I have recounted this story in my head more times than I can count. I have also told it to other people, but always in an abridged form. I gave them the central facts, the version that could be explained quickly without opening old wounds or more trauma: I was accused of something I did not do. I was prosecuted. I was found not guilty of rape but convicted of a separate offense arising from the same encounter. I went to prison.

That was the gist of the story, and the gist was true.

But until now, I have never attempted to tell the whole story. I have never given the complete picture of what happened before the accusation, what happened that day, or what I have wrestled with in the years since.

Sometimes I wonder whether telling the full story earlier would have changed anything. Then I think it probably would not have. The accusation would still have been made. The case would still have followed me. The public record would still say what it says.

Still, the full story matters.

I know that I am innocent of the act I was accused of committing. I know there was consent. Yet when I reflect on everything that led up to that day, I sometimes struggle to feel innocent.

That may sound irrational. Legally and factually, I know the difference between making immature decisions and committing an assault. They are not the same. But hindsight has a way of turning every mistake into a warning you believe you should have recognized.

I tell myself that I should have seen something coming. I should have behaved differently. I should have treated her differently. I should have thought with more maturity, more logic, more discipline, and more regard for my Christian upbringing.

The words should have, could have, and would have can make you believe that you caused everything that happened afterward.

I did play a role in the events leading up to that night, but not the role described in the accusation. My role was that of a teenage boy making teenage decisions. I was thinking sexually instead of wisely. The expression about thinking with the wrong head applies completely.

That behavior deserves honest examination. It does not make the accusation true.

Before the Accusation

N. and I attended the same church. Our mothers knew each other and belonged to the same charitable organization within the church. Our families had a history long before the accusation divided them.

I was approximately two years older than N.

When we were younger, I learned that she had a crush on me. I believe her mother told my mother, and it became one of those childhood facts adults mention without realizing how seriously children may take it.

At that age, having someone like you felt more embarrassing than flattering. It was something to tease about, like saying someone had cooties. I responded by acting as though I wanted nothing to do with her.

We are Catholic, so instead of Bible school, we attended religious education. The children were divided into classes based on age and grade, and N. and I were close enough in age that we often found ourselves in the same spaces.

The first interaction between us that I remember as being more than an ordinary hello occurred during religious education. We were sitting next to each other at a table. Somehow, we ended up holding hands underneath it.

I do not remember who reached first.

Our teacher, Ms. Osborne, noticed that we were sitting unusually close and asked whether we were holding hands. We immediately pulled apart and denied it.

Throughout the investigation, trial, and years afterward, I returned to that memory. For the life of me, I could never remember who initiated it. I only remembered that it happened and that, by then, her crush on me was something I understood to be real.

As we grew older, our friendship developed mostly while we waited for our mothers to finish their church meetings. On some Sundays, there was no religious education class, but our mothers still had meetings. Sometimes N. and I were the only two young people left waiting.

Those quiet periods were when we became closer.

On one of those Sundays , I went to the restroom in the back of the church. When I came out, N. was standing nearby. She appeared to be waiting for me while trying to make it seem as though she was not.

The memory stayed with me because it was the first time I clearly sensed the tension between us.

Later, in nearly the same area behind a divider separating the church’s gathering center from the restrooms, we kissed and touched each other. On another occasion, while again waiting for our mothers, we kissed, rubbed against each other, and explored the attraction and curiosity between us.

We were teenagers experimenting in a place where we had no business doing any of it.

There was also a time when N. showed me a handgun belonging to her mother, who worked in law enforcement. I do not remember whether it was her duty weapon or another firearm, and I never touched it. I had watched enough television to think about fingerprints and what could happen if the weapon were ever connected to a crime.

At the time, seeing a gun that closely felt exciting and strange. Years later, the memory took on an eeriness it did not originally possess. But I cannot honestly say what N. intended by showing it to me. Anything more would be speculation shaped by hindsight.

I never told anyone about our intimate encounters.

Part of my silence may have come from embarrassment. At the time, N. dressed in a masculine style and identified socially in a way that people in our community might have described as being a "stud." She wore baggy clothes and sagging pants, but she was also visibly feminine and physically developed.

Today, I understand that there should have been no shame attached to being attracted to her. At the time, however, I was a teenage boy concerned about appearances and what other people might think.

That concern led me to treat her unfairly.

In private, I talked to her, spent time with her, and shared intimate moments with her. In public, especially when I was around other friends from church, I acted as though we had no relationship beyond occasionally saying hello.

Some of the other young people made jokes at her expense. I cannot remember personally creating a joke about her, but I laughed along with them. I did not defend her. I allowed her to be embarrassed while protecting myself from embarrassment.

That was wrong.

There is no excuse that makes it right. It was immature behavior, and variations of it happen in high schools every day: people secretly deal with someone, then publicly pretend not to know them. The fact that it is common does not make it harmless.

I imagine how it must have felt for N. to be accepted by me in private but rejected in public. I expected her to be my friend and confidante when we were alone, while refusing to act like her friend when other people were watching.

Eventually, she pulled away.

I remember anticipating that we would spend time together after one of our mothers’ meetings, only for N. to leave and sit in her mother’s vehicle instead. That pattern continued. Beyond an occasional greeting or brief conversation, our friendship appeared to be over.

In retrospect, I cannot blame her for becoming tired of the arrangement. I had not treated her like a real friend.

But regretting that does not mean that I assaulted her.

Both things can be true: I failed her as a friend, and I did not rape her.

The Saturday Night

In May 2017, our church held an end-of-the-school-year lock-in. Several of us were preparing to graduate from high school, and the event was meant to close out the religious education year and allow the graduating class to spend time together.

My mother was the church’s youth director, so I rarely missed a youth event. She was responsible for organizing the lock-in, and as often happened when she was coordinating something, she had too many responsibilities competing for her attention.

N. needed a ride to the church. My mother was originally supposed to pick her up, but time got away from her. I volunteered to do it. However, the plan was for me to N up from her house and bring her to my house to ride with my mom and they go on to the church and I would follow later. 

There was nothing unusual about me picking N. up. Our mothers were friends. I had transported her to or from church events before. Her mother knew I was coming and gave permission.

It had been some time since I had gone to their house, and they had moved. I contacted N. for the new address and drove to pick her up. When I arrived, I spoke briefly with a gentleman at the house and helped with her bags.

We left for my house.

During the drive, we talked casually and listened to music. She wore headphones for part of the trip. I cannot remember every detail of the conversation, but nothing about it appeared hostile; my house was a short drive away. When we arrived at my house, my mom was just about ready to go. I had several things to pack and bring. I can’t remember how, but it was agreed that N. would come with me instead of riding with my mom. 

That decision has replayed in my mind for years. I have often thought, I wish she had gone straight to the church.

I did not have a plan to have sex with N. I returned because it was a part of the plan.

During this time, N. sat on the couch while I began carrying supplies from the house to my vehicle. I went back and forth several times. Some of the large blankets were in my sister’s bedroom toward the back of the house.

During one of my final trips through the house, I walked toward that bedroom. N. followed me.

When I realized she was standing behind me, the moment reminded me of the afternoon when I had exited the church restroom and found her waiting nearby. There was the same hovering presence and the same unspoken tension.

We stood there.

Then she began removing her clothes.

I asked her, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

She said yes.

We had sex.

It was consensual.

There was very little conversation. There was no dramatic seduction, no romantic buildup, and no foreplay. The entire moment was awkward, quiet, and surprisingly ordinary. It lasted perhaps ten minutes.

I did not have a condom. I was not very sexually active, and I had not expected the encounter to happen.

When we were finished, I gave her a towel. She would later describe that moment in court in a way that sounded cold to me, as though I had thrown it at her and treated her as if she were disposable.

That was not how I experienced the moment.

Based on conversations with other teenage boys and whatever I had seen or heard, I believed that offering a woman a towel after sex was the courteous thing to do. I was not trying to humiliate her.

We got dressed. She did not say much.

At some point N. told me that she forgot something and would need to return to her mother’s house. This is why she stayed with me at my mother’s house I believe so I could return her to her house. When we returned to the vehicle, I drove her there. Someone was present at the home when we arrived. After she retrieved what she needed, I drove her to the church.

We listened to music along the way. I believe I asked about her favorite artist, the kind of conversation we had shared before.

At the church, I helped unload the vehicle.

For the rest of the night, we barely spoke.

There were more than twenty young people and several adults at the lock-in. We ate, played games, played basketball, and spent the night in the same building. I stayed with my group. She stayed with the people she knew.

I have often wondered how my silence affected her.

Did it feel like another version of what I had done before, being close to her in private and then acting distant in public? Did she think I was ashamed of her? Did she expect me to acknowledge what had happened?

I do not know.

I only know that neither of us spoke about it.

The Accusation

The next morning, our church held its baccalaureate Mass.

As one of the graduating seniors, I had been asked to deliver the youth message. I wore my cap and gown and gave a speech I had prepared for the occasion. It was supposed to be a celebration of graduation and the future ahead of us.

While speaking, I did not notice that my mother was missing from her usual place in the choir stand.

After I sat down, I saw her. Her face looked disturbed. She did not smile. For a moment, I wondered whether she had disliked my speech.

She motioned for me to follow her to the back of the church.

There, she told me words that struck like a bullet:

"N. is outside crying to her mother, saying that you assaulted her yesterday."

Then my mother asked me, with the sincerity and directness only a mother could have in that moment, whether I had done it.

I broke down.

"No," I said. "No."

I was panicking and crying.

Then she asked, "Did y'all have sex?"

I reluctantly admitted that we had. The answer felt as though it had to be pulled out of me.

"Yes."

We went outside. N. was crying beside her mother.

Her mother asked whether we had sex.

I said, "Yes, we had sex, but I did not rape her."

N. looked at me with red eyes and said, "Yes, you did."

I could not believe what I was hearing.

I remember looking at her and thinking that she had to know it was not true. The exchange now reminds me of the way children argue when they are angry, each insisting on a version of events with absolute certainty.

My mother told me to go back inside.

On the ride home from church, I listened to "Oceans" by Hillsong United and prayed.

A Dream Derailed

Before this happened, I was deeply involved in politics. I spent my summers watching The West Wing and was quickly rising in the political scene. I was tasked by the Mississippi Young Democrats to reestablish a chapter in Hinds County. I was tapped by Organizing for Action to be their youngest state lead in Mississippi. I had planned to attend Xavier University in New Orleans, but due to the arrest, I chose to attend my mother's alma mater, Tougaloo College, instead.

During my freshman year at Tougaloo, I continued building my political career. I was elected the 1st Vice President of the Hinds County Young Democrats and later asked to be the Field Director for the Mississippi Young Democrats, organizing statewide activities under the legendary Jackie Amos. I helped organize the Mississippi March for Our Lives in Jackson, one of the largest youth-led marches in the state's history. My peers even elected me President of the Tougaloo College chapter of the NAACP.

But all of that came to an end when I was indicted for gratification of lust and sexual battery on April 12th of my freshman year. I resigned from the Mississippi Democratic Party and Organizing for Action instead of being fired. I resigned from the Hinds County Young Democrats. By the end of my term, everyone on campus knew about the indictment. I couldn't even get elected as secretary of the Pre-Law Society.

Going into my junior year, I was offered a plea deal of five years for gratification of lust if they dropped the sexual battery charge, simply because they had no evidence for the latter. My lawyer called it a technicality. After losing my positions with the NAACP and the Democratic Party, I just wanted the nightmare to end, and I genuinely considered taking the plea despite my innocence. My mother was furious and had my aunt talk me out of it.

The Trial and Forgiveness

I went to trial. A jury of twelve people in Hinds County found me not guilty of raping her. However, they found me guilty of gratification of lust. Consent is not a defense for gratification of lust, meaning the jury effectively acknowledged there was consent. God knows it, and she knows it.

For whatever reason, she decided to tell the story her way. If I did anything to cause this, I pray to God, she forgives me. And as cliché as it sounds, I forgive her. It wasn't nice of me to laugh at jokes about her in public while expecting her to be a confidant in private, and it wasn't nice of her to send me to prison, but one sin is no greater than the next.

I should have treated her with greater kindness long before that night. I should have thought beyond the desires and insecurities of a teenage boy.

Those lessons are real.

But none of them changes what happened in that room.

I was imperfect.

I was immature.

I made decisions I would never make today.

I did not rape her.

By the grace of God, the course of my life has not ended where I once feared it would. God has carried me through circumstances I did not believe I could survive. He has placed people in my life who knew my character before they knew my case and others who learned about the case but chose to know me anyway.

I thank Him often, but I could never thank Him enough.

This is not the abridged version.

This is the fuller picture: the friendship, the secrecy, the mistakes, the encounter, the accusation, the ambition that disappeared, the verdicts, the prison sentence, the regret, the forgiveness, and the grace that kept me alive.

It is complicated because human beings are complicated.