Twas Brillig

Our guest host for Soap Opera Sunday is Thalia’s Child. Be sure you link your SOS back to her so everyone can find the other posts. And be sure to enter your link into her list! And, from now on, the host of the week will be announced in my sidebar where you can all see it easily if you remember to look! Also, if you are interested in being the Guest Host one of these weeks, and you have not yet indicated thus, let me know!

This SOS is inspired by a question from Penny Lane (who does not leave her URL, so I can’t link back to her!) about whether or not I’ve ever had to call 911.

The answer is yes, I’ve called 911 once in my entire life! The story goes like this:

When I was in college, my roommate had a BFF, Kristi, who practically lived in our apartment, and I considered her both a roommate and friend. She was a bit of a follower and she got involved with a guy (who we’ll call Creepy Boyfriend) who took advantage of her and her easy-to-push-around-ness. She announced one day that they were in love and she was going to marry him, and in the meantime she was going to move in with him.

This was a rather alarming announcement, first of all because she was extremely religious and had always firmly believed that premarital sex was a sin. This sudden change from absolute chastity to moving in with her boyfriend was shocking.

But the other thing that concerned us was this weird, creepy, and completely intangible something about CB. We, Kristi’s friends, were all completely uneasy around him, but none of us could put our finger on why.

So, Kristi moved in with him. Months went by. She became withdrawn and when one actually managed to track her down, she would be bruised and full of detail-less stories of falling down. It didn’t take us very long to figure out what was going on. We sat her down and tried to make her feel as safe as possible so that she would talk about the obvious abuse. Once we cracked through the wall she put up, she poured out her misery and terror. We were there to hold her and cry with her, and then encourage her to get out.

She did decide to move out. She arranged her grand move for a time when CB would be out for a few hours. And so a couple of us girls asked a couple of our guy friends (including Ben—you remember Ben, right?) to come with us and help her get her stuff out—not only to have them help us carry stuff, but also because we figured they would be insurance should CB decide to come home unannounced.

Which he did.

He walked in and saw immediately what was going on. By then we were almost done with moving her stuff. CB sweetly grabbed Kristi’s hand and kissed it and begged to be able to talk with her alone for a minute. Ben and I said, “NO. No way.” But Kristi decided to anyway, and she and CB went into the bedroom together. Ben went to listen at the door, while the rest of us finished carrying out the last of her stuff. After I loaded the last pile into the van, I turned to go back in, but noticed that the curtain to the bedroom was slightly parted, so I stopped to peak in.

I watched him slam her angrily into the wall, knocking her head really hard against a door frame. Then I saw him push his hands up her skirt, and force her legs apart. She was crying hysterically and begging him to stop.

I instantly threw myself at the window, pounding and screaming like a mad woman, startling them both. I ran inside and found Ben with his hands all bloodied from trying to break down the bedroom door. Just as he had almost managed to get in, CB opened the door and flung Kristi out at us, as though she were a rag doll. One of the other girls held Kristi and helped her to the car, but I was in a psychotic rage. I literally wanted to kill him. As I ran after him, screaming who knows what, Ben grabbed me around the waste, lifting me off the ground while my limbs were all still trying to chase and attack. Ben calmly said, “let’s go home. Let’s go home.”

He was right, of course. What could I have possibly accomplished by attacking him?

So, we went home. And then we proceeded to push Kristi around. Looking back it’s funny because Kristi never actually made her own choices. CB pushed her into the relationship of abuse, and then we pushed her into getting out of it. I’m not sure she ever really learned anything, or if she even cared. She was just shoved from one way of thinking to another.

I still think we did the right thing, but I felt like I was being as big of a bully as CB had been. I’m not sure if there was a better way or if getting her out of the situation immediately was more important than doing it the right way or what.

So Kristi moved in with us, unofficially of course, and she filed a restraining order against CB. One day, I noticed his car in our parking lot—he was sitting inside his car, watching our apartment. This was a violation of his restraining order! So, for the first time (and last time, so far) I picked up the phone and dialed 911. The police showed up and chatted with him and they left—I’m not sure what happened after that.

I moved away from Cedar City soon after all of this, so I never heard the end of the story. I know that Kristi had been planning to file charges. I signed all sorts of testimony against CB about what I’d seen through the bedroom window that day, but I was never called or talked to again. I can only assume she dropped the charges. I don’t really know.

I would love to say that she is happy now, or that she’s strong, or that she’s figured out what she wants, rather than what everyone else told her that she wanted. But, again, I have no idea if any of that’s true. Here’s hoping.