Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

“He didn’t rape you,” my sister snapped back, pushing out
of her chair. “We all saw the video. The whole world saw the
video! You wanted him. You were in love with him.”
I shook my head. “Not him.”
I had never been in love with him. Not with Damon.
That damn video.
Tears spilled, and I couldn’t stop them. I folded my lips
between my teeth to keep from sobbing. A video of us was
leaked, he was sent to jail for statutory rape, because he was
nineteen, and I was still a minor, but nearly everyone in this
town took his side. He was a little richer, a lot more popular,
and two of his friends went with him for their own misdeeds
leaked on other videos, as well.
But he got the most time.
He was the only one convicted of a sex crime, and in
everyone’s eyes this was a grave injustice, because their
basketball star, golden boy only had sex with a willing girl
who just happened to be a couple years shy of the legal age of
consent. Big deal.
Hey, in some other states sixteen is old enough, isn’t it?
This is a technicality.
Did he even do anything wrong? How many of us were
having sex at that age?
Don’t ruin his life. It’s not like he hurt her.
Hey, she seemed to love it well enough.
The backlash was sickening, and while other girls claimed
he’d taken advantage of them, too, by the end of it, they’d all
folded, and it ended up just becoming an example of how
warped our justice system was when there were “actual”
predators out there. I’d ruined a young man’s life. To-maytoes,
to-mah-toes.
All they saw in that video was me willingly kissing him.
Touching him.