They walked out of the hospital with stitched skin and a torn sense of self, clutching pamphlets that spoke in clinical fragments while their questions roared in a language no one had taught them. The world kept insisting they were “okay,” as if physical healing erased the invisible fracture between what they wanted, what they allowed, and what they never had the words to refuse. In a culture that jokes about sex but refuses to teach consent, they were left to blame their own ignorance instead of the silence that raised them.
Years later, the page became their reckoning. Writing turned confusion into clarity, replacing secret shame with anger aimed where it belonged: at systems that send people unarmed into intimacy. Their story now travels where they once felt abandoned—classrooms, clinics, quiet bedrooms lit by phone screens—offering language, validation, and a different first time: one defined by choice, knowledge, and gentleness.
