I need your help: was it my fault?
I'm sorry if this post is too long. I don't know what's relevant and what isn't.
It all started my freshman year of high school, when I took history. The class I was in had a new teacher that year that no one had met before.
My first day of classes, I really wanted to make a good impression. I love school, and not going to lie, I wanted to impress my teachers / show them how excited I was to be accepted to the school. So, in all of my classes, I took the front-row seat (bad vision) and made sure to be extremely engaging with my teachers (e.g., making eye contact, smiling and nodding as they spoke).
I continued to act this way at school, especially with this teacher because he was very engaging. He was probably in his mid 60s. Then, about a week into the school year, we had a pop quiz. After the quiz, he said he wanted to talk to me after class. There, he told me not to stress out about his class, because he would make sure I was taken care of. All of the doors were closed, the lights were off, and the shades were drawn, so it was literally just him and I alone in an empty classroom. Something felt off.
The next week, he asked me to stay after class again. I was confused because it was just a regular Wednesday. This time, he basically told me that I should pay attention to him / follow his lead closely because he had been close with another girl who reminded him of me, and she was now successful because she was close to him. Same as last time, the doors were closed and the shades drawn, the lights were off, and he was standing really close to me and walking towards me when I backed towards the door.
After that, I started thinking that maybe my attitude in the beginning of the year gave him the wrong idea, so I stopped being extra bubbly, but still polite of course. I just stopped raising my hand for every question, and smiling during class.
Then, he started touching me really frequently. Nowhere illegal, per se, but in areas like my mid/lower back when I asked a question. Once, towards the end of class, he asked me why I didn't smile for him anymore, and asked me to give him a smile. I didn't know what to do so I did. He stood across the hallway from my locker in the morning and watched me for multiple minutes from the other side while I kneeled down to put my books in my backpack. I remember turning around while kneeling and he was smirking at me. Once, during a test, I asked him a question and he rested his hands on my hands while he explained it. They were extremely sweaty. The worst part was, I was sitting with my hands resting against the edge of my desk, and my back hunched over to look at the paper, so his hands had to snake past my chest to rest his hands on mine. I'm not sure if I'm describing it right, but if I had a fuller chest he would have fully touched everything, if that makes sense.
He asked me to stay after class one last time, even though I had started rushing out of his class as soon as it was over so he wouldn't have enough time. Same situation: doors closed, curtains closed, lights off, standing too close. He told me I was special compared to the other girls in my class because I was more mature. In these situations I just tried to get out of there. I panicked after and told my friend an abridged version. Word spread, and somehow ended up getting called to the office. I don't know what happened, but he ended up resigning.
It's been a few years, but I still don't know what to make of this situation. Was I being groomed? Was it all in my head? Was it my fault for acting that way in the beginning of the year? I must have done something to bring about this behavior. Sometimes I remember it and think I was crazy, but I have never in my life felt a stronger pull in my intuition that I was not supposed to be alone with him. Every time I had class, I was scared. I wondered if that day would be the day he would decide to touch more. I really don't know what to make of it.