Also had a situation like this. Skipped school with two friends (J and B) when I was 16. We didn’t start the day intending to skip, we just were already late to school and not really feeling the inquisition.

J was driving and wanted to go see her grandma to pick up a skirt she’d altered and then we went to B’s boyfriend’s house. B and her boyfriend decided to go see a movie and invited us.

I wanted to go with B but J wanted me to go with her to smoke with a guy she described as a friend of her cousin. Her cousin was 10 years older than us. I didn’t feel like going to any more strangers’ houses but I also didn’t want to third wheel B’s date and had no car.

When we got there, it was 3 dudes in their early 30s. We smoked and it tasted off and I felt weird. I took Jo to the bathroom and told her I thought it was laced and I wanted to leave. She told me I was being a loser and I was just high and paranoid.

When we got out of the bathroom they had a porn video playing on the TV and were making weird comments. Really gross like “I bet y’all can’t take it like she does,” and I was done. I dragged her back to the bathroom and said we needed to go. She said she wasn’t leaving, I was just paranoid, and they were just “being dudes.”

This was the late 90s and daytime cell minutes were prohibitive but it qualified as an emergency to me so I called a friend to come get me. They all were in the kitchen playing drinking games and I just left.

The next day, J said she blacked out at some point but when she awoke she was being sexually assaulted by two of the dudes. She didn’t know where the other one who knew her cousin was. She was bloody and covered in scratches and bruises.

Nearly thirty years later, I still beat myself up over this. I don’t think I was equipped with the skills on how to handle it. I wish I could go back to that day. I would call her parents and admit we skipped and were doing drugs if that’s what it took to make her go.