He was the odd ball at school, no one really liked him and so many rumors floated around about him. He was in our ‘clique’ and I felt bad for him, so I started trying to get to know him better and defend his name when I would hear those ridiculous rumors. The more we got to know one another, the more I began to like him, to the point I started to wonder if we could date and make it work. As any high-schooler about to embark down a new road, I asked my [then] best friends what they thought about the possibility of him asking me out. The good girl in the group, one whose opinion mattered most to me, said it would be fine, just be careful, she heard some vicious things about him. My other friend said she wouldn’t date him, talk to him, or acknowledge him if he came around; she had heard the rumors as well, but no one would tell me what those horrible rumors were.
Well, he never ended up asking me out, but he came very close; he decided to confide in me about his shady past, at that time and still now I wish he hadn’t. The rumors about molestation were very much true, (these I learned after I started spacing myself from him) but the rumors didn’t hold all of the history behind it. I assured myself I could put that ’small’ thing behind myself, but he freaked me out a little too much the day he offered to kill someone I had been having trouble with.
That was the day I quit taking any of his calls, avoided my cell phone like the plague; offered one worded answers to him at school, and was pleased as a pickle when my current boyfriend asked me out (ending the fear of the guy beating him too it). It’s been three years since all of that has taken place, he still calls me [and my boyfriend] and when I answer he tells me about the girls he has dated – and how much they remind him of me, from their hair to their eyes, to their personality. He complains about the group homes he lives in and how he wants to burn them down and kill the people who make him work, or hurt his girlfriend’s feelings. So now you know why I still avoid my cell phone when it rings.
