Let's Not Meet Again

High School Sweetheart

When I was a freshman in high school, I met Alex. Now, ten years later, I couldn't tell you why I was so drawn to him, or why I got so attached. He was homely and odd and quite frequently smelled bad. There was a darker undercurrent that ran below his surface, and I thought I saw unspoken sadness that matched mine, and maybe as a naive 15 year old, I had the stereotypical "we can save each other from our pain" bullshit fantasy.

He wasn't the only boy giving me attention (in fact, he barely even gave me that, since he played me hot and cold- emphasis on the cold) but he was the one I wanted. Every time I would start to pull away and give up because he was clearly uninterested, he would pop up, calling me cute and making comments about how seeing me brightens his day. Then he would be back to pursuing someone else. I was 15 and naive and hurt, but still finally had enough. So I decided I was done. He caught wind of this and ended up asking me to be his girlfriend later that same day. I was caught off guard but thought "yes finally, he must have just needed time to make a move!"

He and I dated for two years, and he was a hurricane the entire time. One example: His phone would be off for days at a time, he rarely went to school, and I just wouldn't hear from him. I would finally call his mom because I was worried about not hearing from him at all for three, four, five days, and she would tell me that she hadn't seen him either. When he finally turned his phone back on, he would spit venom at me and call me a "crazy cunt" because I spammed his phone. I would be in tears and trying to explain I was worried because I hadn't heard from him in days and neither had his mother, and then he would call me a few other names and hang up on me and turn his phone off.

The abuse came in many ways, but disappearing and then cussing me out and calling me names when I voiced how uncomfortable it made me... That was his favorite. I kept trying to break up with him, but whenever I did that, suddenly he was calling me crying and saying I was the love of his life and he was going to kill himself if I left him.

After two years, I finally had enough and I ended it for good. I told him I was done. I ignored his threats of suicide. He kept begging. School was out for the summer so he couldn't find me there, which meant he kept showing up at my house. Afternoon, evening, middle of the night. It didn't matter. He would toss bits of bark (that my mom had in planters in the front yard) at my bedroom window. He would sit out there for a long time trying to get me to talk to him. I didn't know what to do. I thought he would give up and that it would be okay soon.

One day I was walking home from work, I was a block away from my house, and Alex came sidling up next to me in his car, pleading with me to talk to him. I told him I had nothing more to say. "Then let me talk, please," he begged. He was crying. I had no intention of getting back together with him, but I still hated seeing him hurt. I agreed to let him say what he wants so he could get closure. I sat in the car and told him to talk. He started babbling incoherently and kept trying to make me feel bad for "abandoning him." I told him the conversation was over and I was leaving. He locked the doors and as I went to manually push the lock on my door up, he grabbed my arm and told me I wasn't leaving.

I panicked. I smacked him and shoved him away from me and scrambled out of the car, and ran the rest of the block home. He continued to lurk. Spammed my inbox, drove by my house and place of employment. I ended up rebounding and started dating someone new. He was Alex's complete opposite and made me feel happy and light. However, once Alex caught news of this, he flipped out. He went ballistic. The calls and texts increased both in frequency and in level of mania. He started hanging out right outside of the store I worked at. It was a small store in the mall, so I could see him, just standing there staring in at me. Management had to call mall security a few times, but he always came back.

Eventually his texts got threatening. He started saying things about how he hoped my new boyfriend was "prepared," and he said that he was willing to go to jail to have me. My mom panicked and believed that I was on the verge of being kidnapped or assaulted. We had gone to the cops a couple times but they said they couldn't do anything because he technically hadn't broken any laws. We took the threatening messages to them and they said they would start to file a restraining order and go warn him that he couldn't go near me or talk to me or he was in violation of the order of protection.

He kept showing up anyway.

One night, around midnight, the doorbell rang. My mom was confused and asked if I was expecting anyone. I told her no. She opened the door and there, on the front step, was a card, a rose, and a burning candle. We glanced up and down the street and didn't see anyone, and we were immediately spooked because there wasn't enough time for him to ring the doorbell and get out of sight already (you could see a long way down both sides of the street) unless he was hiding in the trees along the house.

This went on for a while, he kept following me and showing up at my work, which means he kept getting visited by the cops, and his friends even got involved and started threatening me for "what I was doing to him." Eventually the order of protection was placed, and all at once everything stopped. But my paranoia and fear and jumpiness lasted for a long time after that.

TLDR; Got into abusive relationship, dude flipped out and stalked me when I finally left him.