"I want to know you from the inside out and the outside in. ...I want to know your soul and spirit like my own. It scares me how much emotion you bring up in me. I want to forget it all and climb to your rescue, carry you down and ride off into the sunset.... happily ever after.
One day..... one day it will be exactly that."
Sounds romantic, right?
I was two weeks pregnant with his child when he sent me that valentine's day letter. Five years after the rape I read that letter and have to chuckle to myself at the irony. I think he more than accomplished the "know you from the inside" part. Maybe it shouldn't make me laugh. But holy hell, if I can't laugh then it's just a creepy letter I can't explain and it scares me to think he might have actually meant any of what he said.
Stacks of letters. Signed with X's and O's and stamped with hearts on sealing wax.
Such romance.
Such a grotesquely inappropriate response.
Maybe he really did care about me. Maybe he really meant all that stuff about love and being together someday. Maybe he was just saying it to make up for what he did. I remember he came to my college graduation party six weeks later. I didn't want him there but I was more afraid of him showing up uninvited than inviting him there unwanted. It was a small gathering of friends and family, potluck style. No gifts were required. Most friends brought donuts because well, that's generally the best kind of present you can give a girl. five dozen donuts between 6 different friends. And then he arrived.
He brought a HUGE vegetable platter that was inappropriately overcompensating an pretty obvious, given that everyone knew it was small and informal and everyone knew he knew that in advance. Then there was the more inappropriate gift of a $50+ bottle Cabo Wabo tequila because he knew I was a fan of Sammy Hagar. Then there was a beyond suspicious for someone CLEARLY not dating me gift of TWO DOZEN long stem red roses from what is widely known as the snootiest and most expensive floral shop in town. And everyone who knows me for more than five minutes knows I absolutely HATE red roses. And if that wasn't enough to paint the walls red with guilt, he also brought a bag of assorted presents totaling somewhere around $150 which brought his guilt payment to a grand total of about $325 worth of stuff to try to make him look good and look as if he cared for me.
No one knew at the time what he had done to me. No one knew I was pregnant or that the baby was dying and that I was throwing up every morning. I was still trying to convince myself that all the sudden changes my body was going through was just a random coincidence.
No one knew what was going on but my friends all told me in the following weeks that he set off all their "super creepy" warning lights and they all spent the day trying to play goal tender to keep him away from me. My favorite ex-boyfriend was my greatest hero of all. And it wasn't until he left that the guy finally vacated my house. He had to be the last man standing. Had to make sure my parents saw all the wonderful presents he gave me. Had to make sure everyone at the party saw he brought the expensive roses. Had to keep bringing me drinks I didn't ask him to make me.
Everyone could see something was wrong but no one could put their finger on it out of context.
In five-year retrospect, I don't know which I find more haunting or disturbing -- the thought that he actually DID love me on some level or the thought that he would go so incredibly far to manipulate a person and evil situation to work to his favour and make him innocent of all blame.
For as much as I wish I could watch my little girl grow up, I'm glad she never lived to see this world. Whenever I start to wonder if maybe I cold have made a good life for her I hear this little whisper "custody... parenting plan... child support... parents -- forever. joined together -- forever. Never escaping him -- forever" and I realize just how much God saved me too.
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