"I could’ve screamed, but the door was locked from the inside."

Not all bad men are so easy to spot.

Trigger warning: This post deals with issues of sexual assault and may be upsetting for some readers.

I could’ve screamed, but it wouldn’t have been loud enough to break through the party din, and the door was locked from the inside. There was no one in particular wondering where I was. No one even knew who I was, except for a new roommate I met a few hours earlier. It’s a good question: Who am I, sitting in that chair, calmly talking on command like a wind-up toy?

I was so angry, I felt like I could choke them to death with my rage. But I knew I couldn’t. I sat, and it was getting late, and I wondered how this would end.

Domestic violence doesn’t always look how you thought it would.

They reminded me of the rules a few times. I was told, go ahead, try to leave. You can leave if you want to. I was told that I didn’t want to know what they could do to me.

But I knew. Of course I knew. I was 17 years old. Men and boys had been making me aware of what they could or would like to do to me for a long time already. The teenage boy who leaned into my neck to growl that he “likes to eat little brownies,” at the ceremony where I earned a brass Brownie pin I proudly wore on my uniform sash. The town creeper in the van, who slowed down in front of Danielle’s house, asking us if we like puppies. The high school senior who hit on me when I was a 13-year-old freshman, because he knew my big brother, and it would’ve been so funny to bang that guy’s little sister, bro.

Not all bad men are so easy to spot. There are guys you think are your friends, until your stomach curdles as the walls close in — and then there you are, cranking through everything you know about that person, about men like him, about what worked in other mazes.

Sometimes, they just want you to know what they can do to you, and it’s enough just to make you picture it. He wants you to be grateful he didn’t do it, that he wouldn’t actually do that to you. ’Cause really, he’s a nice guy.

That’s about as good as it gets in the maze.

An Indian teenager was “punished” simply for fighting off the men who tried to attack her.

It’s exhausting in here, sustaining sharpened senses for long stretches of time while simultaneously playing the part, having a friendly chat, flashing a robotic one-second smile while declining a ride because your imaginary boyfriend is on the way, really appreciating a comment about how pretty you are on the street but no, seriously, you’re running late and gotta go!

I debated if I should walk or run toward the door, if they would grab me when I finally got up to try to leave.

Why didn’t you scream?

Why didn’t you fight back?

Why didn’t you why didn’t you why didn’t you?

Sometimes you scream or run or punch. But sometimes, the punishment for breaking the rules is worse than the degradation of compliance. Survival itself takes strength. There should be no shame. There are ways to fight back that don’t look like fighting to the people just looking in through the window, or who hear about it later, or who haven’t had to fight back with just instinct and endurance. The maze is designed so that endurance looks like cooperation.

I got up and walked toward the door. Someone said something about making life miserable for me if I said anything, but no one stopped me. Heart pounding in my ears, I twisted the knob.

I could smell the pine trees that edged the complex, feel the cool air. I made it out, and I heard them laughing.

You could say that nothing really happened in that apartment that night. But I don’t.

This article first appeared on The Toast and has been republished here with full permission. You can read the original here.

Tara Murtha is the author of Ode to Billie Joe for the critically acclaimed 33 1/3 series. Her journalism focuses mostly on policy, trauma, violence against women and reproductive rights. Follow her on Twitter @taramurtha.