it, spiraling into a rampant eating disorder and the longest depressive episode I’ve ever experienced in my life.
We read about “statistics” like me all the time:
“Woman sexually assaulted at 200 block of P St. in Truxton Circle.”
A few weeks after it happened, I looked it up.
I know it’s messed up — typing your own assault into a search bar — but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to see it written somewhere outside my head.
There it was. Proof that I had become another statistic people scroll past without thinking. A headline between weather updates and sports scores.
March 8th, 2019
A few minutes past 10 a.m., waiting for a Lyft. I stood on the sidewalk outside my townhouse. It still felt like winter — I wore my long puffer coat (unzipped), dress pants, and heels. My pink Beats headphones covered my ears, and my green Herschel backpack was stuffed with my laptop, gym clothes, sneakers, and other random things my ADHD brain never bothered to take out.
I was en route to meet a potential new client. I remember wanting to squeeze it in my scheduled before I left for my 3 week solo trip to Colombia.
I knew I’d need money when I got back so I wanted to have this new client lined up and ready upon returning back to the states.
I watched the Lyft approach on my phone screen. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him.
A man, disheveled, unsteady on his feet. He reeked. If I think about it too hard, it’s like I can sniff and smell him all over again.
As he neared, he mumbled something. I couldn’t make out the words, so I said what I assumed: “Sorry, I don’t have any cash on me.”
The series of events that unfolded next feel like a fever dream. So much so that it sounds made up. Sometimes I gaslight myself, is that really what happened?
I opened the car door — and in a split second, I knew I was in danger. He tried to climb in with me. I slammed the door shut and sprinted to the other side to get in. He followed behind and chased me.
Like I was prey, and he was the predator.
I tried jumping in the car as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“GO! GO! MOVE THE FUCKING CAR!” I screamed at the driver.
The next thing I knew, I was pinned in the backseat. His weight on me. His voice slurred, calling me Christina — very clearly under the influence of something. His hands forced up my shirt and onto my breasts, and eventually into my pants.
I screamed. I fought. He put his hand over my mouth.
The door I entered hadn’t fully closed, his legs still hanging out as the car sped forward. I saw them smash against parked cars as we swerved.
I just remember screaming. Feeling like I was fighting for my life. Pinned up against the corner where the seats meet the door. Did he have a knife? Was he going to stab me? I remember the Lyft driver calling 911 as he was driving and swerving down P St. I remember the dispatch being on the line as the driver was trying to explain what was happening.
Why the Lyft driver kept driving, I’ll never know. Panic? Shock? Did he think the man would eventually fall out? He was calling 911 as he drove, his voice frantic to the dispatcher.
Then we came to a screeching halt at a four-way stop, narrowly missing another car. In that instant, my body flipped a switch. You know how they talk about humans entering fight-or-flight mode — that surge of adrenaline when your body decides survival is the only option. In that moment I felt it in full force, as if my nervous system had hijacked me.
My body moved before my brain could catch up, and I shoved this 220-plus-pound, six-foot-something man off of me, and somehow lifted my knee high enough to drive my heel into his face. I kept kicking, again and again, until I saw blood. With one last, desperate grab at my backpack, he fled.
Where was the Lyft driver through all of this? Still in the driver’s seat.
We followed him in the car as the man tried to run away — his legs already mangled from hitting parked cars, his body sluggish and strung out. He didn’t make it far before the cops showed up and arrested him.
I don’t remember how long it lasted. How long I was pinned in the backseat. How long his hands were on me and fingers inside of me.
You’d think the first thing I’d do after everything happened was get out of the fucking car. But I couldn’t. I sat frozen in the backseat, in the exact corner where it all went down. Numb. Shallow breaths. Couldn’t even blink back tears.
I knew I should get up, step outside, breathe real air. But I couldn’t. All I could do was sit in that corner. As if my body had decided that moving, even an inch, would make everything real in a way I wasn’t ready to face.
“M’am. Are you alright? M’am - let’s get you out of here. You’re safe now.”
The detective’s name was Tony. I introduced myself.
“I know this is a lot,” he said gently. “I’m going to have you sit in my car and identify the suspect from a distance. All you have to do is confirm that the man we arrested is the same one who attacked you.”
His white t-shirt was stained with blood his face. He looked dirty. Fucked up. Like he was still on a different planet.
“Yes that’s him.”
I sat in Tony’s car. I still hadn’t told anyone what happened. What the fuck was I was supposed to say? “Hi Mom, I was just pinned in the backseat of a Lyft and was violently sexually assaulted by a random man off the street while the driver did absolutely nothing to help me?”
It felt like a story that would turn into too many questions to answer and I couldn’t answer any of them. Not right now.
I overheard the Lyft driver give his statement to the police officer.
“Did you attempt to get the man off of her?”
“Well, I was afraid if I got out, he would steal my car.”
Nice. Fucking men.
Tony got back in the car.
“Okay, Beth. I need to get a statement from you. I know you don’t want to relive what just happened, but it’s best we do this now, while it’s still fresh. I’ll ask follow-ups. I’ll want uncomfortable details. I know this is difficult, but the more you can tell me, the better.”
I had to show him the exact hand placements. I replayed them on myself. His left hand was here, while his right hand covered my mouth. Then he moved his hand inside my waistband…
I was describing first degree sexual assault.
The next day, the Victim’s Advocacy Center in D.C. called. They assigned me a case manager — coincidentally, her name was also Toni, with an i instead of a y.
From the moment I sat down with her, she became a lifeline. She walked me through what would happen next, explained my options, and made me feel less alone. She checked in every day for weeks and reminded me — gently and consistently — that I was safe.
Toni connected me with my public defender, Angela. Walking into her office, I thought I’d finally see justice take shape. Instead, I saw how stacked the system really is.
Angela pulled out a thick binder with a chart inside — crimes plotted on an X and Y axis against prior offenses. Line up the dots and you could basically calculate someone’s prison time like it was algebra.
But it wasn’t that simple.
She told me straight: “We could try him for first-degree sexual assault — because that’s what he did to you. But first-degree is really hard to prove. If we lose, that’s it. We can’t go down to a lesser charge later.”
Her recommendation was third-degree — the “safer” charge, the one most likely to stick. Logically, it made sense. Emotionally, it felt like a betrayal. He wasn’t being tried for what he actually did to me, but for what the system thought it could win.
And then she told me something worse: the outcome didn’t just depend on the evidence; it depended on the judge. Only two usually handled cases like mine. One was known for being fair and victim-centered. The other? Not so much. Which courtroom we landed in could change everything.
So we went with third-degree sexual assault, plus attempted kidnapping, assault, and attempted robbery.
I remember thinking: how is this fair? Angela wasn’t wrong — she was sharp, grounded, on my side — but she was fighting inside a system that was never built for victims.
My case had everything: broad daylight, eyewitnesses, a Lyft driver a foot away, bystanders on the street. If this case wasn’t strong enough for first-degree, what fucking hope does anyone else have?
That’s the reality. It’s not Angela’s fault. It’s the justice system’s. And it’s no wonder so many survivors never come forward — because even with all the evidence in the world, sometimes it’s still not enough.
Broadus Johnson was found guilty on all counts. Sentenced to five years.
He served one.
Healing hasn’t been linear — it’s been slow, uneven, and full of small shifts I barely noticed as they happened.
The week after it happened, I left for a three-week solo trip to Colombia. It had been planned for months. My dad tried to talk me out of going, but staying felt harder. I needed to move, to breathe somewhere else, to be reminded that the world was still big.
I’m glad I went. It gave me something else to look at, something else to think about. A temporary escape that helped me start breathing again.
For a long time, it felt like what happened had threaded itself through everything. My routines, my thoughts, even the way I carried myself. But time has a way of loosening its grip. The panic that used to sit in my chest doesn’t live there anymore. The anniversaries sting less. The memories are still there, but they aren’t as loud as they used to be. I can talk about it now without my whole body reacting.
And now I feel comfortable enough to share with you on Substack.
I wouldn’t call it growth or gratitude. It just is what it is now — something that happened, but doesn’t own me anymore. At least not nearly as much as it used to.
I still have triggers. The guy I was casually seeing this past summer called me a “bitch” as a joke once and I felt myself shutter. Because that’s what Broadus called me in the car.
For the record, calling woman a “bitch”, under any circumstance, is major loser behavior.]
Healing isn’t about forgetting the past, it’s about learning how to live with it — and realizing that, most days, you already are.
thanks for reading,
b 🫶✨
If this has happened to you, I hope you tell someone. There are people who will listen and believe you. Including me.
And if you don’t know where to start, contact RAINN’s hotline - it’s 24/7, anonymous, and free. 🫶