This is fiction, with a kernel of truth underneath it. But it is fiction, and as such, requires some suspension of disbelief. Anyone involved in any sexual activity is over 18. A trigger warning, there is reference to self-harm and suicidality. The arc of the story takes our narrator through these elements and brings her out the other side. The story is perhaps more romantic than overtly erotic, though who is to say romance can't be erotic?
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My name's Hal. Ok, it's not my given name but it's what I call myself. My real name doesn't really mean anything to me, and it's not actually important. My given name came from my parents. I hated my parents. I learned to, because they hated each other. I don't know if they ever were happy, ever in love, but if they ever had been, there was no evidence of it in my lifetime.
It was a vicious cycle, and each blamed the other for it. He drank. A lot. He drank to deal with her bitchiness. She was a bitch because he was a mean ass drunk. They never talked. They screamed and yelled, but they never talked. Not to each other. And not really to me either.
And they cheated all the time. I didn't know it then, but I understand now, they were so desperate to feel love they tried to get it from other people. And that meant there was no love for me. I was just an inconvenience. From when I was little until my teens, I can't remember more than a dozen times when I was hugged.
My role as a problem really became clear when they divorced. Sometimes parents fight to keep their kid for themselves. Maybe it's a way for one parent to punish the other. Sometimes the punishment is to control the other parent through the child. Sometimes it's to get more money, more child support, and punish the other parent financially. My parents fought over who got stuck with me. I was the punishment. Talk about a mind fuck.
I was fourteen, and neither parent wanted me. Ouch. In the end, my dad got me, kind of by default. Mom bailed, left the state on my fifteenth birthday and vanished. All the anger my dad had been directing at her got turned towards me. No, he never hit me, never touched me at all. He either ignored me or yelled at me, making sure I knew that it was all my fault she left. I'd cry, wanting a hug, and he'd stare, disgust all over his face. Then he'd leave. Sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few days. I had to grow up quick, in order to take care of myself. I wasn't very good at it, but I was good enough to fool almost everybody on the outside.
I wanted to die. I wanted to be loved, and because he couldn't, wouldn't, I wanted to die. I started cutting. My thighs, upper arms, my lower belly. Places most people wouldn't see. Sometimes I bled a lot, and that got me attention, but no help. It was just proof that I was deadweight, a burden.
I don't know how but I lived to see my eighteenth birthday. A slightly older girl from school knew that I was cutting and told me she stopped that when she found an older guy online. I decided to try it. I hurt so much that I'd try anything.
The first few guys I met were just plain creepy. They were all about finding an eighteen-year-old high school virgin with shitty self-esteem. Easy pickings, I guess. They told me to send them nudes, or to do things I didn't understand, and didn't want to do. They told me to leave home, to come to them, told me I was worthless and that they'd do things to me because I was worthless. I figured out pretty quickly that they didn't love me. I started cutting more often and more deeply. It was a reaction to hate disguised as love.
I never did what they asked, but I kept coming back. I always thought that maybe the next guy would be the one to stop it all. The one to push me far enough that I really would kill myself. So, I tried again and again. Then something happened. He happened. He was different.
It was a few weeks after I turned 18 that I met him. His name was Sebastian. He was by far the oldest guy I met online. He was so old he could've been my dad's dad. And he was the first one who asked if I was OK, if I needed help. He was the first one who didn't ask me to do things. He was the first one who actually talked to me. He offered to find me someone to talk to, offered to pay for it, if I would tell him where I was. I wasn't sure I could trust him, so I kept that secret for myself.
I graduated high school on time, two months after I turned 18. Sebastian was the only one who congratulated me, who said he was proud of me, and clearly really meant it. For some reason, I told him a boy had kissed me at a graduation party, and someone had taken a picture of it. It was true, but I had no idea why I felt I had to tell him about it. Looking back, maybe it was to say that I wasn't the basket case I clearly was.
I sent him that picture and said, "look, I found someone to love me." He pointed out that a boy being willing to kiss me wasn't the same thing as a boy loving me. He was right. That boy never became my boyfriend. I never saw him after that party. In fact, throughout high school, I never did have a boyfriend. Nor a girlfriend for that matter.
But in my last few months of school, I did have somebody who seemed to care about me, and that was enough for me to stop wanting to die, and to stop cutting. Sebastian decided to call me Hal, because my real name was tied up in so much pain.
But when Sebastian said that he wished he was able to send me a graduation present, I thought he was asking for my address. I got upset with him and told him that I had thought I could trust him, but that really, I guessed all that he had wanted was what all the other guys wanted. I stopped talking to him. The last message he sent me was to tell me that he wished me well with my life, he wished me joy and happiness, and that if I ever was in Maine, maybe we'd run into each other. If, when, I was ready, he'd be waiting.
In the back corner of my mind, I wondered if I had thrown something wonderful away. I mean, here was a guy who asked nothing of me, except to help him understand my hopes and dreams and how to support me. He never asked me to do anything I would have been uncomfortable with. Instead, he showed me respect, and what I later would understand was love.
A little later that summer, I got a job, and then went to community college where I started on a writing degree. Sebastian had encouraged me to write. He said it was a way to see what my world could be. His strong gentle support was gone, another thing I lost when I threw him out of my life, but I continued to write. My stories earned me a scholarship to a local university.
I finished up my bachelor's in creative writing and started to think about maybe trying for graduate school. One of my school counselors told me about a program on the coast of Maine. She said that she thought that I was a perfect candidate. I had won a series of awards in college and university. She encouraged me to apply. I didn't have much hope of anything coming of it, but I filled out the forms and sent them in.
Two months later, I found an envelope in my mailbox from the graduate program. Not only had I been accepted, but I had also been given a substantial scholarship. It wouldn't cover all of my costs, but it would take care of most of them. A part-time job would cover the rest. I had worked all through college and university, had a few scholarships, and had lived frugally. I had enough money to move across the country and pay the deposit on an apartment.
Within six weeks, I found myself settling into my new city and looking for work. The town that housed the program had one big-name organic food market. I put in an application there and applied for a couple of retail positions in other stores too. The manager of the food market called me a few days later and asked me to come in for an interview. We hit it off like old friends, the interview went well, and by the end of our meeting, she offered me a part-time position. The pay and the hours more than made up the difference between my scholarship and my costs of living. I was delighted and wondered if there was any way that things could ever get any better.
Work and school went pretty well, and time passed easily. I made some friends but had no social life to speak of. That's not entirely true; I went on a couple of dates, but they went nowhere. And I hung out with friends from school as well as from work. But there were no serious relationships on my horizon. And then, one day, everything changed, and my world was turned upside down.
You know, in retail, you have to be pleasant. And you know also, sometimes guys mistake your being pleasant for flirting. Especially when you're blonde, with grey eyes and what I guess is a cute body. I stand 5'5", weigh about 140 pounds, and am proportional. Not busty, not flat, sort of normal I thought. While I didn't enjoy the flirting, I put up with it. It was part of the job. Sometimes guys, and even some women, came on kind of strong and my supervisor noticed. When that happened, she intervened, and she even had a lawyer who wouldn't take a hint, or accept a no, trespassed from the store. She protected me.
I was working the opening shift on a Tuesday morning in November. I was on the express lane, one of three cashiers. I'd been on the register for about an hour when an older man showed up. He was bald, with a gray beard, an earring, and glasses. His shirt sleeves were rolled up a bit, showing some tattoos on each arm. We exchanged the typical pleasantries. Unlike other customers, however, when he asked how I was doing, I felt as though he was asking sincerely, not just making small talk. I also had the sense that he wasn't flirting. He was really engaging in conversation with me. It was unusual.
He looked at my name tag. A very brief, wistful look came over his face. He smiled a somewhat melancholy smile, took his change, picked up his bag, and said, "I hope you have a lovely day full of joy and happiness." "You too sir," I said automatically. Suddenly, I had a sense of déjà vu, triggered by that phrase. Had I read it somewhere? As he walked away, I remembered where I had heard those words before. It was the last message Sebastian had sent me. "No, there's no way...," I said to myself. Coincidence? I didn't put much stock in coincidence. But there was no other explanation. Right? That question nagged at me the rest of the day.
Three days later, I was working mid-day, noon to six. I was back on the express lane at the start of my shift, and it was really busy. It was busy enough that I never really looked at who was in line, just focusing on the person in front of me. When the current customer left, I just raised my hand and said "next." For the tenth time that day, I followed this little ritual.
"Hello Hal, how are you today?" It was him again. He said my name with a degree of familiarity that surprised me. "I'm well thank you, how are you?" "Well enough," he replied. My head spun — that too was something Sebastian said to me in text messages. It meant something special to him, and it was so quirky that I couldn't believe too many people said that exact thing.
He went on. "Hal, if I behaved a bit oddly the other day, I apologize. You see, your name reminded me of someone of whom I was very fond, but we lost contact about four years ago. You put me in mind of her when we met here."
"Oh," I said. "Were you close?"
"I'd rather like to think so. However, the way things broke off, I can't be sure. I seem to have unintentionally caused some offense." He spoke the way Sebastian wrote.
I didn't feel I could come right out and ask his name, so I pretended that I needed to see the last four digits of his card. He handed it to me, and I looked at the name. His first name was Sebastian. I don't know what happened to my expression, but he very clearly noticed whatever it was. His face showed concern as he asked, "Hal? Are you OK? Is something wrong?"
I gestured for the shift supervisor and asked if I could be relieved for a little bit. My supervisor threw an almost evil look toward the man standing at my register. "Sure, Hal. Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, I just need a few minutes."
