In high school, at the age of 15, Ana Nikoladze had an older boyfriend. He was 29, in a band and told her she was pretty just when she needed to hear it.
But, as she wrote in Broadley, Ana soon discovered that this man was interested in her not in spite of her age, but because of it.
Her boyfriend was a paedophile.
The pair met on a forum and within weeks met up and began a relationship, sharing joints, beer and heavy kissing. But through the haze of thrilling rebellion, the teenager sensed something unsettling in his embrace.
“It feels like it’s wrong, but not the good wrong, not like smoking a whole pack behind the school,” she recalls, “it surpasses the cool aspect of bad and dabbles in menacing.”
He continued to place his “cold clammy” hands on her body, continued trying to attempt convince her to give up her virginity, but she found excuses. When he later teased, “I don’t really like ’em older than 19, but don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time”, she knew she had to get out.
Luckily she did. Although ten years on, the man continues to walk among the community.
“I may never get my justice, but at least now I know, that there really is no other side to the argument,” she wrote in the Broadley piece. “There is no sharing the blame; no deep, dark secret between two parties. Instead, there is a crime and there is a victim; a predator and a prey. And I’m no longer any of those.”