Cautionary Warning: This article contains mentions of assault and domestic abuse.
The year I turned twenty-one was a wild year — and not for the “traditional” reasons that turning twenty-one seems to entail for American college students. I wrote my senior thesis a year early, while helping my boyfriend write his own thesis because he was too lazy to successfully complete it on his own. I moved into my first apartment off-campus. I broke up with said boyfriend. A month later, because he couldn’t take the idea that I was free and had said the last “no” to him, he assaulted me and nearly killed me.