Something Was Wrong - S13 Ep17: [Claire + Riley] I Might Not Be Alone

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

*Content Warning: This episode includes descriptions of grooming, sexual and emotional abuse of minors, disordered eating, obsessive compulsive disorder and suicidal ideation. For free and confidential resources, please visit: somethingwaswrong.com/resources Follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram @SomethingWasWrongPodcastSWW’s theme music –  U think U by Glad Rags, from their album Wonder Under. 

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Thank you so much for listening. You think you know me, you don't know me well. Hi, my name is Claire, and I am here to talk about how I met Mr. Smith when I was in high school. I remember becoming aware of him when I was a freshman in high school. He was a teacher, but he was also involved in the athletic community at my high school. I knew who he was more so through the sports I was involved in. And he was known as the younger, cool, funny teacher who was kind of inappropriate in terms of pushing boundaries, making funny and appropriate comments. One of those teachers that was closer to the student's age, so it was easier to relate with him or interact with him versus some of the other older teachers at.

our school or coaches for that matter. I remember being made aware of him my freshman year and having a few interactions with him, but our relationship developed more so my sophomore year because I'd had my footing a little more in high school and I was getting used to extracurricular activities, whether that be sports or like other athletic programs that we had in the school. As I got more involved throughout school, it opened up more opportunities for me to be exposed to him. I'm an only child, so I didn't have any older siblings to, like, explain high school to me or to make it feel more comfortable. I feel like I went into high school. It was all really new to me. You're meshing with all these new kids that you didn't know before, and you're getting used to it,

and you're getting used to like this fast pace being around all these older kids when you were used to being the oldest kid in your middle school. My freshman year, I sat back. I sat back. got used to what sports I wanted to play, the rhythm of everything. And then sophomore year, I really started to get more involved and think this is what I want to do. This is what I want to be involved in. And with that, came more exposure to him through sports specifically, the high school that I went to one of the extracurricular, I don't really even know if that's the right word to use for it, because it was an option that you had, instead of taking certain PE classes, you could become involved in this program. Instead of PE classes, you learned how to teach younger kids.

It was a program where you take it your junior year. It's a whole year long where you learn about team building, leadership, mentoring younger kids, and then your senior year, it's almost like a student teaching, teaching aid type of thing where you get assigned to a teacher in a PE class and help these freshmen get used to high school. It looked really good on college application. So that's why I really wanted to do it because I had a specific college that I really wanted to get into and I knew that it really mattered what I was doing outside of the bare minimum. So I decided to join that program. It was really competitive. You had to apply and do all these interviews and everything. Once you became a part of that program, I started your sophomore year.

If you really wanted to do that, you had to start applying and doing all these things. That program created a lot of access to like the PE department, the athletic department. I explained that because that's when my exposure to him ramped up my sophomore year. Him being the teacher that was the younger, cooler, pushing the boundaries type of guy that he was. People didn't really think twice about having a close relationship with him. We said hi to each other and whatnot. He definitely knew who I was. I did like that because he was a cooler, younger teacher.

He had a nickname and he kind of knew all the gossip of the athletes and the cool, popular kids. There were just certain teachers that played into the whole high school culture and he was one of them. To me and to others, that was kind of cool. That was fun. That was different. It was nice to have a teacher that you didn't have to worry about swearing in front of them. You didn't have to worry about talking about a party that happened the weekend before in front of them. Stuff like that. I became closer with him, got to know him a little bit.

My junior year is when this program really started to ramp up. I got into it and basically filled a period of your day each day. We sat in a classroom and learned we had to do some extracurricular things, whether that was volunteering at sports tournaments or games. The first time in my mind that I can really remember significantly, there was a dodgeball tournament. And I had volunteered, I helped organize it, supervise it, check people in probably like a two-hour window that I was there. And for probably 80% of it,

I stood next to him on a court, obviously surrounded by a lot of other people, but we talked. And I remember for that hour and 40 minutes or so, I stood there with him, talked a lot about like me being an only child. He was an only child. My parents were divorced. His parents were divorced. I just remember, like, he's so fun. It's so nice that he's actually taking an interest in me. I think at the time I was dating one of the football players and he took an interest. I was timid around boys and I was a little nervous and dating was new to me and I wasn't as experienced as a lot of other girls and talking to him about my relationship with this guy and how it wasn't always perfect or how I was worried about this and this. I know boys gossip and it was just like almost talking to a friend. I remember being like, oh, that was so nice.

Just hanging out with him. I got home that night and I had to eat. email each teacher that was there to ask for their attendance of what students volunteered in order to mark it down. I emailed him saying, hey, can you let me know who from your classes showed up, who participated, blah, blah, blah. And he did that. And then he responded back with, it was really nice hanging out with you. I think you're great, something like that. I remember being really touched by that, not even in a romantic way. Like, oh, that's so nice. It's nice to feel noticed and appreciated. That stuck out to me. And I remember thinking, I hope that next year I can do

the same thing. That was really fun. I want to like spend more time with him. I'd get excited to see him in the hallway after that. He remembered certain things, conversations. From there on, it progressively evolved. I did play sports outside of my high school team. Through my club that I was playing a sport with. I injured myself and it was a club so they didn't have the resources that a high school has. My coach said something like, I just want to make sure everything is good with your injury before we start playing you again. It wouldn't be a bad idea if you got checked out by a doctor. And I remember saying, oh, well, we have an athletic trainer at our school. Will that do? Because I'm sure I can email him and see what he says. See if I could stop by. I know he's there

every day in the summer. My coach was like, yeah, sure, no problem. summer going into senior year of high school. I emailed him and I said, hey, I hope you're having a nice summer. As you know, I play soccer. This happened. My coach said, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can I come in and can you take a look at it? And he said, yeah, absolutely, no problem. I'm here every day from nine to four. Feel free to stop by any day you want. It'll either be me or my new assistant. Then he signed the email with his phone number and he said, feel free to text me when you're coming in. Don't give my phone number to any of your friends. I actually specifically remember exactly where I was when I saw that email, and I remember thinking, like, oh my gosh, you gave me his phone number. Like, he must trust me.

That's flattering. Not in a romantic way, but I find that as a compliment because teachers don't give their phone numbers out to kids. I feel like in high school, you see a teacher outside of school and it's like seeing a dog walk on their hind legs, let alone like having access to their phone number. The next few days, I texted in my head, I just got done with practice. Are you around can I stop by the high school? And I did. Everything was normal. He was a little flirty, but he was flirty with everyone. And that's actually kind of crazy to say out loud because it's like as a high school teacher, you have a job to do and the job is not to be flirty with children. But it was just normal. That was part of his charisma that made people like him because he pushed that boundary.

I was in there with him. He took a look at it and he said, it wouldn't hurt if you do certain exercises. If this hurts, you should do this and that. Once school was getting started again, he opened the option to come into the back training facility on my open period, where in my high school, seniors had a lunch period, and then you also had an open period, which filled the void of a home room. So in my open period, he gave me the option to come in and work on that. It was my back, lower back spasms, and they had a machine that did electrical shock therapy. He was like in that 50 minutes that you have open, feel free to come back on days that you want and I can get you set up.

I could teach you how to use it. That should help. I started doing that probably a few times a week, but turned into him sitting back there the whole time, not setting up for me and leaving. He would sit back there and talk. We got really close. I talked a lot about my high school boy problems or he talked about his marriage or his kids, his frustrations with work. I looked forward to it every day. It was a fun break in my day.

He was building up this relationship with me that in hindsight was inappropriate for a teacher and a student, but to me, everyone had that relationship with him or a certain group of people did. And if I was part of that group, it's flattering. You know, it's a compliment to me that he sort of sees me as like an adult, not just like this high schooler, that he tapes up their sweaty ankles before soccer games. I would lay on my stomach and my lower back was where he had to put these sticky shock pads. He would say things like, was it okay if I move around the band of your pants to position this? And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever. And then he made comments like, oh, I say your underwear, sorry. You're wearing red underwear today. Whoops, sorry. I do remember at first

thinking that's so weird that he saw my underwear. But he did it in a way that didn't make me feel like he was trying to be weird. It was more like a friend to a friend or almost like a boy to a girl in a flirty way. I think the feeling of feeling a little weird about it subsided pretty quick because he did a good job of rushing over it and making it seem, oh, it's just part of what I'm doing. So we'd sit back there, we'd talk a lot. And then I did notice that throughout that few months, throughout the spring, he would text me here and there, not anything. really inappropriate. He was texting me during the school day or later at night or invited me to play words with friends. And there was a chat option on words with friends. And it's not like he would say

flirty things on there, but I would get excited by the fact that I got a text from him after this sporting event. He asked how it went or something like that. I got excited to see him or talk to him, have this relationship with him. I was not really a partier. I got pretty good grades. I went above and beyond and it was very important to me to have teachers think highly of me. That's my personality. Whether it was him or other teachers, I really valued that. Others knew that about me. I think it was pretty obvious. Outside of him, I was closer with other teachers too, female and male. I was the girl that was asked to babysit a teacher's kids. I felt very trusted. I felt respect. I felt respect. in terms of how my teachers saw me. He was part of that too. It wasn't really a surprise that

people knew Claire and him. They have a close relationship. I wasn't the only one that he had a close relationship with, but that also wasn't abnormal for me to have a closer relationship with certain teachers. I liked being involved. I liked being friendly. I liked having a good relationship with the people that I was around so much of my day. My birthday is in the middle of the school year. I was with my dad for my birthday. My dad and I went to one of our spots that we went to for dinner. We were sitting at the bar waiting to be seated and a text popped up on my phone from Mr. Smith. My dad, I remember, looked and said, that's weird. Why would he be texting you?

My dad knew he was a teacher of mine because I would occasionally bring him up or talk about him. But the same I would with any other teacher at my school. I opened the text and it said, Happy 18th birthday, don't smoke too much because, you know, 18, you can smoke now. You can buy cigarettes, apparently. My dad was like, that's inappropriate. That's weird. Why would he say that?

And I was like, Dad, I don't know. He's trying to be funny. He's trying to be cool, whatever. You're being weird by worrying about it. I just remember my dad being like, whatever. I don't agree with that, but I trust you. I'd throw that in there because I think it's important. that he did that on my 18th birthday.

In hindsight, my dad noticed that my dad and I have a very close relationship because I am an only child and my parents are divorced that's given me an opportunity to form a really special relationship with my dad and my mom, but I think my dad, when I do spend time with him, it's undivided attention just my dad and I. And my dad is very in tune with me. I get one of my traits to my dad in terms of being really aware of someone's emotional intelligence. He picks up on what I'm thinking.

or how I'm feeling before I even am. It sounds cliche. My dad saw that, and in his mind, something was wrong. The rest of my senior year of high school went by, the day of my graduation. He said congratulations, keep in touch, don't be a stranger. I was at a graduation party that night for one of my best friends. We were outside, and a text popped up on my phone from him, Mr. Smith, and he said, if you get too drunk tonight at graduation parties, I'll give you a ride home, don't drink and drive.

I remember thinking, oh my gosh, it kind of makes me happy that he texted me because I graduated and he could be done having a friendly relationship with his students. I responded to something back like, thanks for the offer, but that won't be me tonight. The conversation carried on a little bit here and there, maybe a few texts back and forth. I do remember the significance of the day I graduated this one. when he really started ramping up the communication, coming in hot with if you are drinking, I'll pick you up type of thing.

But with that being said, I think because I had known this guy for four years and talked to him about so much and spent a lot of time with him, felt like I really knew his personality. Like, oh, he didn't mean anything weird by that. He was just being his normal, cool self, offering a helpful hand if I need it.

He progressively got a little flirtier, a little flirtier. We talked, probably say every week we texted here and there. I worked at a restaurant in the area that summer going to college. He would frequent it with his family and he knew I was working there. There was a night that I was at work and he texted me saying, how's your summer going, how's work, something like that. He said, I just got done with this game. I'm actually right by the restaurant I was working at. If you're done, do you want to catch up for a few minutes? And I was like, yeah, sure. I went outside, got in his car. I was good to see him. You know, how are you? How have you been? He told me I looked really pretty. He said, I know that's a great park down the street. Why don't we go sit and talk for a little bit? I do remember feeling kind of weird about that. Not worrying or thinking anything would happen. I more so was just like, this is kind of crazy. Seeing someone outside of school like this, I'm graduated. What are we going to talk about? Kind of intrigued.

I was flattered that he wanted to spend time with me. We sat there outside on a park bench probably for an hour, talked a lot. It definitely was flirty. And I remember sort of feeling uncomfortable, not like I wanted to go home, but more so the feeling of this is abnormal. This is weird, but I obviously don't think it's weird enough to, like, say I want to go home. I liked the attention. I liked that he wanted to spend this time with me. When the night was over, he drove me back because my car was at.

the restaurant that I was working at. He said it was good to see you. This was fun. As I was getting out of the car, he grabbed my left arm and he kissed me. I remember in that moment thinking, oh my God, what just happened? I was freaked out. I got out of the car. I got in my car. And I started to drive home thinking, whoa, whoa, wait, what just happened? That can't be real. I can't that just happened. I remember getting a text from him immediately being like, I am so sorry that happened. That will never happen again. I don't know why I did that. I wasn't necessarily mad. I was in shock and I didn't really know what to say and I just text it back. I'm like, it's okay. Don't worry about it. We don't really have to talk about it again. I remember going home that night laying in bed and thinking

what just happened. I've never had anything so taboo happened to me. I don't know how to feel about it. A part of me was freaked out because that's not normal. Then another part of me was like, is it wrong that I'm really flattered by that? And it made me uncomfortable. That thought was even in my head because if it had been a friend telling me that something like that happened to them, I would have been like, what is wrong with you? That's not okay. That's messed up. I was confused, flattered.

And I think back on it. And I don't want to necessarily say I'm embarrassed. I think over the last 10 years, I've done a lot of work to realize that being disappointed in myself about this isn't necessarily fair because I was 18. And even though that's an adult, you could buy cigarettes, my 18-year-old self looked a lot different than probably a lot of other 18-year-olds. I was still a kid. Now I'm 10 years older than that, and I still feel like a kid a lot of the times. I've done a lot of work on trying to reassure myself, it's okay that I felt a little flatter. that's human, that's normal. Also, he had known me for four years. He'd really gotten to know me on a

different level than I think a lot of other people, let alone teachers. So I think he learned what would flatter me, what some of my insecurities were, the things that meant more to me, because I had shared details about like high school relationships or things like that. We ended up seeing each other throughout the summer. It started off as I'm by your work. Do you want to go sit outside at a park to eventually over time it was like, do you want to come to my house? I'm redoing my basement. You can keep me company while I work on things in the basement. It's hard for me to talk about out loud in general, let alone a podcast for a lot of people to hear because if I was listening to someone say this, I'd be like, girl, no. Why did you think?

think that was okay, what were you thinking? It's been a long road of me coming to terms with realizing and convincing myself. He had a long time to perfect his approach with this. Absolutely. Even if you were 18 when you met him, which you were not, you were 14 years old, there's a power imbalance. There's a reason why teachers are not supposed to date students. And part of becoming a teacher and working in that field is essentially swearing an oath to be appropriate. You're being trusted with people's children. Everybody is assuming that this person is safe because the school is allowing this person to work there for many years before you even came along and worked super closely with children. So it makes complete sense to me that your 18-year-old brain would not have the know-how to understand all of the emotions and all of the things.

facets that go into something manipulative as grooming, which is exactly what he was doing. I'm so incredibly sorry that you experienced that, and none of that was your fault. None of it. 100%. I appreciate you saying that. I think that it has taken me a lot of therapy and learning about myself and growing up to realize that it wasn't my fault. He had a really long time to perfect his ways of doing what he was doing. And at the time, I also thought, oh my gosh, it's just me. What's so special about me that he's risking this power, whether it's with his career or his family, I must be special. That's an attention that I hadn't received before. That was a really high form of flattery. He made me feel more and more comfortable. And at the

The end of the summer was definitely a very affectionate words of affirmation type of relationship. He was like, I love you. Claire, if things were different, I would choose you. You're perfect for me. I met my wife at the wrong time. You're too young. It would never work, but you are everything I'd ever want. By the end of the summer before I went to college, I had never had sex before.

That was something that was kind of scary to me. I took it very seriously and I wanted to be doing that with someone that I loved and I cared about and I felt comfortable with. And after a lot of conversations, he convinced me that he was the right person for me to do that with because he loved me and because I could trust him. It's really scary to think that he convinced me to do that. Like I'm a very strong world person. I'm very confident in my decisions. I'm very set in my ways and I've been the that way since I was really little. Looking back on it, it's upsetting to me that someone had this control and influence over me. That doesn't mean I'm disappointed in myself. It doesn't mean that I blame myself, but I think that it goes to show that he was really powerful in his approach to get me to do

what he wanted me to do. I wanted to do it, and I did it. And I almost don't even want to harp on it because I don't count that as the first time I had sex. I don't like to give that moment to him or to that relationship because it wasn't a relationship. I don't even know the right way to describe it. I did that and it was a part of that relationship. It gave him what he wanted. And in the moment, I felt like I trust this person. I feel comfortable around them.

First week of college was really hard. because I was just homesick. It was a really big adjustment for me. All these new things, these new people, these new routines. And I've had this big secret of this person that was at home that I was missing that I couldn't talk to my roommate about. I was really struggling. It must have been the second week of school. And I got a text from a girl that I had gone to high school. She was a year younger than me. And she texted me saying, Claire, oh my God, I saw your parents at the school today. What are they doing? here. I was like, what? No, that can't. I mean, that doesn't make sense. I don't have a younger sibling. She was like, no, I just saw them coming out of the office. I talked to them. I said, hi. I wonder what they were doing here. In that moment, I remember thinking, oh, my God, something is wrong. This is not good. I called my mom, and it went right to voicemail, which is so unlike my mom. I knew something bad is happening. This is not going to be good. She eventually called me back, and she said, we need to talk about, you. We need to talk about,

your relationship with Mr. Smith. She said, I don't want to panic you, but we know we're coming to talk to you in person. I will never forget that feeling of pure panic and emptiness because I knew, this is the thing I get emotional about talking about it. I knew in that moment that my life was about to change. I didn't know how to approach that change. I didn't know how to do damage control. I didn't know if I wanted to be honest. I didn't know if I wanted to lie.

I didn't know what I wanted to do. That time from when I hung up with my mom until my parents got there, which was not necessarily a short drive. It was just pure panic. I remember sitting outside at my college in a secluded area, feeling this empty feeling of helplessness that I've only other felt one more time in my life after that. And it's the worst feeling ever. And I wish upon no one.

called him and he didn't pick up. I don't even know what my point of calling him was. I don't know if I wanted to warn him. I don't know if I wanted to see where his head was at, but I called him. He texted me back and he was like, I can't talk. I don't know what's going on. What did your mom do? Your mom is a bitch. I think she ruined my career. Something is happening. I don't know what is going on. I got pulled from my classes. I'm being asked to have a meeting with our principal. That was the last time I ever talked to him. In that moment, I knew this is not going to end well. This isn't going to go away. My parents drove down and we sat outside for a long time. We sat under a tree. They said we know that you talk to him a lot. We know that you see him a lot.

Whatever this relationship is, tell us and we can figure it out together. This isn't right, honey. They said, this isn't your fault, but this isn't okay. We're here and we want to help you, but like this isn't okay. In that moment, I truly thought that if I denied it, it would be. go away. So I was like, it's nothing, it's not what you think. I don't know why you think this. We're just friends. Oh my God, I can't believe you'd ever think that. My dad took me aside, just me and him, and we walked probably 50 yards away and he said, if it's more than that, you can tell me. It's going to be okay. If it's more than that, we're going to figure it out together. I'm not mad at you. I want to help you. This isn't your fault, but you need to tell me. I lied and said he was wrong,

and he didn't know what he was talking about. They definitely knew because my parents know me so well. They knew. But at the same time, they needed me to also be able to be honest about it or else we weren't going to be able to move forward with this and approach it. And I didn't even know how I wanted to approach it because at that moment, my whole life had been turned upside down and I wanted to protect him.

He was an important person in my life. I didn't want his life to be ruined. I didn't want mine to be ruined. It was a long day, denied, denied, deny. After my parents left, kids kind of caught on to maybe what was going on. He wasn't at school anymore. I don't know the details of what they asked him to do or what his discipline was for those few days before they made a decision. But kids at my school were pretty mean. I was trying to figure out college and I was getting texts and calls saying really horrible things. Like you're a homewrecker. What did you do? He's fired. You are a slut. What did you do? My mom had to come down to my college town and spend a few nights in a hotel because I was inconsolable. Not only am I dealing with this, but I've also lost this person that I thought really cared about me and I felt comfortable with him. I talked to him all the time.

I don't even have him. He was the one that actually knew what this really was. I need to talk to someone about this. I ended up seeing a therapist at school and I think that was the first step in working through this because I was honest with her. And that was the first person that I was really honest with. Being able to talk about it with someone at school, a licensed psychologist really helped. Even if I didn't really realize that that was the first step in me wanting to realize this wasn't my fault and that I was taking advantage of and that this problem wasn't really going to go away.

I was sitting in my dorm room one night before Thanksgiving break. And I get a Facebook message from Riley. I had never really talked to her before. I had known who she was, and the reason I knew who she was is because my senior year I'd heard rumors about her and Mr. Smith. Not anything super hurtful, but like, oh, yeah, they had a weird relationship, and that was about it. Which I think at the time I never really would have thought twice about it, just because you're close with someone doesn't mean whatever. I get a message from her Facebook message, and it was along the lines of, I know we don't really know. each other. And I apologize if this is out of the blue, but I have heard some rumors about you and

Mr. Smith. As soon as I read that, I was like, okay, great. I added to the list of 5,000 people that have said something like this. It's going to make me even more upset than I am, but then I kept reading. She said, I'd want you to know that something similar happened to me. I don't know the details of you, but I want you know I believe you. I'm here if you want to talk. That message from her changed my life because I just remember the feeling of not to sound corny, but like this is like an angel. She is the one person that makes me feel like I might not be alone. I don't know what she has to say, but I want to talk to her. I responded and said, can you talk? Hi, my name is Riley. I'm 30 years old, married with a one-year-old son. I live in the Midwest, and I'm here to tell you my story. During the winter of 2007,

I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. During that semester, I had my first upperclassman PE class, which is where I met Mr. Smith. Prior to this class, I did not know who he was, but once in his class, I learned that he was known around the school to be the cool teacher that everyone liked and wanted to have. He was also the athletic trainer, so he was very involved with all of the varsity teams, making him even more popular. Throughout this semester, I was a regular student in his class, hanging out with my friends, not really giving him a second thought. I thought he was a fun teacher because he really interacted with students, made PE a great class. He'd make fun of how bad I was at badminton or when I made a bad serve during volleyball, but that was the extent. I strictly saw him as a

teacher, but a teacher that I enjoyed having. As the semester ended, I was moving on to health for the next semester, so I would not have him as a teacher again following winter break. After winter break, I didn't see him for the first few weeks. I randomly ran into him and he was overly excited to see me, which caught me off guard, because I did not think I had made much of an oppression in his class because our classes were huge. Then he'd go out of his way for the next few weeks to talk to me and ask me about my family and my life. We only had conversations in the hallway following that until March of 2008. That's when I got the first message on Facebook.

I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was something along the same. the lines of, hey, look, I found you. He was 28. So he was older than us, but he wasn't that much older. He was very sarcastic. He joked around with everybody. And he was pretty inappropriate with his jokes, but it was really well received because it was with all of the athletes. He was really a big part of varsity football. He had a personality that people felt like they could joke around and didn't always have to feel so serious. He was made. very much a buddy to everybody. Most of the PE teachers were around his same age, and he got along with them great, and they all were friends. They would hang out outside of school, and other teachers

were also like him, and it was mostly the PE teachers. After a few weeks, the conversation began to shift. He started to text me frequently throughout the day, just like friends do. He would say how much he loved my profile picture on Facebook, and since I had my settings private, that's all he could see. He could also say things like, I knew that I had to get to know you because you were the cutest girl in my class. That shocked me. I had no idea he was giving me that sort of attention. At this point, he was calling me his best friend, telling me that he would marry me if it weren't for his wife, and continuously how beautiful I was. While I thought this was odd, it was the first time someone looked at me that way, I had not had a serious boyfriend yet. Let me remind you, I was only a sophomore in high school at this time. He knew exactly what he was doing. Now I know that his actions are what is called love bombing.

He would bomb me with displays of affection, only to trap me by gaslighting and misconduct a few months later. During a soccer game at the high school, I was helping out as a ball girl, and Mr. Smith brought his dog. Someone on the field got hurt, and since he was the athletic trainer as well, he had to go out onto the field and asked me to watch his dog. He then used his dog as bait, knowing how much I loved dogs. After that, we decided to both bring our dogs to the dog park, so we met at the dog park, which was down the street from my parents' house. While there, he asked me if I would be interested in letting his dog out after school, since him and his wife were both busy with being coaches on athletic training, and I had just gotten

my license. They lived close by to my family, so I agreed because I did not think it was inappropriate, and he had talked to my mom about it as well. There were classmates of mine that babysat their teacher's kids, so I thought this was totally okay. He said to leave my car at the dog park and go with him to his house so he could show me around and meet his wife. I began to take care of his dog, which eventually led to him asking me to bring over my dog for a dog date in his fence backyard. I'm embarrassed to have ever thought that was okay. He'd pay me for watching his dog, but wouldn't give it to me in person, knowing where my locker was, he would slip money into it with love notes attached.

During that spring, I started to stay after school a lot more because I was on the girls' soccer team. The end of the year came, and we were still texting every single day. At this point, I enjoyed how loved he made me feel, and I truly thought he was one of my closest friends. As summer started, I stopped seeing him every day because school was out. He continued to text me every single morning, saying good morning, sunshine, and go get beautiful when I said I had somewhere to go. He had been conditioning me for the last few months to believe he had good intentions and cared about me in my future. during this time is when he told me he loved me and wanted to be with me and not his wife. Let me remind you I am now 16 years old and he was 28.

When I told him I did not love him back and we were friends, he was furious and could not believe I had said that. He got so mad at me that I told him I would respond better next time. That decision was the start of a vicious downward spiral of my well-being, knowing I had to say things that I didn't want to say and not being truthful with myself. This is the point where he made me think he was the only one who cared about me and the only one who would continue to love me and take care of me. I knew this was not right anymore, but I absolutely believed him that he was the only one to care about me. I totally lost control over my life and it was in his hands. I knew he was married.

I knew he was living with his in-laws because him and his wife were building a house. I knew that his wife was pregnant. He would tell me a lot about his life and everything that bugged him. about his wife, what he was doing on the weekends. I knew everything. I thought he was trying to have conversation and connect with me. Like, I'll tell you about my life. You tell me about yours. Like, I'm sharing my life, so it's okay if I ask you all of these types of questions about your family. He had known my older brother who had him in class as well. So he would use that as bait too. He'd be like, so how's your brother? What's he doing? What's he up to? And when I would ask my brother, he would have no idea.

He's like, oh yeah, I had him for one semester. At this point, my parents knew that I was taking care of his dog. When my mom picked me up from school one day, he came out and talked to her and met her and wanted to confirm that it was okay that I went and took care of his dog. At that time, I'm like, okay, this is all cool. Everything's okay. Everyone said, this is fine. So I continued to do it.

But once it started turning inappropriate, I didn't tell her anything. She noticed me on my phone a lot and she read my text messages and she knew what was happening, but not to the extent that it was happening. Because at this point, it was still pretty surface when I was still in school. And a lot of the things that he would say that were not very appropriate were in his emails. Usually through text was just very surface, just very basic compliments and things like that. But his emails is where he would get very interesting. depth, which she never saw. He began asking me to go on Facebook on his laptop, which was his work laptop, by the way, so he could look at all of my pictures. He would put his arms around me,

pull me closer, telling me how pretty I was. I gave him a weird look the first time, but then he made me feel like I was dumb for feeling that way, so I let it happen over and over again. As I'd be on the floor with his dog, he would lay on top of me and try to kiss me. I refused to let him kiss me on my lips, so he would kiss me on my forehead or cheek. When seeing how mad he got when I did not reciprocate the first time he said he loved me, I was too scared to upset him again. So that was one thing I was absolutely defiant about, not letting him kiss me on my lips. In my head, I was getting really worried.

What was I doing? Why was I coming over to a teacher's house and letting him trap me like this? I knew it was not right. But once I had that realization, it was too late. I enjoyed how he made me feel by his compliments. However, anything he did physically made me incredibly uncomfortable. and sick to my stomach. If I even mentioned telling anyone about what he was doing, he'd remind me that no one would believe me. It would be my fault and we'd no longer have

contact. He had a really positive reputation at the high school, and little 16-year-old me knew that if I were to tell anyone, hands down, everyone would take his side. Because how could someone so cool do something so inappropriate? Especially when he was an authority figure to me. This would also mean that I would lose the only person that I was convinced cared about me. He would tell me that he couldn't wait until I was 18, which at the time I did not fully understand, but as time went on, I realized that meant that I would be a legal adult, and we know what that means. I was planning on going to college, six hours away, and he would say how he couldn't wait to visit me so he could bring me to his hotel room. He would send me really long emails, saying everything he loved about me, and how he would be so jealous when I started dating someone because they'd be able to be physical with me. In July of 2008, I got a text from him saying that he had to go up to the high school

and talk to our principal because something was up. That's next time on Something Was Wrong. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends. Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at Something Was Wrong podcast. Our theme song was composed by Gladrags. Check out their album, Wonder Under.

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