For three years, Marlee Liss burned to ask the man who raped her why he did it.

She wanted the stranger to acknowledge the harm he caused when he sexually assaulted her for hours in his downtown Toronto condo and that the trauma had changed her entire life.

She was no longer the innocent 21-year-old university student with an idealistic view of the world. For a long time after that 2016 summer night she said she was close to broken. She dropped out of school, moved back home and struggled not to succumb to constant self-blame.

I experienced a lot of my grief in the form of confusion that was paralyzing. That was breaking my brain. That was making it hard for me to continue in the world, Liss, 24, told HuffPost Canada.

I just didnt understand how a human can experience emotions like I do and commit a crime like (sexual assault).

The accused was charged with sexual assault, which started a long and traumatizing court process. However, what Liss wanted most wasnt for him to go to jail, but to answer the questions she couldnt stop thinking about. Why did he rape her? How could someone do something like this?

Eventually, Liss made that conversation happen through a relatively unknown option in the court system called restorative justice. Its a mediation process that focuses on repairing damage and relationships, unlike criminal trials, which focuses on proving guilt and handing down punishments.

It gives the person who has been harmed a voice they might not have in court, and a chance to have their questions answered, which they definitely dont get in court, said Catherine Feldman Axford, the coordinator of community mediation at St. Stephens Community House who facilitated Lisss case.

Restorative justice is a set of principles that, when applied to conflicts and crime, enables participants to work through emotional and psychological damage and understand one another, which is not part of the rational, fact-finding criminal justice system, added manager Peter Bruer.

You get a better resolution because youre working with more, he said.

The Toronto organization has only mediated a handful of sexual assault cases, including Lisss.

The Ministry of the Attorney General was unable to provide further statistics about how often restorative justice is used in the court system but a spokesperson said, it is not used in in sexual assault cases in Ontario unless in very exceptional circumstances. x

In a healing circle earlier this fall, Liss and the accused, her mom and sister, his close friend, their lawyers and a Crown attorney talked together for eight hours with the help of mediators.

He looked me in the eye and took accountability and said, Im sorry, Im sorry I sexually assaulted you. It was wrong, Liss said.

And I didnt even know that I needed that as much as I did. Hearing him say that, just instant tears.

The next time I spoke, Im like I wish this moment for every survivor because it was so healing for me and offered so much closure. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted. I felt like my voice matters again, and I was actually being heard in the system for the first time.

Liss signed a confidentiality agreement with the accused and his identity is protected. They reached a settlement in a civil suit and following the circle, and at Lisss request, the sexual assault charge was withdrawn.

I feel some level of forgiveness but forgiveness does not equal justification, Liss said. I also feel rage, devastation and sadness. Forgiveness can coexist with any other emotion.