Only children and freakshows run. That’s one of the few things I’ve learned in life for sure. Which, needless to say, isn’t real much. Just the basics, really: life’s a bitch and then you die, the rent is too damn high and only children and freakshows run. I thought about this again today when I heard the sound of disjointed, hurried footsteps behind me. I used to get unsettled by this type of running, when I could only hear it and not see it. But then I grew conditioned to understand it for what it was: a standard-issue demonic child bopping around, trying to unleash some of all that pent-up energy.

In the past, in my teens and early twenties, I might have bothered turning around when I heard that type of noise—footfalls rapidly reverberating and approaching from behind. But now, I knew better. The only people who run like that in a public space are children. Or, again, freakshows.

To be clear, anyone who runs “for sport” is a freakshow, but so are people of a “civilian” (read: non-athletic) nature. Because, usually, within a “public space context” (barring, like, a park), the sight of an adult running is anathema. The mark of someone “erratic,” “unhinged.” Someone who might do something crazy. But on this particular day, while walking through a tunnel in the subway station, I didn’t account for this other kind of runner. The non-kid, freakshow kind. And it was my self-conditioning to ignore such a possibility that would turn out to be my fatal flaw.

It was an odd time of day. Or “off,” if you prefer. After the lunch hour and before the commencing of the evening rush hour. A time of day, in short, that could leave you as a sitting duck if you were as “la-di-da” about your surroundings as me. So when I heard that child-like sound of running behind me—all crazed and inconsistent—I thought nothing of it. As usual. But I should have. Because, before I knew it, a hand was reaching around my face to cover my mouth while the other ripped my purse off my shoulder. It probably all happened in a matter of seconds, but of course it felt like minutes, as though time had slowed down long enough for me to keep asking, Is this real? Is this real? Is this real?

Yes. Very much so. And just when I was starting to think the purse was all this man wanted, he led me toward one of those gates that occasionally breaks up the monotony of the tile walls. But rather than being locked, as all of them usually were, the man pushed it right open with no issue, thrusting me into an even more secluded, foul area where he could have his way with me. Though it wasn’t my first time being pillaged (the word “rape” has been so overused at this point that it’s lost all sense of meaning). You live in this town long enough, it’s all but assured.

It’s got nothing to do with how you look either; it’s just a matter of having a certain orifice. I had it. And as he was violating it, funnily enough, all I could think about was how there were some girls whose views of rape are a testament to their vanity. They tell themselves they’re “too hot” for the man to have helped himself, to control himself. But there’s the word that’s really at play with rape: control. Exerting it over someone else—usually a woman—to make them feel powerless. Maybe as powerless as the violator does on the inside. And so there I was, being controlled. Rammed and rattled until my psyche could handle it no more. That’s when I blacked out.

I don’t know how long I was out for, but when I regained consciousness, I was lying on that filthy ground behind the gate where the man had forced me, my purse obviously gone and even some of my clothes, along with the gold-plated necklace with the initial “S” on it that I had been wearing. He had seen fit to take the vintage Chanel blazer I had unearthed at a thrift shop. It, unfortunately, only reminded me of the Sex and the City episode where Carrie screams, “He took my strappy sandals!” Specifically, her Manolos.

I didn’t want to be that kind of white girl cliché. Of course, Carrie actually wasn’t in that she didn’t get raped for her trouble. That was the real curveball of the robbery, the real proof that Sex and the City was inauthentic. In my thought digression about this, I almost forgot about what had happened to me—perhaps further corroboration that TV is the ultimate diversion. Remembering my current state, I slowly picked myself up off the ground, afraid, somehow, that I might suddenly notice a bone had been broken. To my joy (or as close to joy as I could get at that point), all parts of my skeleton were intact. So you see, you can find the silver lining in anything. If you “just” dig deep.

It was then that I joked to myself I ought to become a motivational speaker, telling myself whatever I had to. Whatever would keep me distracted long enough for my next hurdle: making my way back home without sobbing in public. I knew if anyone made eye contact with me, I would be at risk of starting and never stopping, a torrent of tears unleashed to the point where the entire city would be overflowing with them. I couldn’t let that happen. Had to maintain whatever tiny shred of my dignity I had left.

And part of doing that, in my mind, also meant never telling anyone about it, and certainly not reporting it to the police. The shame, for me, was too great, too unbearable. Besides, all society had ever conditioned women to believe was that no one believes women. A lesson reingrained every time another assaulter is acquitted and another woman accused of “over embellishing,” of “crying wolf.” But I did learn a different lesson that day when I was robbed and raped: never just assume it’s a child when you hear erratic running behind you in a public area.