Something bad and weird happened tonight.
I don’t know how to feel. I can’t stop shaking.
I live with her mom and her boyfriend. We’ve lived together since my sophomore-isn year of college -- so for about four or five years. I’ve always gotten along well with her boyfriend. I’ve known him since I was fourteen. He’s very much a father to me. We have a very teasing relationship.
It’s been hard around home with Darby being so sick (we probably have a few weeks left with her, at most). Everyone’s very emotional and upset. Mom and I are dealing in our own ways. Her boyfriend isn’t really dealing at all.
Tonight, I was playing with Darby (who was happy to play back), and I could tell mom’s boyfriend was getting agitated. He kept trying to steal her attention. When he gave up, he was looking around me to watch the TV. Following the rules of our playful relationship, I moved my head so that his vision was blocked. I was messing around; I made it obvious. Very suddenly, he stood up, crossed his arms on his chest and charged at me. He knocked into me once, then one more time, and then I yelled for him to stop as I stumbled onto the wall.
I had sudden flashbacks of when I used to run away from my dad. He would get mad at me for the smallest things, and he would get explosively angry. I would run and close my bedroom door, and he used to bang at it for minutes at a time, shouting at me, cussing at me, demanding that I let him in. I would cry. I felt the terror of those moments all over again.
I just stood there against the wall for a second, as my mom, who was sitting in the room the entire time, asked, “What happened? What just happened?” I said shakily, “I don’t know. I was just messing around and he came at me.”
I started to head back to my room before he said to me, “Well, I’m sorry. I won’t ever touch you again.” He was being childish, like I had provoked him into pushing me, and it was my own fault that I was upset.
So I said, “That really upset me. I don’t know what I did to deserve that.” And I started crying, hard. Mom came over to hold me. I was shaking. I’m still shaking. This happened two hours ago. Mom walked me back to my room, and I tried to calm down.
I’ve always had trouble with any sort of physical intimacy. I can cuddle with and hug my mom and Darby, but that’s generally where I draw the line. I have a hard time hugging people or even casually touching them. I’ve tried to get better, but it’s something that I still struggle with. I often crave physical contact, but I find that acting on that craving or asking for contact is very difficult.
After about ten minutes, and a hushed discussion with my mom, he stood outside my door and apologized, saying he’d never interfere with me and Darby again. I was confused. I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t. He wouldn’t -- or couldn’t -- elaborate. He went to bed.
My left arm, where he rammed into me, feels disconnected from my body. I’m not hurt in any physical way. My arm is fine. But it feels like an alien appendage. It’s tingly and achy and foreign, all at once. It feels changed.
Mom came to talk to me again. She offered to pack us up and go to a hotel. She offered to end her relationship with him. She offered to move us out right then and there. I said no. She asked how I was feeling. I didn’t know how to respond. I don’t know what the future holds, so I don’t know how to feel about the present.