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Appendix I: Journal Entries
November 19, 2010
PM
2:52 Right now, I just feel like screaming and crying and yelling and hitting something. I don’t feel like myself. God.
3:08 Why does it seem like nothing is going for me today? Nothing particularly bad has happened. I just feel so…strange.
November 22, 2010
PM
7:58 Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
8:49 "Tears streamed down Alexandra's face, but Jay felt no sympathy. He hardly felt feelings for anything anymore."
December 28, 2010
AM
9:21 Wooooooow. I woke up feeling so disoriented this morning. Like, I almost didn’t remember where I was, kind of disoriented. Oh man. Phew, but it’s all better now I suppose. I still feel kind of weird. I’m almost positive it’s because of the dream I had, but for the life of me I can’t remember it ): Ah well.
*Sigh* Time to jump back on this horse, I guess. Grammar and Comp, here I come! *trips and falls into puddle of mud*
PM
12:23 That disoriented feeling I was talking about earlier? Yeah. Still here. I feel like I’m in a limbo-funk or something. I seriously do not know what to feel. Or even what I might be feeling. I’m not majorly pissed, or sad, or happy, or anything. It’s really like…listless. Just uninterested in everything. :/
I feel like lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling until I fall asleep. Or don’t.
February 22, 2012
AM
12:37 Nothing is real. Nothing is permanent.
February 26, 2012
AM
12:01 I’m slipping through the cracks in the sidewalk of my mind.
3:28 I feel empty all of the sudden.
Waking up in four hours or so. Woo.
6:19 Why can’t I fall asleep? I can see the sun rising :l What is wrong with me?
9:41 So apparently I fell asleep for around half an hour between 6:20 and 6:50 and continued to have trouble falling back asleep after that. Between 7 and 9:20 (when I was to wake up, which I did) I think I was worried I wouldn’t hear my alarm because I woke up every few chunks of minutes to check the time. It was especially focused and bad from around 8 to 9:20. This is a little ridiculous. So I got...three very interrupted hours of sleep last night. Great. Oh well. I knew there would be consequences, but I didn’t think I’d be having trouble falling asleep until 7 when the sun was pretty high already! Gar. My mind bothers me sometimes. I don’t even know what it was that was keeping me awake. I mean sure some of the movies we watched had scary bits in them, but I wasn’t afraid of that (see earlier journal post). Sigh. At least I’ll be tired enough to fall asleep nice and early tonight cause there’s no way I can get a nap in today.
PM
3:06 Soooo...tired... But...must resist...complaining...
8:01 Can I just sleep forever?
March 9, 2012
PM
2:32 Why am I feeling so gosh darn tired? I got 9 hours of sleep last night and more the nights before. Am I anemic? Or is this just some weird phase? Am I not sleeping well cause of weird dreams I’ve been having? (bleeding fingernails)
June 20, 2012
PM
12:30 And thus begins day three of my days off. So what did I do? I started cleaning. On my boredom scale, that’s how you tell it’s really bad. When I simply start cleaning practically automatically, it’s bad. Just to occupy myself with something that is worth my time. But now that I’m done with what I’m not too lazy to do, I’m sitting here in front of my computer playing word games and feeling pretty low of myself. I don’t know and I don’t know why. I almost feel like a burden today. It’s days like these I wish I could sink into the shadows and disappear for a little while. For everyone to forget me for a bit and act as if I didn’t exist. Not that I died, however, but that I had merely never existed.
July 18, 2012
AM
4:10 for some reason I can't really fall asleep. I watched Crazy Stupid Love and The Help. Good movies. But I'm still not tired.
In another life, I think I'd be an insecure, self-harming prostitute. That is, if I didn't have God or a great family that supports me.
In another life. Like an opposite reality.
Sometimes I really wish I could turn my mind off. I wish I had a sleep on switch and it could just slice through the connection between me and the world for a few hours. Leave me to my wanderings.
July 23, 2012
AM
1:13 I just wrote my Last Will and Testament. And the songs I want them to play at my funeral. Does that make me sick or good for preparing? I mean, it could happen tomorrow.
Shrugs. It’s written. At least there will be something to go off of if it does happen within the year.
February 18, 2013
PM
2:05 Maybe I should just stop talking altogether. Perhaps people would like me better.
February 25, 2013
AM
12:21 Sometimes I wish I could replay memories in my head like VHS tapes. Whenever I want. And I can record over the bad ones with good memories, cause some don't deserve to be remembered.
March 7, 2013
AM
4:37 No one should even be alive at this hour. So why am I?
4:40 It's times like these when I wonder how many people are out driving around. Maybe I should try it sometime. Just cruise around listening to music at the pre-crack of dawn.
March 12, 2013
AM
12:46 Last night I woke up several times although I only remember three specific times: 3, 6, and 8. I knew it would happen and yet I still almost cried when 6 came around. Today was certainly trying. A few times during the afternoon all I wanted to do was take a nap. And now I'm wide-awake. Why you do this to me, body? Now that I can sleep, why won't I?
March 15, 2013
PM
6:02 Everyone dies at the end of their own story.
7:50 Why is it when I want people to see me I feel I have to hurt myself to make that happen?
March 30, 2013
PM
3:12 I can’t go on Facebook today because there are so many Peru posts and it hurts my heart. It makes me happy to see all those people going to change their lives, but the hurt outweighs the happiness…
April 12, 2013
AM
1:11 feeling pretty low of myself right now, kind of for no reason. :l
Sometimes I wonder, am I bipolar?
August 10, 2013
PM
2:35 LOTR obsessions. Yes.
School starts back up in two weeks. Crazy. Thirteen days till my birthday. Also crazy.
I feel weird today. Like a I just want to cry for no particular reason kind of weird. Hopefully hanging out with Rachel and Taylor tonight will help me be better.
December 15, 2013
PM
5:55 It would probably be one of the worst ideas ever to leave me alone with alcohol, but isn’t that the case for everyone?
Isn’t it?
6:10 Dinner for one, tonight.
March 19, 2014
PM
4:58 I hide my fears in the wrinkles hanging on the corners of your mouth,
hide the screams in the fingertips of your satin gloves;
I can never grow old.
I sewed my eyes shut with the threads I had used to create a memento for you, in order to block out the memories.
I forgot that they’re on the inside.
March 20, 2014
PM
1:00 run me over, see if I care?
Fall out from beneath me, grate - what does it matter?
I like to hug the walls when I walk.
1:20 fall down the escalator - don't worry. It'll scrape you up at the bottom.
April 11, 2014
AM
11:21 I haven't had one of these quiet worthless days in a while. I can't say I missed feeling this way.
April 19, 2014
PM
10:15 What if I’m slowly losing myself? What if every day it gets worse and everyone thinks I’m just an asshole when this unknown disease inside is just killing me slowly?
July 2, 2014
PM
2:11 Feels like falling down the up escalator.
July 5, 2014
PM
5:03 Sometimes it doesn’t seem like my past ever actually happened to me. Sometimes, if I pretend hard enough, I can make myself believe that it didn’t, and that I read it in some book years ago. Opened, and shut. Begun and ended.
Finished.
August 3, 2014
PM
8:17 Sometimes I wish I didn’t have my life. I wish I could float away like a leaf, land somewhere new, and start afresh. I suppose it’s cowardly to think something like that, when stuff gets complicated and tough or I’m having a particularly rough day and I Just want to run away from it for a bit.
September 6, 2014
PM
11:53 You know what the worst part is? No one will ever be able to fully understand. No one. Ever. It’s such a specific situation, and one that’s so hard to explain in all the ways that it would need to be explained in order to be even remotely understood.
Most days I am strong, I know that my heart has healed and is healing due to God. But some days, some nights, it becomes a torment, the fractures in my heart. And I have no one to talk to about it. No one. It is all behind me, as far as anyone who kind of knows thinks. To admit that it’s presently tormenting me would mean I’ve been thinking about it and then that would mean trouble, blah blah…
God, I’ve prayed and prayed…take this burden away from me. I do not want it anymore. I do not. Want. It. It is a tumor, a parasite that latches onto my most painful wounds and sucks the joy away, leeching my happiness and well-being. I hate having these demons. I don’t want them. I don’t deserve them.
God…someone…please…
This is so awful, being in this place.
October 27, 2014
AM
10:21 wake me up when the semester ends
November 21, 2014
PM
3:24 I often get this recurring image of myself if I were to fall down the stairs or get hit by a car, or you know, something of the like, and I see myself simply lying there (obviously if I had been knocked out, this would be the case) silently in strange acceptance. Not attempting to get up, even if I was honestly more or less okay. A few days ago, I had this thought that I was walking through campus and stepped on a nail that went straight through the sole of my shoe and directly into my foot (this was brought on by the realization that the soles of my shoes were worn so incredibly thin they'd probably start busting open just by walking soon) and I just frowned deeply at the now-gushing wound, pulled out my cell to call campo, and told them quickly but calmly that I probably needed to be picked up and taken to the hospital. No tears. No curses. Just odd acceptance.
January 11, 2015
PM
8:26 This morning I woke up and just felt wrong. I can’t say why. Perhaps it was a dream I had, but don’t remember.
March 18, 2015
AM
11:52 My occasional
ponderance of suicide
is just Jesus
calling me home.
April 2, 2015
AM
12:28 can I be a stranger for a day? I don't want to be me right now.
April 7, 2015
PM
9:25
The Pit
Braid a rope of I-Love-You's,
fasten it to futility.
The streetlights don't reach down here -
neither does your hope.
June 21, 2015
PM
12:54 I want to cry and vomit all at once.
July 2, 2015
PM
3:34 She poured gasoline down her throat and set her lips aflame.
July 10, 2015
PM
8:34 Railings on skyscrapers
contain me,
animal
suffocated skin wrap.
Can I breathe in the sky?
Can I jump for my life?
August 27, 2015
PM
12:13 Sometimes I wish things could go back to being how they used to be, a long long time ago, because I'm afraid they'll never be that good again.
September 15, 2015
PM
4:13 Sometimes I think
about suicide.
How would I do it?
Drowning, hanging,
fire – no.
maybe an overdose?
I don’t care if
you think me
a coward.
But if I'm gone
who will feed the dog?
October 1, 2015
PM
10:16
Who am I?
Well,
Really,
It depends on who you ask.
My parents, cousins, friends
Would all say different things.
She's intelligent; sweet; funny; silly;
Hardworking; faithful; reliable.
Who is that person?
Surely that's not me?
They'd say much different things
If they could glimpse the pit
Of my mind.
She's cynical, they'd say.
She's awful, lonesome, and morbid.
Who wants to be me?
February 16, 2016
PM
9:21 I run the water till it
prickles my finger skin pink,
pooling it in leather palms
to scald my face. Nails
curl under useless epidermis,
slough off cheeks, nose,
and flat lips. What’s etched
in the bone of my brow?
Loser?
February 17, 2016
AM
11:18 Fling yourself from the highest window
Will you recognize your soul better in pieces?
--
Smile
at the blood
in your shoes
and know
they’ll never understand
where you’ve been.
September 27, 2016
PM
12:38
Undiluted bleach purifies
or so it says.
Slug back a gulp -
no, two - on a prayer
that the convictions
coating your insides
will strip away.
Assess your sins anew -
vomit your guilts,
your lusts by the bowlful.
The cleansing burns
through your filth.
Will you become
refined? Or hope to God
it kills you first?
October 1, 2016
AM
7:45
Never again will your fingers
press into the flesh of my hip
to mold me without permission.
My skin, living fabric fastened
taut over muscle and bone,
has shed the indelible impressions
of your fingerprints, the dead cells
of influence peppering my pores.
October 25, 2017
9:10 am
Jealousy
An atomic bomb in my gut
Nowhere for the gases
To escape, except to seep
Into my intestines.
An Adrenaline shot
In all four corners
Of my heart renders me
Trembling, an electrocuted
Trout left to gasp naked
And homeless beside you.
Reach out and conduct me.
Please
Conduct this from me
And slaughter it yourself
Before I kill me instead.
December 12, 2017
9:33 p
Nostalgia is
Three monsters wearing
Bunny masks and perfume
To cover over foul stench
And face. Two soothe,
Welcome me by way of
Lovely voices, while the third
Behind my back and just
Out of earshot grinds away at
The knife. Sometimes he
Leaves it dull. Sometimes
It is red hot sharp, ringing
Still from the stone. The
Funny thing is, I'm the one
Who offers up my arm
As he ready creeps close.
May 22, 2019
PM
4:32 God, I feel so overwhelmed. I am so profoundly not satisfied with life
I hate feeling the way I do right now. I feel like I’m drowning and occasionally I latch on to something that keeps my head above the water for a minute – I distract myself, fall into Flow, talk to someone about non-existential things, cuddle deliberately with my cats, participate in Jiu Jitsu, play an engaging video game – but when that life raft disintegrates moments later, I am left to tread, already exhausted beyond my means. This is too much. I feel like a violently swinging trapeze artist, flinging themselves from one side of the circus to the other, high highs and lows so low as to plummet to the circus floor in an instant of slippery fingers. Is this what manic depression feels like? Is that what this is?
September 3, 2020
AM
8:09
World Grows Dark
When I close my eyes
Then I understand
How the world grows dark
How the world grows dark
How the world grows dark
Again
And the shaking in my hands won’t stop
Everything is going wrong
The sun is out but I can’t see
All the gifts right in front of me
Please tell me where can I go from here
This journey’s lonely and there’s so much fear
My lying eyes aren’t on my side
And my mind has no place to hide
When I close my eyes
I wish I could feel
the warmth of a smile
Then maybe I’d be healed
For good
But When I close my eyes
I still understand
How the world grows dark
How the world grows dark
How the world grows dark
Again
Is this real or in my head?
Someone please stop me I think god’s
Dead
October 8, 2020
If I give me space to think
Then I think I probably
Shouldn't be alive
--
My suicide would be considerate.
I’d never do it, of course.
But if I did
Those who had to clean me up
Wouldn’t be bothered much.
No blood, fully clothed
Hopefully smiling
Though some things you can’t
Plan too hard for.
I want it to be freedom.
I want it to be that
Ultimate bliss.
That bliss I've had only once
In my waking life,
The day I met my husband.
But even that’s too much
To ask for
At the end.
At the end, then,
I can’t help but be
The burden I've always felt
I was.
December 11, 2020
AM
11:19
My black hole welcomes me back
Once a month
vision narrows
Red lights abound
I
Am
Next to nothing.
I’d rather just be
Nothing.
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22.
I am on the brink of starting a family. Soon I will have a daughter who looks to me as her model for all things related with how to navigate this confusing and dangerous world. I refuse to pass along to her anything David taught me. My value is not in my body, nor will hers be. I refuse to be bothered by him, refuse to resort to drinking when the depression he instilled in me is triggered. You, David R*** M******* are hereby banished from my thoughts, from my house, my relationship, and most certainly the mind of my daughter. You have no power here. Be gone from this place of peace and joy, you lecherous demon. I leave you to languish in these pages and never see the light of day again. You will no longer darken the doorstep of my mind.
You were never welcome here.
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21.
I dated Eli for about a year and a half. It was fun for a college relationship. He was deeply insecure about a lot of things (he was over 21 years old without a driver’s license because his mom was a crazy neurotic hellbent on keeping him at home forever because she couldn’t stand the thought of not being needed by her kid anymore) and though I tried to be the best girlfriend, I was fucked up and got a lot of things wrong, too. Still, it was good until he made a sorry attempt at a sexual joke (“I wish you’d grab your ankles more!”) and out he went. This abrupt goodbye happened in July of 2015 and I never regretted it. He thought he’d bagged a good thing and I felt I could do much better.
What followed was a sloppy summer fling and then a tightening of my physical boundaries. Once Senior year had begun, I entered the online dating sphere, went on a few dates, got ghosted by a guy I really liked who ended up getting back together with his ex (whom he of course swore up and down to me was crazy and he was beyond over her), and by March of 2016 had given up on boys. The ones around my age all seemed to be immature, uninteresting, or have psychological problems.
Then, serendipitously, I met the man I would later marry at a psychology conference in New York.
From the very start, he was nothing like David. When we first saw each other in that huge conference room full of people, he looked at me and really seemed to see me, not just my physical form but whatever me was on the inside, too. We talked for four hours about music, movies, books, religion. I got his phone number and within a week, we decided to give dating a shot.
Whatever I had thought was love before was a pitiful shell of what I felt for Joseph. It was heady and almost overwhelming in its power. Being so deeply in love with someone is like being possessed or tripping on acid 24/7. I was overcome. It felt so good to connect with someone so deeply, so passionately. We told each other we were not only on the same page, but the same letter of the same word on so many things. Joseph told me I was the female permutation of his soul. We were so in sync and in harmony it was hard to believe it was real.
We married in September of 2017, a year and a half after meeting. Joseph was and is so incredibly amazing as a life partner; he loves me for everything I am. He appreciates my body, sure, but he also loves that I’m a writer, a fellow gamer, a Lord of the Rings fan, a lover of music. He knows my ambitions, interests, desires, and fears almost as intimately as his own. He takes care of me like I never imagined a spouse could. He loves me for me, all of me, not just the fleshy vessel I happen to occupy and what it might be able to do for him.
We do have phenomenal sex, though, in case you’re wondering. I’ve never been eaten out and overall pleasured so much in my entire life.
The seeds David sowed did not stop growing after Joseph entered my life. I never had the desire to reach out to him again, but he still haunted me. On paper, my life was fantastic. Great marriage, stable full time job, owned a house, was physically the fittest I’d ever been, had a couple books published and worked on writing nearly every day. But in my head, I was never good enough. There were always things wrong. I felt attacked by my own thoughts, startled by their harsh negativity. My body, though in the best shape ever, was still nowhere near perfect.
Alcohol became easier to acquire, my drinking easier to hide. Whenever I felt bad, which was more often than not, I drank. It got bad enough that I was drinking at my full time job just to get through the day. Just to cope with living inside my head. It was not a nice place to live. I was not kind to myself. I was not happy, and I couldn’t even articulate why.
It was not until 2020, 3 years into my perfect marriage with alcohol abuse and depressive thought loops in full swing, that it occurred to me David had never been in our relationship for love. That I was a victim of his abuse, something very far from a consenting party.
This was 7 years after I ended it.
10/12/2020
A letter to my oppressor.
I loved you
(Or whatever it is a 15-year-old girl thinks is love).
I trusted you.
I sacrificed sleep
And friends
And time for you.
And you abused my naivete with relish
For years – 4 to be exact –
And all that time I never knew
I was dressed as the victim in this play.
Did you really love me? Or was that just a leverage word
To pry my top off?
To peel open my legs?
I never questioned it, but now
7 years later,
A moment of bitter clarity.
After everything you took from me
I want nothing
Except the apology you owe
Not only me
But my family, then and now.
You tricked me. Ruined me.
Fucked me in more ways
Than one.
And all I want now
is to know –
Are you sorry?
(I never heard you say it.)
Did you know what you were doing
All along? Preying on innocence
In a time of vulnerable isolation?
Spinning stories about a future together
To a gullible girl with stars in her eyes?
From the bottom of your soul,
Trembling at the judgmental feet
Of Old Testament God,
Are you sorry?
Do you think that’s enough to save you
From the gates of Hell?
It was not until now, 2022, 9 years after I cut ties, 24 weeks pregnant with mine and my loving husband's first child, a daughter, did it dawn on me that David had abused me. Taken full advantage of me and abused me. Not by force but coercion and pressure. With “I love yous” and smiley emojis and promises of marriage. Yes, I was a precocious teen, a “wise for her age” fifteen-year-old girl. And it is true I agreed to everything he asked me to do. But he never really had my consent.
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20.
I wish I could say the story ends there, that I walked off into the sunset with my new boyfriend and forgot all about David. Unfortunately what David did to me didn’t die when our relationship did. He sowed insidious seeds in me that have taken years to locate and uproot. I still felt attached to him for years, so much so that the desire to message him would at times quite literally drive me crazy and keep me awake at night. I penned a few emails to him which he replied to, though with an obvious detachment.
The way he treated me during our time together deeply penetrated my developing psyche and even as a budding adult free from his direct influence, he’s haunted me in the form of negative thought patterns, low self-esteem and worth, depression and anxiety. For years I punished myself subconsciously for what I felt was my part in the “relationship.” I saw myself not as a victim but a willing party, someone to bear some blame for what happened to me. I’ve always believed it was my fault, at least partially, and have called my younger self incredibly stupid for entering into the relationship, as if by self-flagellation in the present I could change the past and Hail Mary myself out of the quicksand of sin I found myself in.
This negativity, this harsh self-criticism was ever present. My discovery of alcohol became a dangerously blissful way to cope with it. When I drank at college parties, I drank way too much. Alcohol shut down the chatter and sent the negativity on a temporary vacation - I finally found a reprieve from the bad feelings. Without my conscious awareness, alcohol made it easier to forget him, to forget his hands pressing me down to my knees.
Within the first day of dating Eli, I remember telling him to please be gentle with me (referring to sex and all things related). I had just gotten out of a relationship heavily focused on sex that I wanted a break from that, really wanted to see what a relationship without so much sexual pressure right off the bat could look like.
That’s what I said, anyway.
All I can say is old habits die hard. David, through his actions, taught me that love, loyalty, and affection were gained from a man by performing sexually for him. The roots of this “logic” ran so deep that, despite my words to be gentle, I was the one who initiated sex within a week of Eli and I being official. A couple days in, I woke him with a blowjob before class. This was the only way I knew how to ask for love.
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19.
Our relationship existed mostly through iMessage and the occasional video call through the remainder of my Freshman year. Having a homebody as a roommate ensured I rarely had enough alone time to safely warrant a video call, and David was still wary of me messaging him with anyone else in the room. I hardly remember what we talked about. His job, his annoying boss, my classes and writing. Nothing in-depth. Our relationship, if it can be called that, had reached a mundane maintenance level. He said the right things at the right times to get my top off so he could get his release and that was mostly it.
As Sophomore year began in the Fall of 2013, I grew frustrated with the freedom and independence I had on campus. I had a car and theoretically could go anywhere as long as I could afford the gas to get there and back without the risk of parents questioning me about where I’d gone. And yet, I still hadn’t seen David since he flew away years ago. One night when I was feeling particularly sexually frustrated and emboldened, I begged him for a reunion. I laid out my reasoning and all the bullet points regarding the safety and security of a rendezvous. I’d come up with a believable lie to explain my absence to my roommate. My parents wouldn’t have a clue. It would be a 324 mile drive one way, but I convinced myself it would be worth it to finally be in his arms again (ever the romantic).
Miraculously, he agreed. Our anniversary, November 22nd, just so happened to fall on a Friday that year, and thus plans for a long weekend came together. I just had to get through the next two months and then my dream would come true, if only for a day or two. I naively imagined that strutting up to his door in my more mature, womanly body and giving myself over to him with more self-certainty than ever before would get us out of the mediocre funk we’d found ourselves in and rekindle our connection. I’d thoroughly remind him that I was worth the wait.
Something quite unexpected happened over fall break that October, just a month before our reunion.
First, some backstory.
In January of 2013, I got a job at the campus library as a desk clerk. I worked 8-10 hours a week for $7 an hour. It was my first real job and I was thrilled to have even this meager trickle of income so I could become more financially independent from my parents. It wasn’t a hard job, and in fact I got paid to do homework and read at the desk once my responsibility for shelving carts of books was satisfied. I loved this perk.
Another perk of the job was meeting the other student clerks. I didn’t make friends easily (I had horrible resting bitch face and gave off the aura of broody, dark and troubled most of the time, which never automatically endeared me to anyone) and so was grateful for the common ground of working at a library to kickstart conversation and relationship. The lead clerk, a Junior Spanish major named Eli, was super friendly and easy to talk to from the very beginning. He put together our schedules for us and acted as a mini-supervisor under Hany, our boss. The newbies spent hours of training time with Eli right before the semester began so we hit the ground running during our first shifts.
I found him funny, a bit charming in a mousy kind of way, and very expressive. He was thin and short - perhaps only an inch or so taller than me - with a well-groomed beard and crowded teeth. He wore glasses and had pleasantly green eyes. He was quite unlike David, bearer of blue eyes and towering height and “Christian”, but I felt myself drawn toward Eli. He seemed interested in me beyond what my body could do for him and I was curious about the feeling that gave me.
It was strictly platonic, of course. At first. For many months we were amiable coworkers and nothing more.
It wasn’t until fall break of 2013 that we started talking in any substantial way. He nabbed my cell number from the contact sheet in the office to ask if I was interested in coming to hang out with him and some friends for a movie night, something he’d mentioned in passing earlier that week. I had jetted home (a three hour drive) right after my last midterm earlier that day, so I told him regrettably I wouldn’t be there but thanks for the invite. Maybe next time?
That fairly innocent question over text threw open the door - we could hardly stop texting from that moment forth. He was somehow able to funnel his personality through the phone and I learned a lot about him as he asked me lots of questions about myself. I fell into hard like with him before the end of break.
Meanwhile, David was in one of his wet blanket moods, and especially in light of Eli’s titillating conversation was hardly any fun talking to. My last night of break I was texting Eli while replying to David’s intermittent and whiny messages, and after what had to be thousands of text bubbles accrued in a matter of days, Eli finally asked: do you want to get dinner when you get back to campus?
I had little experience dating at this point, but I knew after our conversation leading up to this moment that he wasn’t asking as a friend. I could tell that however he interpreted my responses to him, his brain was on the fast track to asking me out. And he wanted to do it in person.
I put my phone down on the bed, leaving the dinner message unanswered. I chewed my lip, staring at the last thing I’d sent David. He still hadn’t replied. I suddenly stood at a crossroads that he was completely unaware of.
One more month and I could try to rekindle things with David in person. I’d been so committed to him, to our relationship over the last four years - I’d fought so hard for us both, cried so many tears and lost countless hours of sleep over us. He was my one and only. I had believed it so deeply, but did I still? Was taking a chance on a kid I barely knew worth the risk of throwing away all that time and investment? Was the wishy-washiness and intense secrecy and David’s obsession with my body worth putting up with a moment more?
No, in fact. No, it wasn’t. The way Eli talked to me shone some light on how thoroughly David took me for granted and really didn’t care much about me as a person beyond my boobs. I was finally over it, finally done playing his games and babying him through his spirals of doubt. I had a boy more my age interested in me and we'd talked about so much, none of it sexual. That felt more normal for a relationship. That felt worth giving a try.
My pulse quickened as I put together a message for David articulating my feelings without going into great detail. My heart thumped hard as I pressed send on the brief statement that said, in a nutshell, I was done. Whatever it was we were trying to keep alive between us was over. I couldn’t do it anymore.
He was oddly subdued in his response and seemed strangely understanding. Just immediately rolled over. I had never been the one to send that message - it had always been him breaking things off and then crawling back again. Not this time.
We signed off without much fanfare. In light of all the previous breakups, it was anticlimactic. I could hardly care - an easier break was all the better.
I picked my phone back up and told Eli I would love to get dinner.
David sent me a message a few nights later to gauge how I was feeling about my decision to break things off and I made it clear my decision had been made, full stop. I wasn’t harsh about it, just firm. We said goodnight and signed off.
He didn’t message me again.
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18.
By that February, 2012, he’d danced his little penitent dance again and we broke up. Then we got back together and he got his midnight boobies. The cycle of breaking and mending continued over the next year and a half, well into my college experience.
In the Fall of 2012, I officially became a freshman at Roanoke College, a private liberal arts school in southern Virginia. It was tiny, boasting only 2,000 students across all four years. I had applied to other colleges as well, Penn State being one of them; David was an alum of PSU and lived in PA not too far from college park. It was a scheme of his to get me closer to him, for obvious reasons – at this point, we hadn’t touched each other in two years, and aside from rubbing one out to porn or my boobs, he was quite sexually frustrated – and he did a good job selling it to me. The only reason why I turned PSU down for Roanoke was the opportunity for a creative writing major.
I was sold on writing as a lifelong commitment. I loved both the short story and novel formats, having written countless of the former and two of the latter by this point. I thirsted for a proper education in my passion to see what quality teaching could do for my craft in the long run. Roanoke offered creative writing as a major and as a bonus was closer to home (only a three-hour drive versus the four hour to PA). PSU only offered creative writing as a minor. That was not enough for me. And so he did not get his wish.
It is no small thing to say that decision at that fork in the road changed everything about where I have ended up. I truly can’t imagine what would have happened had I decided to go to PSU and be within reach of him once more.
I was stoked to start college. Dorm life seemed so exciting. I’d be more on my own and around my peers. Despite the crushing weight of depression I carried around in my backpack, I was actually excited, and that felt nice for a change.
One night during the Fall semester my roommate was out and I got the chance to video chat with David. This was a rare treat, as I had to be totally alone in order to even have a chance to turn on video.
It had been some time since I last saw his face and I was looking forward to it. Snapchat was a highly used technology at this time, but he was vehemently against it despite the built-in auto-delete feature. He was too old for it anyway, being close to turning thirty. And naturally we didn’t exchange photos over messages - that was too incriminating. Video chat was all we had to see each other’s faces.
I sat on my bed and booted Skype up on my new MacBook Air (David’s influence ran deep). He answered immediately, exchanging smiles and pleasantries and wow, I miss yous. I should have expected it, but when the conversation waned and he felt it was a suitable time to ask me to take my top off, my frustration skyrocketed.
For the very first time, I said no, and I meant it.
I couldn’t believe it. Finally I was beginning to wake up just a tiny bit to what was really happening. Only a bit, though.
He proceeded to throw a tantrum a two-year-old would be proud of. I refused to acquiesce to his request; he continued to be indignant about it. Our call ended on this sour note, leaving me fuming. We did not break up, however, and my saying no did not become a new habit.
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17.
It was in August of 2011 when I finally cracked and told someone about the relationship.
David had made it crystal clear that no one could know about us, not even my best friends. What if they said something to my parents? It was too risky. They could not be trusted with the weight of such a secret. Only we could bear it.
The reasons why I finally told someone are nebulous and manyfold. The predominant reason was because of who the individual I told was. He had been a friend for years, as well as a crush for some of that time (he was a year or two older than me), and that summer had tried to woo me on many separate occasions. He asked me to go out with him and I said no, not because I didn’t want to go out with him (if things had been different, I would have said yes) but because in my heart I wasn’t single. But I couldn’t tell him that because it was too complicated to explain without letting the whole cat out of the bag, so I gave some vague reason and tried to drop it.
He was persistent. Not in a forceful way, more like a golden retriever trying to get you to play and not understanding why you won’t just throw the dang ball since you don’t look busy at all. Maybe he sensed something off in my replies.
I theorize now that the other reason I ended up spilling the beans was due to the subconscious exhaustion I felt about the relationship. I felt I was missing out on some integral parts of the teenage experience - namely, dating kids my age. What a novel thought.
I think subconsciously, a part of me had had enough. The part of me that wasn’t blindly in love with him and wholly devoted to a future with him - the quiet, rational part that had begun to speak a teensy bit louder last summer when he broke up during my writing workshop - wanted an out. I didn’t feel strong enough to say no more, I’m done without a real reason. Didn’t you need a reason to break up with someone? I needed a fortified wedge to put David off me for good. And doing the exact thing he ordered me not to do was a good way to conjure such a wedge.
These are theories in retrospect, and soft ones at that. The facts of the event are:
I told my guy friend in confidence about the relationship, not in a derogatory way but a celebratory one. I highlighted all the positives I saw about it, how in love we were - the whole thing. I hoped this explained my refusal of his requests to date me.
That wasn’t the only thing it did.
He stared at me for a moment. What he said next sucked the air out of the room.
“You need to end it.”
“What? No,” I said, beginning a rebuttal. “I-”
“You need to end it,” he said again. “Or I’ll tell your parents.”
It took a second for the weight of the ultimatum to sink in. In a sense, it was what I needed, even if it wasn’t consciously what I wanted. My heart beat like a panicked bird in my chest just imagining David’s reaction to the news. What was I going to do? My friend couldn’t possibly tell my parents. I’d be mortified. They could press charges, sending David to prison - the absolute worst nightmare was quickly becoming a possibility.
“O-okay,” I said in a small voice.
“Do it tonight,” my friend said, his blue eyes intense on me.
“Okay.”
I couldn’t say much else in the moment. The world was collapsing both around and inside of me. The stress of the ultimatum nearly sent me into a panic attack. What had I done? What had I done?
I had condemned us wholly and completely. There was no coming back from this.
I went downstairs to the semi-private space I did schoolwork in and tried not to cry.
Later, I begged the universe for David to refrain from signing in. I couldn’t do this. I was falling apart. The pressure of my friend’s texts, did u do it yet??? propelled me forward, but at the same time I was buffeted back by the anticipation of David’s response. I would be crushed between the two forces, and no one would recognize what was left, let alone want it.
David signed in. I was met with a smiley.
I was devastated knowing I’d soon be the cause of something very, very far from a smile on his face.
I told him. I told him I’d told someone and they’d threatened to tell my parents. Our worst nightmare come true, and I had single handedly ushered it in. The vampire was already in the living room, snacking on my neck before I realized I had been the one to invite it over the threshold.
At first, he was at a loss for words. Soon the sparks of his speechlessness flared into a full-blown forest fire of panic. I choked on the smoke, sobbing as quietly as I could manage, as he doled out directives and insults.
The heaps and heaps of guilt he buried me under were all weighted with the same things: how I had thoroughly betrayed his trust, that he could go to jail for this and I had just completely ruined his life. I had committed the ultimate sin. I had exposed him. This was the end, of everything.
And yet, even then, I reassured him that I was on his side, that I loved him and that counted for something as a defense against sending him to jail, didn’t it? I didn’t want him to go to jail either. How could loving me possibly break any laws?
I had no more ground to stand on. I was a stupid little girl whose fat tears could help no one. Nothing I said meant a thing, except when I answered yes to his demands that I delete anything and everything with our names on it. All chats, emails, everything. Histories wiped. Computer scoured of every last trace. There could be no evidence.
I had fallen onto my own sword.
He signed off harshly. This felt more like The End than any other time before. This realization rang through me. I collapsed to the carpet and could do little more than coach myself to breathe.
I only had a few moments to collect myself. My mom called down the stairs that they were almost ready to start the festivities. We were celebrating my grandpa’s birthday.
And when I finally picked myself up to join them, I pretended my heart had not just been sucked out of my ass with a woodchipper.
I told my friend I had done it, I’d ended it, and he checked in on me periodically to see how I was doing in the wake of it all. Terrible, absolutely terrible, like flaming dog shit, but I wouldn’t say that out loud.
It is not clear in the little documentation I have of this time how long the break was. But it was not nearly so permanent as it felt it would be. It could have been a week, or weeks, or months, but by the New Year, whatever I had broken was slightly mended.
After enough time had passed for any dust to settle, and David hadn’t received a court summons or been arrested, he relapsed into old habits. Once again, he was reminded of how blindingly lonely his world was without my company.
He messaged me out of the blue. I was in the kitchen helping my mom put groceries away when I pulled my phone out of my pocket. His name on the screen submerged me in a pool of emotions I’d forgotten I had access to. Though I had been tempted to reach out to him, I thought things were so finished that my message would be met with little more than rage and fury. How dare you continue to jeopardize my life, he’d say. It would not have been worth the risk. But that was not so, for here he was, risking everything to talk to me.If this wasn’t true love that was meant to be forever, I didn’t know what was.
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16.
In May of 2011, my family moved back home, hallelujah praise the Lord. Our work in Peru was finished. I was sixteen, had just wrapped up my junior year in online high school, and was ready for a bombass teenage summer with my friends. This time, when summer was over, I would not be ferried 4,000 miles away back into the crushing isolation that was those four lonely walls in Peru. Things would be more normal again. I could hang out with my friends without the necessity of making extensive plans months in advance. I could ride my bike around the neighborhood without thinking twice. I’d get the chance to interact with people on a weekly basis who were my age and spoke my language. It felt like heaven.
Now that we were back, my mom informed me we could look into braces. During our stay in Peru, I woke up one morning unable to open my jaw beyond a sliver of space my toothbrush barely fit through. It sorted itself out within a day or so, and when we went to a specialist in Lima, he said I had a slight underbite that may have contributed to the lockjaw. (I think David wondered if all the blowjobs he demanded of me contributed, but he never said so directly.) Braces with springs could straighten that out.
In the months leading up to braces, I lurked around on some internet forums to get an idea what having braces might be like. Several posters recommended whitening your teeth before you get braces put on due to how hard it is to keep them clean afterward. This seemed like sound advice to me; I’d always took good care of my teeth, and they weren’t sparkling white, but still, whatever cleanliness and off-whiteness I had I wanted to preserve. Buying some whitening strips seemed like a good precautionary measure.
One night, I hadn’t managed my time well and still had a thick whitening strip in my mouth when I said I’d Skype David. At this point we were just on audio most nights, since he felt less comfortable video chatting while others in my house were still awake. He was always paranoid a family member could walk in and find his face on the screen. This did not prevent him from asking me to turn on my camera for a few minutes and take my shirt off while he took care of himself on the other end.
He answered the audio call and we chatted for a minute. I sounded a bit weird because of the whitening strip; he noticed this and asked about it. I told him I was whitening my teeth.
His reaction would have made you think I’d said I just went out and banged all the men I knew.
He was furious. Without a transcript in front of me, I don’t have the faintest idea what about it made him so irate. I don’t know if it was his inclination for desiring control over me, but that is my best guess. It would fit the narrative. He was always asking me who I was with and what we did whenever I alluded to going out with friends (which wasn’t often) and there was a period of time where he’d emotionally turned me against some of them. I became a harsh critic of the music they listened to, the things they talked about, how they said “like” every other word. He had little trouble poisoning me against them.
Whenever we messaged during the day, he’d ask where I was and if anyone else was in the room. At some point I began to lie, telling him what he wanted to hear - that I was alone - because any other response prompted the lecture he’d given a million times about how dangerous it was to message him with anyone else in the room because what if they happened to glance at my 3.5 inch iPhone screen? I found it tiresome and ridiculous. Just because I was in the same room with my grandma didn’t mean she was over my shoulder.
I took the whitening strip out and threw the rest of the box in the trash. He made me feel so bad about it, even though he wasn’t physically there to confirm the box was in the trash, I still did it, wasting precious allowance money, my only income. Whatever his argument was, it cut deep. I apologized.
That night I practically took my top off before he could even ask, to prove my repentance.
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15.
Shortly after I turned sixteen and had returned from summer vacation to the land of dust and despair that was Chilca, Peru, the orphanage was completed as far as David’s involvement in it was concerned. His time in Peru was done, his duty as architect and construction supervisor fulfilled.
He was going home.
Without me.
I was devastated by the news. It was hard to be happy for him. I was losing him, physically, at least, and that was too much. Our love would carry on across the distance, I was certain, but being physically separated seemed like a difficult blow to sustain. We were only a year into our relationship.
But this was a blip on our timeline of forever, I reassured myself. This was true love. One day we’d be married and look back on this time as a necessary trial to test ourselves. Whatever time we’d have to spend apart would be a mere drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.
I would love to have been privy to his honest thoughts about leaving. What was I worth to him if I couldn’t give him blowjobs on demand anymore?
Boobies, it turns out, satisfied just fine thanks to the technological advancement of video chatting.
The night before his flight, we met in the main building long after everyone else was asleep for a final goodbye. As he hugged me to him, I was determined to memorize the feel of him against me, his beard on my neck, the smell of his shirt. I already missed him so much and he wasn’t even gone yet. This was going to be so hard. But worth it, I reminded myself. Plenty worth it in the long run.
Too quickly our embrace was over. Too quickly he was waving back at me from the van which was taking him to the airport.
I didn’t cry immediately. Once he was out of sight, I took a shower, shaved, and went to my room to find something to do. I put on some music and shed a few tears. I surprised myself with how little I cried, actually. I was preparing for heaving sobs I had to work hard to cover up, but only got a handful of tears. They dried as I started to watch a movie I’d seen a million times before going to bed.
Skype became our new living room. We’d message throughout the day depending on his schedule - some days I would hardly hear from him at all, and others he was on fairly constantly. Almost always, though, we made time to video chat as we were falling asleep. I’d lay sideways in bed facing the camera as if facing him next to me (this was the most flattering angle I’d found - no double chins or folded skin that looked like fat rolls) and we’d chat a little about our days. Sometimes he fell asleep quickly and I left the video on for as long as possible, soaking in his snores and sleep sounds. It felt like he was really sleeping next to me and I reveled in that.
Sometimes he was wide awake and would ask me to take my shirt off. At first I was deeply embarrassed by such a request - it felt like a strip tease, which I had no experience with whatsoever, and I didn’t want to mess it up. It also just felt super weird, alone, in my room, taking off my shirt for the camera. The first time he asked, I pushed back although it was teasingly, and finally worked up the courage to do it. He applauded my efforts.
Then he asked if I would mind him jerking off to me.
Again, novel territory to navigate. It felt weird, but the way he said it implied I should be flattered, so I opted for that and said okay. I lay there, chest bared, head propped on my elbow with my hair artfully draped over my shoulders, not talking. He was fairly quiet about it, but little sounds leaked out betraying his activity. Thankfully, at least, he didn’t show himself - all I saw was his shirt-covered chest and face surrounded by the shadows of his dark room, the only illumination provided by the laptop screen.
He finished, cleaned up, lay back down and promptly fell asleep.
This, too, became a new ritual. I came to expect the request and I complied for three more years. If I ever tried to push back and say no, he was very good at convincing me to do it anyway. It became easier and less exhausting to just do it. So I did.
Out of love.
Right?
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14.
In July of 2010, I was accepted into the Young Writers Program at UVA. While visiting the States for summer vacation, I would spend three weeks among my peers participating in the intensive writing workshop. I was so freakin’ excited. I shared a dorm room with one of my best friends from middle school who was also a talented writer.
This experience wasn’t free. In fact it was pretty expensive, especially considering my parents paid for it with savings and donor money. They weren’t paid a salary for the missionary work – our family was supported by the prayers and donations of our church, family, and friends. It was a big deal that my parents even considered letting me apply for this workshop. I’m so grateful I got the chance.
There were one hundred or so students and a handful of counselors. We stayed in residence halls left vacant by the college’s summer slump. I bunked with my friend, Emile, in Tuttle house, which was so old it has since been replaced with newer facilities. We had no A/C and it was July in southern Virginia - read: utterly sweltering. I would end each day taking the coldest shower the dials would allow me and then starfish on the sheets of my twin bed, casting envious gazes toward the fan at Emile’s bed blowing waves of air over her peacefully sleeping form. It was still warm air, to be sure, but it must have made a difference. It made me feel stupid for not considering that on my packing list.
Our days were full of adventures around town to local art museums and workshopping with our cohort. I had applied for the fiction cohort, as that was my interest, but got placed in creative nonfiction. The reason for this was unfathomable to me, but I didn’t complain. I gave it everything I had and enjoyed every moment.
We were refused access to the Wi-Fi. It was policy, its intentions being to give us deeper immersion in the experience and be more present. This makes sense in the writing world, as it mimics some writers’ residencies where you are so isolated from the outside world all you have are your housemates to bounce ideas off of at the end of each day. It’s supposed to be good for the process, good for the art. With the uprising of social media and instant messaging, it also made sense; distractions such as constant internet chatter did not lend themselves to focused end products.
I had anticipated having internet access for the sole purpose of being able to chat with David whenever I got the chance. I was used to talking with him almost every day and this felt like a gut-wrenching blow. I had no way of communicating across the 4,000 mile distance that, hey, I guess I’m going radio silent for three weeks, love you and see you when I come out the other side.
I did not just roll over when my counselor told me there was no internet. Putting my technological skills to work, I did some digging on the UVA website and figured out how to use the credentials on my UVA student pass to login to the campus-wide Wi-Fi. I was so proud of myself for this achievement, of figuring out how to do this on my own even after I was told it was not possible.
I signed into Skype chat with a big smile on my face.
David was keeping busy with the SVP (student volunteer program) he was running down in Peru for the summer. A handful of college aged kids had signed up to do what we were doing, just on a smaller scale – missionary work for a few months as opposed to years. They were there essentially as grunts to do whatever David needed them to, be it dig a hole to bury rubble in or paint walls. I had hung out with them every day before leaving for summer vacation and it was a lot of fun. They were vibrant people just a few years older than me and we got along quite well. They called me the honorary SVP since we did so much working together and enjoyed each other’s company.
David supervised them from dawn until dusk, and so only had a chance for some private time (aka time he felt safe chatting with me) much later in the day when he was wiped out and readying for bed. Our schedules were similar in this way – I didn’t have much chance during the day to sign in because I was busy doing writerly things, naturally. So after my cold shower, I’d perch in bed and sign in to wind down with him.
I’m sure those first couple of days I prattled on and on about how much fun I was having and how convinced I was that being a serious writer was definitely in my future because all this writing wasn’t wearing me out one bit – in fact, it was invigorating me more than anything. Churning out all this creativity was simply begetting more. The well was infinite, I discovered. It helped too that I was around my peers; there is a certain energizing electricity in being around those like oneself, age-wise and otherwise.
A few days into the workshop, I had completed my showering ritual and sat cross-legged on my bed, booting up the heavy red brick that was my Gateway laptop. If I had any inkling what was coming, I wouldn’t have turned it on at all and simply gone to bed in attempt to avoid the inevitable.
David was caught in another one of his penitent tornadoes. I’ve no idea the catalyst – usually he seemed to think himself into the spiral all by his lonesome, no real trigger needed – and this time (not the first time) I couldn’t reverse it. He had done this exact dance on other occasions only to come crawling back days later, but somehow every time he danced like this, I was certain it was the last, and the devastation ripped at me again, the black hole threatening to suck all light from my life.
We were done. (Again.)
I couldn’t believe it. Here he was again, casting me out to sea without a life preserver. I had to go on through the rest of this workshop pretending like nothing had changed, that my heart had not once again been torn to pieces. My friend was in tune enough with my moods; if I acted too off, she would no doubt ask, and I was a terrible liar. What could I say? Oh, I’m just tired. What a laugh.
I did not sleep well that night.
My writings from the rest of the workshop took on a new and consistent tone. Here’s a snippet just to paint the picture:
She stood in the cracked, paint-peeling doorway, her eyes filling slowly with tears. His figure was a mere shadow as he slipped behind the steering wheel of his black Impala under the dim light of the street lamps lining the road.
He had walked away without looking back. Without a proper goodbye.
Without her.
The car rumbled to life and purred steadily as it idled for a moment like a panther stalking its prey. Then he rolled out of the short driveway.
She hoped sadly from the porch that he’d look back at her, turn around and realize how he was leaving her. Realize what this would do to her.
But he didn’t.
Dismayed, she walked back into the house with heavy footsteps. Just as the door clicked shut, he turned in his upholstered seat quickly, as if he had been forcing himself to stay facing forward.
She was gone.
He put the car in gear and drove away.
This writing is titled “Without a Goodbye.” I was consumed by my heartbreak. The “break up” playlist I had made the first time he broke things off remained on my iPod; it was all I listened to for the next few weeks. You Could Be Happy by Snow Patrol was the worst song off that playlist, but in the best way. The lyrics, so raw and real, spoke to my brokenness. And it was off an album David had given me, just to drive the knife deeper.
Outside of my head, I pretended well that I wasn’t broken. But inside, I was overflowing chaotic despair.
It wasn’t until late one night (isn’t it always?), after the workshop was over, on the cusp of July becoming August that David caught me on chat. The SVPs had left and perhaps that had reminded him how lonely he was. My parents were in the States, too, so he was truly all by himself down there.
I had just come home from a rock concert with my childhood best friend and Emile, and was electrified by it. The energy of the bass and guitar and vocals still thumped through my body like a second heartbeat. My throat was hoarse from singing my lungs out. When the ping of the chat sounded and his name glowed from my screen, I held my head a little higher. I felt suddenly and inexplicably powerful, full of self-respect and independence. Sure he had torn me apart weeks earlier, but I had not messaged him once. Somehow, despite all the almosts, I had resisted the temptation to break first, to show the weakness that was my devoted affection. I was indignant this time. I knew he might come back, and this time, I would get comfortable while I waited to watch him crawl up to my feet.
And here he was.
He did not apologize directly for how he’d behaved weeks earlier. In fact, he more or less glossed over what had happened, avoiding the topic and hoping to start fresh. He asked me how I was, how my summer was going. I would not be back in Peru for another three weeks and so had a good bit left of my vacation to look forward to.
He missed me and was looking forward to having me back on the same side of the equator as him. We didn’t get back together that night, necessarily, but we did start talking on the daily again. By the time the plane landed in Peru, vacation over, we were once more an us.
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13.
Coercion. Manipulation. Even if I said yes, I was a willing party in all this, I was blind to the role he truly played. I saw him as boyfriend, lover, confidant. He saw me as an object to satisfy his sexual urges. He preyed on a lonely, isolated young girl using love as the cover story, the bait, and to my teenage mind, it was believable. I fell for it completely. It would take ten years for me to even consider that what was going on between us was anything other than a sometimes difficult but loving relationship. At that age, I had no other reference point – this was just how adults did relationships, wasn’t it?
He wanted me for my body. I thought that was love. It’s all men ever want from women, so it didn’t surprise or concern me. I played my role well, so oblivious, so naïve. I learned from that relationship that my value was almost entirely contained in my body. If I wasn’t attractive and shapely, I was worthless in the eyes of the world. Very simple. Quite damaging.
He made fun of my chattiness once, and now, twelve years later, if I catch myself having talked for a while, my brain will trigger a self-deprecating comment to bring into awareness the fact that, gee, I have been talking a lot. Sorry to put you through all that, I’m sure you’d much rather be doing something else. But thanks anyway for listening.
This translates to I am not worth your time in my own estimation. The damage this self-concept has wrought without my conscious awareness for over a decade is unfathomable.
I suffer from inexplicable depression and anxiety. I am sure now this is because of him. I also struggle with abusing alcohol; when I feel bad, I drink to forget feeling bad. Alcoholism and mental illness do not run in my family whatsoever. My brain is fucked up from the abuse I didn’t even know was happening to me.
Since 2008, I’ve kept a digital journal. Anything directly or indirectly related to my relationship with David has been expunged entirely, and of what remains, there are some concerning passages that point to the onset of depression, as well as concerns about alcohol use. These passages can be found in Appendix I.
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12.
On January 19, 2010, Metallica came to Lima, Peru for the first time in history. My brother, being a devout metalhead, ecstatically coughed up the cash to go. My parents went with him, more as chauffeurs and chaperones than fans, but they’ll tell you they had a rockin’ time.
This evening found me and David completely alone on the property for the first time ever. No one around to hear suspicious sucking sounds, or wonder where we both had so conveniently disappeared off to at the same time. The property was totally ours.
After my parents and brother headed out, I was chomping at the bit. David forced us to wait nearly thirty minutes before setting our plans in motion, just in case they forgot something and turned around. Once we were sure they were really gone, things unfolded.
I met him back in his room, a place I had been in only once, and that was before he’d even moved into it. He held me, kissed me, and lay me back on the bed. My shorts came off, followed by my panties. He took off his pants but left his shirt on (he was pudgy and out of shape and self-conscious). His cock was ready. I thought I was, too.
There was no foreplay, no work to ensure the slip n’ slide was properly lubricated before throwing himself down it. He pressed into me, and this time didn’t withdraw into a panic attack. He pumped slowly a few times; it hurt, but at the same time the fullness felt amazing. I finally understood a tiny bit about the looks on those women’s faces in porn.
He was too excited to do much more than a few strokes. We didn’t have any condoms and he didn’t want to risk coming inside me, though he’d made sure to purchase Plan B ahead of time anyway. And I would take it as soon as we were done. Just in case.
It wouldn’t be the last time.
He ordered me to lift my hips up off the bedsheets as he jogged to the bathroom for a wad of toilet paper. I had bled; this didn’t seem to surprise him. I was still dazed as I cleaned myself up.
My memories of the next moments are a blur. He was finished off somehow, but I don’t recall the role I played in it. We may have showered together and I helped him finish under the spray of the water, my body a rare treat in full view.
We went up to the dorm house and watched Sherlock Holmes (the one with Robert Downey Jr.) on his MacBook until David got too antsy to sit next to me on the couches. The movie wasn’t over yet, but he felt my parents could come home any moment. He extracted himself from my pleading to stay and sat at the dining room table in the kitchen, so convincingly far away from me and in full view. He ordered me to go into my room, close the door and pretend to be asleep (my parents were not the type to peek in on me unannounced, so this was a bit excessive, but I always did as he asked). It was late enough to be plausible, and made things look the least suspicious (in his estimation).
I heard them come home. They’d had a great night. I thought I had, too. You know, as long as you don’t take into account the fact that I was fifteen years old, and this relationship I thought I was in was purely for his sexual gratification.
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11.
Our first fight and breakup was fueled purely by his intense paranoia and a dash of shame. It was like he wanted something to fight about. Maybe he did; maybe his subconscious felt that if he had a more concrete reason to put a stop to our activities, something to point to in his head that labeled me a bad “girlfriend” (as if that term even applies here), then he could end things for good and truly repent at the feet of God.
Spoiler: fighting and breaking up became a cyclical thing for us. It was always him doing the breaking, and the subsequent mending. He couldn’t stay away. He didn’t have any adult friends he was close with; at the end of the day, I was his only friend. Boobies were a big plus.
Our evening began as it usually did, he in the living room and me in my room with the door open (it made it less suspect if we weren’t in the same room), chatting via Gchat. He’d experienced a sudden death in the family and would soon be off to bed in order to catch an early flight home the next morning for the funeral.
My mom came in, walking to my room. She asked me if I wanted to ride to the airport with them tomorrow to drop David off. I said sure, half because it would mean being in David’s presence a bit longer, and half because I hadn’t gotten off the property in weeks if not months; a van ride down the Pan Am would be a welcome change of environment. She bade me good night, see you in the morning, and left.
The angry chats came in a sudden deluge.
He said it was so stupid of me to say yes. Wasn’t it obvious what that looked like? My parents might start getting ideas about our relationship, might cultivate suspicions that I wanted to come along just to be close to David. I tried to reason with him, saying how I’d sit all the way in the back of the big van and totally ignore him, just look out the window and listen to music, putting on the somewhat honest appearance that I was simply happy to be out of the house. But he wouldn’t hear it. His paranoia was in overdrive, redlining. If even the faintest idea that I had a crush on David entered their minds, we were finished.
He beat them to the punch. He told me it was over. I was too immature to be in this relationship, too blind to the risk and danger I actively put him in by being in love with him. He slammed his Macbook closed and stomped out.
I didn’t sleep that night. Through tears, I put together a playlist of breakup songs like Colorblind by Counting Crows, Jar of Hearts Christina Perry, If it Means a lot to you A Day to Remember, Happy Ending MIKA, Mr. Brightside The Killers, You Could be Happy Snow Patrol, Without You Three Days Grace, and Dreaming with a Broken Heart John Mayer to name a few. I piped it on repeat through my headphones as I read back through our chats and emails before deleting them one by one. I was supposed to have deleted them already – one of our rules was to “burn upon reading,” just in case anyone got nosey enough to poke around in my saved Gchats – but I am a sentimental person and have a penchant for squirreling away information like chat logs. It would only hurt to save them now. Why would I ever want to look back at this and be willingly reminded just how much I missed him?
I wrangled up any physical artifacts of him and us as well. I had a gray t-shirt of his, a nearly empty shampoo bottle, and a bracelet I’d made to signify our relationship. I shoved them all into a trash bag and crept out to the bin to dispose of the memories.
My already small world closed in on me. I disintegrated. The pain in my head, in my soul was unimaginable. I did not know how I would continue on as if nothing had happened, to address him in front of my parents as if he hadn’t just destroyed my heart. At least he was leaving tomorrow – that left me some time to sort myself out. But once he got back and I saw his face, smelled his scent… How on earth…?
Once I’d scoured every last corner of my laptop for traces of him, I opened Microsoft Word to express and hopefully numb the pain with words. I wrote about fictional characters experiencing intense and overwhelming heartbreak. I wrote about a girl who was consumed by hopelessness, life sapped of all color and meaning. I wrote a sequence of events, starting with a fight, in great detail that mirrored exactly what had happened, except from the third person, as though I had dissociated from the experience and the only way for me to process what was happening was to write it out from the perspective of someone else.
At 2 AM, I was tearstained and exhausted, but sleep eluded me. It seemed fitting, this sudden insomnia, like my body was punishing me on his behalf. It was my fault, after all. I drove him away. If I hadn’t been so stupid, so blind, I’d be blissfully asleep dreaming of him. Instead, I walked quietly out to the dorm stairs and stared down the length of the property in the direction of his room. Curiously, his light was still on. I longed to go to him, to apologize and make it up. Our love was forever – how could something so ridiculous be our demise?
I stayed put. I figured it might only make him angrier if I snuck down to his room in the middle of the night. What would my parents think of that if they found out?
I curled up in bed and put on a movie, though I barely registered the actors moving across the screen. My mind was churning and churning, a black hole sucking me eternally inward, away from all light.
I was still awake when I heard the first stirrings of my parents. I let some time go by before I zombie-walked downstairs to meet them in the kitchen as they scrambled up a quick breakfast.
“I’m not feeling well,” I told my mom. I’m sure I looked the part after the night I’d had. David walked in, we met eyes for a split second; my stomach clenched. His expression was unreadable. “My tummy was upset all night and I just want to take it easy today, get some sleep. I can’t go to the airport.”
My mom understood, asking if there was anything she could do to help me feel better. I said no, wished them safe travels, and with my heart in my throat desperately avoided David’s eyes, which I was convinced were on me as I walked back to the dorm.
I threw myself back into bed, tears in my eyes. This was impossible. I couldn’t survive this.
My iPod touch buzzed with a new email. My heart jumped out of my chest when I read the sender’s name.
From: David
Can you get on Skype? I really need to talk to you.
Heart throbbing, I re-downloaded Skype and logged in. An IM was waiting for me.
David: Hey
I was cautious. I did not get my hopes up that this was anything positive. I wondered if I was walking right into another lecture on how I was still such an idiot. I kept my tone almost painfully neutral.
Me: Hi
David: I’m guessing you got my email?
Me: Yes
David: How are you?
Me: I stayed up all night last night. I’m tired. And I won't lie to you – I'm not good.
David: I thought you might stay up. Well…I’m not good either. Far from it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.
Me: About what?
David:…your brother isn’t up yet, is he?
Me: No, I'm pretty sure he isn’t. It’s too early. Why?
Steps resonated from the stairs. The front door opened, closed. Footsteps in the living room. Silence.
David: can you come out here for a minute?
Jesus Christ. It was him. He was only a few feet away and asking for my presence in a way he never had before.
I hoped I wasn’t misinterpreting his IM tone; it seemed he wasn’t mad anymore, and was even perhaps sad. I gave it a chance. I tiptoed from my room to face him.
He was standing there, hands in his pockets, the perfect picture of patiently waiting. He didn’t say anything. He only took two quick steps towards me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me flush against his chest. He lightly kissed the top of my head. Then he spoke, quiet enough for my ears only.
“I’m sorry about last night. I…I overreacted. My anger took hold of me and made me think things and say things I didn’t mean. I’m sorry,” he murmured into my hair. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?
He continued when I didn’t respond.
“Will you forgive me and let me fix the hurt I’ve caused you?” he whispered, inclining his head to meet my eyes. I could barely breathe. I could have asked him to pinch me. This was everything I wanted.
I accepted his apology. He held me tighter, twin smiles blooming on our faces. All was right with the world. The black hole receded.
He let me go, whisking himself off to the airport. I fell into bed and got some much-needed sleep, dreaming of when I’d get to see him again.
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10.
VO5 Herbal Escapes kiwi scented shampoo. 11/22. Macintosh. Penn State. Blue eyes. Billy Joel. Homestar Runner/Strong Bad. Eat Pray Love. Italy. AutoCAD. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Kirsten Dunst. Moleskine. Brown Sketchers Citywalk Molton shoes.
Like all relationships, ours produced artifacts, some totally harmless objects onto which latched meaning and memories. David introduced me to tea, specifically chamomile and mint. Twelve years later, I will still think of him sometimes when I reach for a mint tea bag, especially if the brand is Bigelow.
In sharing his music, he made sure I had Coldplay’s entire discography. Yellow became our song, one I would listen and cry to too many times to count. He showed me the music videos to The Scientist and Fix You. Even now, I cannot help but associate Martin’s voice with David. Most songs I avoid completely. Some, like Clocks and Viva la Vida I can tolerate only because I was well acquainted with them before I met him.
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9.
Eventually the bunkhouse portion of the orphanage was finished and David moved down there as soon as he possibly could to get away from my brother’s horrendously stinky feet and regain some privacy. He had his own room and bathroom at the far end of the property, an eighth of a mile jaunt down a dusty sidewalk from my dorm. In gaining privacy, he’d lost accessibility to me. We locked the main door of our dorm every night and the bolt boasted a heavy clunkiness that made it impossible for him to sneak in for me.
The ritual was not discontinued, however; it merely shifted from midnight visits in my room to crack-of-dawn visits in the main building, totally detached from our dorm.
I set my alarm for 5:30 under the guise that I was starting to get serious about completing my schoolwork as early as possible in order to have more time to help around the property. A great and believable cover in case anyone (my parents in particular) asked why they heard footsteps on the outside stairs so early. I needed breakfast to fuel my productive day!
The property was always dead quiet with only the occasional bird cawing during its flight overhead. I’d creep down the stairs, down the sidewalk and into the main building where David would be waiting for me, on a mustard yellow couch in the sitting room off the kitchen.
While the environment was different, the performance was much the same: he’d fondle and grope me, greedy fingers on skin, sometimes setting my bum on his lap to grind his erection to life before I sat on the chair and he stood, keeping an eye out for movement through the window over my head as I gulped him down.
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8.
The first time he entered me, he thoroughly freaked out. Part of him must have known what he was doing to me was wrong, taking advantage of me and convincing me he loved me. But another, stronger part – the one that couldn’t resist all the free blowjobs – had even convinced him he really did love me. That this was a real thing. Our relationship would someday be out in the open, our love accepted and public and beautiful. We’d get married and everyone would be so happy our love triumphed over even the age difference.
I certainly believed it. If you had told me he was outright abusing me, that I was too young to consent to the things he did with my body, I would have said you were wrong, so very wrong, and you simply didn’t understand our relationship and the depth of our connection.
David was frequently wishy-washy over this. Some days he’d be all repentance and shame, hemming and hawing about how we should stop, it’s not right, good Christians don’t do this, etcetera etcetera. Other days, perhaps when he was hornier and thinking more with his second head, he didn’t seem to have a problem with me sucking him off, God be damned. Not until afterward, anyway.
It drove me nuts. I was so devoted to him. He was my one and only, my forever love, and I would die for that. It was modern day Stockholm Syndrome. So what if we did some things after dark Jesus wouldn’t approve of – our love outshone all of that. Didn’t it?
I advocated vigorously for us when he seemed to be in doubt. Usually he just felt the need to express his guilt, make it known he was feeling it, and then we’d fall back into our routine of him joining me in my bed at ungodly hours of the night to exploit my body and its orifices.
After exhaustively deliberating over it, his desire to have sex overruled all other rationality, but we could do it only for a minute, and quietly, always quietly. Up to this point, oral was as far as we’d gone, and only me on him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t know oral was possible on a female. But once again, he was the experienced one, and so I was following his lead. He told me what to do; I did it.
That night he joined me in my room as usual. This time, when he pulled his boxers down, I too shimmied out of my panties. He stood while I lay on my bed, on my back with my rear end nearly hanging off the edge. The bed was too creaky to try with both of us in it, and anyway, he wanted an escape route in the rare event that someone came barging in to discover us. If he stood, he reasoned, he had a chance at darting into the corner behind my desk.
He stood so close to me without touching. I wanted him to do it, so badly wanted to feel what all those women in porn felt when the man entered them, their eyes rolling back and guttural purrs spewing from their open mouths. I didn’t want to be a mere sex object, but I did want to know what sex was like. And I was so close to obtaining that knowledge, that experience. I shimmied closer to him, arching my back and lifting my legs to present to him my pink center.
He shoved all guilt aside. With his hand, he guided himself into me.
One stroke, one full and breathless moment of this is it, and he pulled all the way out, scrambling to get his boxers back on. He put his hands to his head as guilt and fear barraged him.
“I can’t do it,” he said.
He tugged the covers over me like a morgue attendant after autopsy and vanished from my room.
In hindsight, I thought his conscience got the better of him, that having sex with a minor freaked him out too much to go through with it. Blowjobs were one thing, but this was just too far. As I think more about it, this becomes less and less plausible an explanation. Shortly after this, I recall sitting beside him on the couch as he researched anal sex. He acted like he’d found a solution and was fairly jovial about his discovery. We never went through with it, and I thank God for that. What put him off it was reading the account of a forum poster about how erotic the guy found listening to his girlfriend essentially fart out his cum into the toilet afterwards.
David’s conscience was not stopping him from having sex with me on principal. The only thing at the top of his list of fears rivaling getting caught was getting me pregnant. Barring that, he had no qualms putting his penis in an underage girl.
Before we were officially a thing, David stole a pair of my underwear from my room while I visited home for the summer I turned 15. They were not fancy and in fact were embarrassingly childish; they were full coverage bikini style, pink cotton, with cartoon faeries. It was a few months later, that November he got me on the couch in the dark for the first time. He admitted later that he’d stolen them and jerked off with them a few times even before we got together. My first instinct upon learning this was to be disgusted, but somehow I performed complex mental gymnastics that resulted in me feeling flattered, or at least telling him so.
I was so far into his trap that I couldn’t even admit how disturbing this really was. But it was attention, affection, and that was the currency I craved to earn the most of.
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7.
On days when he felt more cavalier, David would come to the dormitory for a quick bathroom break around lunch time and stop by my room, where my desk now resided thanks to the couches in the living room, to give me a quick kiss. When he was feeling most cavalier and confident no one might catch us, he’d close my door and press me against the wall for a more intense kiss. He’d grin, feeling like quite the stud, wink at me and be off to resume his workday supervising the construction workers in laying the literal foundation for the orphanage.
Aside from this, he fingered me on occasion and played with my boobs in a way he thought I liked, but otherwise his pleasure was front and center. He was not interested in exploring my body for my sake – only his.
One lucky day, we carefully orchestrated showering together. He was so tense the entire time, counting the seconds, holding his breath in expectation that someone would catch on and realize we were both in the bathroom simultaneously, but no one did. I disrobed in front of him, for the first time in full light and so completely; he was momentarily distracted from his worries and feasted his eyes on my body. His hands were soon on me, lathering me up with more soap than I ever needed, hardly a single inch unexplored.
Once both of us had rinsed off, we paused and listened for signs of commotion in the living room. None came. He gently urged me to my knees under the spray of the shower and watched hungrily as my mouth closed around him.
He came almost instantly. Seeing my body so clearly in the full light catapulted him clear over the edge.
He turned off the spray, whispered it was time to dry off and wrap this whole thing up before someone caught us, and left me kneeling on the tile with a mouthful of cum.
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