Our Story Part 2: Summer 1997

After prom night, the following weekend, he called me and asked me to the movies. We met at the movie because I was working, our first movie was a movie called Spawn. It was based on a comic book that he read. This was the start of the beginning of comic books that I would grow to love. The movie was not the best and there was a trigger character for me that made we want to leave. He could see the fear on my face as we watched and he grabbed my hand and to this day he has always been the one who could touch me and shock me and yet give me comfort. He leaned in and asked if I was okay? I told him I hated clowns and we could talk about it at a later time.

After the movie we went to a park at drove to an area where it was still light and could talk. I sat on the stone as he stood facing me with our hands locked together talking about the movie. He didn’t press about the clown situation which I thought he would. Instead he told me all about the comics and the place he would get them from. There was a guy from school whose father owned a comic book store which I never knew. As the sun was setting and it was getting dark, he asked when he could see me again. I told him I had finals coming up for college since I was already taking college courses. I gave me my work schedule and school schedule. We talked every day for a week.

Then next weekend I was suppose to hangout with some other friends, there was this place where a bunch of weirdos and burnouts hangout. I didn’t want him to go there because he seemed so much different then the rest of us. I was 18, I was a pot head, smoked cigarettes’, drank, did E and shrooms. He was a mama’s boy.  He was clean and never did drugs or alcohol. I found myself trying to protect him from me. I was not the best person for him. I didn’t want him to judge me. I knew I was going to need to talk to him about all this but I really liked him and did not want to scare him off. So I told him we could get together Sunday and we could meet in the park again.

I spent the weekend with my friends doing stupid drugs and drinking. Then that Sunday I would need to face him. He told me he was in trouble for coming home late the week before and asked if we could just hangout for an hour. In the first few weeks I have learned we could never say goodbye. It took minutes to walk away. Always never wanting to leave. So I told him that I would do my best to tell him what I needed. I told him what I had done that weekend. Who I hung out with and told him I could totally understand if he didn’t want to be with a girl like me. He gave me this half cock head tilt and this grin that could melt your heart and told me he would never leave me over something like that. WHO WAS THIS GUY? I really found someone who was nice and different. I didn’t deserve him. I then told him why I didn’t like clowns.

At the time I never really told anyone about why I disliked clowns. But for 10 years I was deadly scared of them. I was 8 when I was raped by 3 teenage boys who had been part of a gang and my cousins who had been gangbangers had a party where I was staying that weekend and I was the bait for this initiation. They wore Clown masks. I never knew who they had been and never had been caught. I never really had dealt with this trauma and when I looked up from my feet, he was crying. He hugged me and told me something that stayed with me. He too had been taken advantage of when he was a kid by neighbor. We both had these horrific traumas and this was the first time we had ever shared that with anyone. He told me he would never let anything like that ever happen to me again. We had been in that part for over an hour and again we tried to say good night and another 20 minutes passed before we left. I tried to call him later that night and his father told me he was grounded and could not talk to me. I asked for how long and his father told me when he was ungrounded he would call me. It could be a day, a week, a month and hung up on me. This was the start of many reasons his father and I butted heads.

2 Weeks had gone by. I was not allowed to call him because when I did his dad would say he was adding more time because I called. I was no longer in the High School with him, so I could not see him. So 2 weeks and it was the day before graduation. Seniors had to come practice and that is when I saw him. He grabbed me and hugged me so tight. We still never shared a kiss. We held hands and we hugged. We talked a lot! This hug was something I needed and didn’t want to end. He always would smell my hair, I tapped my nails on his forehead and told him how I missed him. He told me his father wanted us to break up. I asked why, he had never met me. He told me how Tom went over while he was grounded and told his dad how lucky was for dating me and how cool I was. Cool because I was open and out as a bisexual woman. His father hated to hear this and wanted me out of Rusty’s life. I was so mad at Tom that after Commencement Practice I walked over to him and went off. How dare he out me to my boyfriends parents.

The next day was graduation and I had my party the next day. I told Rusty where it was and time, but he too was having his party at that same time. My friends was up from New Mexico and I told her in letters every week everything. She wanted to meet him while she was in town and I told her I would see if the next day we could have him meet up. Monday after graduation, I called his house and father told me that he was in Kansas and was not coming back anytime soon. I was confused. I had no way of reaching him. Again no cell phones, emails and internet was not an easy thing to access. So I lost all communication with him. His dad just hung up on me. He was gone.

The remaining parts of June and July my druggie friends and I decide to move into an apartment. I moved out of my parents and into my 1st apartment. We had parties and crazy drug nights. Freedom and being an adult. But I was depressed. I got dumped without being told I was being dumped. I felt like I shared my deepest darkest secret with someone and he blew me off. I scared him away. I was hurt. The more hurt I felt the more I drank and did drugs. I was wasted every day. I was hating life. Then I went to my parents one weekend to do laundry. It was mid August, Rusty called and I answered. He seemed so happy to hear my voice and told me how he missed me and couldn’t wait to see him. I was confused. I told him what his dad told me. I told him, I never heard from him for several weeks. 2 months  had passed. Then he told me, the day of graduation he called my house and talked with my mom and told her he was leaving for Kansas because his family that lived out there wanted him and his brother to go visit for the summer. Tradition. My mom never gave me that message. He even left the number where he would be but would understand if I couldn’t call long distance. Because back then it cost money to call another state. I was angry at his dad, my mom and now at myself. I would have not moved out or gone on a binge while he was gone had I known all this and if I known he was coming back to me.

The hardest part was telling him all this plus I had a date that night with someone else.