Detective
Interviews

He was in a full business suit, double-masked. All he wanted to know is if someone needed to go to jail.

I didn't know how to answer. I tried to explain my experience as best as I could, conflating the physical abuse with the emotional and psychological abuse I had experienced. Everything had been such a mindfuck, I didn't know how to organize my thoughts and I had never had reason to speak to a detective about anything before. He commented that he could conclude my abuser was possibly a jerk and a bad boyfriend, but not much else.

He seemed skeptical about my case and suggested I ought to review rape laws. He brought in a large book and went over some of them with the Victims Advocate and I. I felt patronized and judged. He then gave me the option of executing a pretext call, in lieu of which, he said would go to visit my abuser's home and attempt to speak to him personally. I recoiled at both these options.

I went home feeling helpless.
It wasn't long before I decided that if I declined a pretext call, I would not be doing justice to my efforts to expose my abuser.
So I called the detective.

He seemed dubious, "Well if there was abuse, why didn't you just leave?"
I babbled for a moment and then raised my voice, "I don't know how to answer that!" I really truly didn't know how, not even to myself.

We scheduled the pretext call for the following week.

Frustrated by my inability to express myself and by how judged I felt, I wrote an enormously long email, detailing everything I felt was legally relevant to my experience. I edited it for hours to make it as clear and concise as I possibly could. The police are only obligated to take me seriously, not to care about my feelings.

The detective responded that my letter was helpful in understanding my stance.

When I arrived for my pretext call, the Detective was dressed in street clothes.