I want to forgive the boy who SA’d me

3 years ago, it happened when i first came to college in my head it’s a bit blur, some people have told me it was assault but for me it might have a misunderstanding, I tried to discuss it with him so maybe we could reach a consensus and think of it as not a big deal and he became verbally violent and sent his group of friends to harass me in the streets for months.

I think about it sometimes, he definitely not a nice person for what he did and how he decided to retaliate. But now I wonder if forgiving would help me out of it ( I’ve processed much of it already and I feel no longer scared, my intimidate life has improved and I’ve moved on ). Whenever I discussed it with my friends, they were very clear about how messaging him to discuss it wouldn’t work and that it would just escalate to more violence from his part.

I thought forgiveness would be the last step in order for me to move on. And while it sounds incredibly naive considering how cruel the harassment from him and his entourage was, Im still unsure of how to finally forget about it