Marissa was like an amazing older sister, and she helped me begin to heal. She held me while I cried and promised me that I could get through it. When I told her that I felt guilty and dirty, felt like it was my fault for not begging the nurse not to let him take me from school that day, Marissa told me in no uncertain terms that nothing could be further from the truth. My father was responsible for his actions, not me. She had also confided in me that she’d been horrifically and repeatedly raped and brutalized by her stepfather for almost two years before she was taken and placed into foster care. Marissa gave me the first nickname I’d ever had, and I thought it made me feel loved.
“You’re such a tiny little slip of a thing, I can’t help but to call you Minnie!”
She told me over and over again how happy she was to have a real girl friend. “My sister, Leah, is my other half but I’ve never had a best friend before.”
That was one more thing that Marissa and I had in common, because my best friend had always been my sister. Suddenly I had a life outside of my family and I felt stronger and independent. She told me that I made her feel stronger too, explaining to me that she had a little sister named Issa that was my age whom she hadn’t seen since the day she was removed from her home and placed into foster care.
I couldn’t believe that Marissa’s mother had chosen to fight to keep one daughter but not the other. Marissa believed that was because her sister was ‘good’ and that nothing dark was inside of her. Her mother had let it be known that she supported her husband and was going to wait for him to get out of jail so that he could reunite with her and their daughter, and it messed with Marissa’s head terribly that her mother had chosen the man that had brutalized her instead of choosing her.
It seemed to help both of us that we could confide in each other, and Marissa took it upon herself to get us both to move forward. She spent hours poring over self-help books and writing notes in her journal, telling me that Cognitive Behavior modifications were the way for us both to go.
“Minnie, almost all of these books agree that we make our own reality by the way we think about things. If we believe we deserve bad things, bad things continue to happen. That means we need to start thinking differently. Even though we’ll kind of be faking it at first, these books say we need to change the way we see things. Let’s start acting like we aren’t terrified of every touch from another person. We’re going to condition ourselves to think differently.”
Being with Marissa gave me hope for the future for another reason; she was married. She adored her husband and talked about him non-stop. Everything was “Dillon this” and “Dillon that”. I knew that Marissa had a lot of issues with physical intimacy, knew that they didn’t have a sexual relationship, but still it gave me hope that she’d found someone to marry her regardless of that. He knew about her abuse because they’d been in foster care together for years before they got married, and I found beauty in the fact that he married her when she asked, even though it had to have been a difficult decision to marry someone who couldn’t stand to have a traditional relationship.
The first time that I met him, I was flabbergasted by how handsome he was. It was embarrassing that my heart skipped several beats when he shook my hand, and I felt like I’d just been punched in the stomach. For the first time ever I actually wanted to kiss and touch someone, but the person my body had chosen to respond to was the worst possible choice. Marissa had become my closest friend and confidante, so drooling over her husband was entirely inappropriate and I felt horribly guilty about it.
The moment that he had reached out and took my hand in his is something that I will never forget. I felt a frisson of energy the second he touched my hand, but more than that, there was a sense of comfort. He was solid, the epitome of strength. I know I blushed like a foolish child as Marissa finished the introduction, and I only came back to earth when I realized that I was still holding onto his hand. Hastily pulling my hand from his grasp I had smiled and told him that it was nice to meet him. His answering smile and warm assertion that he was delighted to meet me made my stomach drop to a spot somewhere below the Earth’s crust. Put simply, he was magnificent, and my heart skipped several beats every time I thought about him.
I drove myself crazy wondering why Dillon was different than every other guy. What made him stand out? He was ruggedly handsome and had a body to die for because he worked outside all day doing landscaping, but that couldn’t be the reason I was attracted to him since I saw hot guys all day at school and everywhere else I went and they barely registered in my brain. LA was hot guy central, so it wasn’t like Dillon should have stood out amongst the crowd, but to me, he did. He had a voice that would melt butter and the way he smelled made my heart go wild in my chest. I spent far too much time watching the way he walked and cataloguing his likes and dislikes. I knew that he chewed cinnamon gum like it was going out of style, knew that he always had his iPod with him because he loved music, knew that he preferred being outside as opposed to indoors, and I knew without a doubt that he was the most unique man I’d ever met.
Not even my brothers treated women as well as Dillon did. He was never short or abrupt, and there was nothing about him that spoke of a violent nature. My issue with being touched by men paled in comparison to Marissa’s, but Dillon always respected her boundaries. He never touched her unless she touched him first, and any time she pushed him away, he went without any kind of argument or play to make her feel guilty.
“Dillon is the only man I’ve ever felt comfortable around. I know that no monster lurks in him and I never have to worry that he’ll hurt me. He’s been my protector since the day we met and I can’t tell you how that’s helped me. He’s the only man I’ll ever feel safe enough to sleep in the same house with. He knows every wretched detail of what my stepfather did to me and he’s never once made me feel like I’m damaged. Before I met you, only two people in the world really knew me and loved me anyway. Dillon and Leah saved me, and now I’ve hit the lottery again and found a best friend who loves me too. Someday I hope I can return the favor.”
Dillon became a fixture at the bookstore, always dropping by to say hi to Marissa, bearing sweet treats, and always there was a treat for me too. He brought me the same thing every time, a pack of Starburst. If I hadn’t been addicted to them before, I would have been once Dillon started supplying me with them all the time. I wasn’t even sure how he knew that I loved them so much, but somehow he did.
It shamed me that I didn’t just want a guy that was like him, I wanted Dillon himself. He was so friendly and easy to talk to, even though the entire time I was near him I was freaking out inside about how attracted I was to him. He called me Minnie sometimes just like Marissa did, and it made me giggle inside like a little schoolgirl every time he did it.
The more that I was exposed to him, the better I did with managing my crush on him. I hoped that it was never obvious, prayed that I kept it hidden well. He was so easy to talk to and hang out with that I focused on how fun it was just to spend time with him. It was only later, at home or anytime I was alone, that I would think about the enormous crush I had on him.
As Marissa and I got closer, I started spending time on the weekends with her and Dillon. We’d hang out at the beach, go to the movies, go out to eat or visit museums. He was big on taking us to garden displays, always wanted to share his love of the earth with us. I think I spent hundreds of hours exploring the gardens of the greater Los Angeles area with them. I loved that there was never a moment when I was with Dillon and Marissa that I didn’t feel safe. Instead, I felt content and totally connected for the first time ever. I was part of a group that wasn’t my family, and it felt like I was finally on the road to a normal life. Instead of the discomfort that I felt when I hung out with friends from school, with them I never felt like I had to be something that I wasn’t in order to fit in.
Before the first time we spent time together as a group hanging out, Marissa pulled me aside and confessed that she had told Dillon that I was a freshman in college. “He’s super over-protective of me, and I’m not sure how he’d react if he knew I was hanging out with someone who’s still in high-school since I’m twenty-five and he’s almost twenty-four. He thinks you’re nineteen. Anyway, if he says anything, just go along with it.”
I didn’t think too much about it since I was a few months away from starting my senior year at that point and it wouldn’t be too long before I was a college freshman. I loved hanging out with both of them and I didn’t want to put up any roadblocks that would have made Dillon think of me differently. When I graduated high school we could tell him the truth-no harm, no foul.
At least that’s what I hoped. It bothered me to lie to him, even though the lie was one of omission. I had never directly told him that I was in college, had never discussed my age with him at all. But the fact remained that I was well aware of the fact that Marissa had lied to him on my behalf and I did nothing to straighten him out. The need to be around them both-okay, him since Marissa knew my age and didn’t care-outweighed my desire to be honest with him.
Marissa and I had talked extensively before we got married about what would happen if and when I found someone that I wanted to get physical with. She had been adamant about the fact that she didn’t want me to suffer.
“You’re not a monk, Dillon. Just because I can’t be touched that way doesn’t mean you need to be celibate. When you need to have sex, go have sex. I know it’s selfish of me to want to be married, even though I want no parts of the intimacy of a real marriage. I love you so much for agreeing to give this to me, but you always need to remember that I want you to be happy. Someday you’ll meet a girl that you can love who will love you and want you to touch her all the time. When that happens, I’ll step aside. We’ll be family forever, but I know that our marriage won’t be. This… well, it’s just for now, okay?”
I love Marissa so much that there isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for her, including signing up for a marriage that was never going to be physical. I’m sure it would sound completely messed up to anyone else, but I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. When you love someone, truly love them and everything that makes up the essence of who they are as a person, there is nothing that you won’t do to help them heal. Secretly I had hoped that marriage would give Marissa a boost of confidence, and I was thrilled that it seemed that I had been correct. The fact that she had opened herself up enough to have a best friend that isn’t Leah or me is huge.
Since the day I married her, I’ve hoped and prayed that someday Marissa will be able to open herself up enough to really let someone in. I want her to have a real husband and a family of her own, something that she creates in love. She’s so beautiful and loving, and she deserves a happily ever after. I’d made the mistake of telling her that once and her reaction was heartbreaking.
“You and Leah are my happily ever after, Dillon. You’re the only two people that have ever loved me. No one else would sign on for the horror show that I am inside. I’m damaged goods, horribly and unbearably broken. Anything that I had to offer, he took away from me. I see it, you know. Every single time I look in the mirror, I see how fucked up and dirty I am.”
I reached out as if to hug her, but she’d held out her hands to keep me away.
“This is exactly what I mean. I can’t even let you touch me, and there isn’t anyone in the world I love more. You just need to accept that I’m broken, Dillon.”
Shaking my head, I looked into her eyes and willed her to listen to my words, even though I knew that she never really heard anything positive about herself.
“Nothing you ever say or do can change the fact that I will never agree or accept that statement because it just isn’t true. You’re more than loveable, and any man would be lucky to have you. I’m lucky to have you in my life. You’re young, and there are many years ahead. You come out of your cocoon more every day. Don’t count yourself out. What you’re doing is working. You aren’t fucked up and you aren’t dirty. That’s bullshit that he told you to justify what he was doing. The problem was always him, never you.”
She’d left the kitchen crying after letting out a broken, “Thank you.”
I knew better than to bring it up again, and I didn’t.
For all of the conversations we had about it being okay for me to be physical with other people, I hadn’t done so. I’ve only had sex with one person. For eight months of my senior year I’d gone out with a girl named Jamie. We had sex pretty much anywhere and everywhere we wanted. Our relationship was your typical high school romance-low on substance, high on sex. We broke up amicably just before graduation and Marissa asked me to marry her not long after.
I’ve never broken my marriage vows. I knew the agreement was that I would be allowed to have sex if I wanted to, but it just didn’t feel right for me to cheat. I loved her enough to marry her, and the one thing I was damn sure of was that sex wasn’t the most important thing in the world. My dick wasn’t my guide-my conscience was.
Besides, staying celibate really wasn’t that hard. I jerked off almost every day, sometimes more than once, but that was the end of it for me. It was what it was, and I had myself trained to think very little of sex, much less of being attracted to someone in a real way.
That worked for several years before the unexpected happened and Marissa became friends with a young college student at work.
I was over the moon happy that Marissa had a real friend. She talked about Dominique all the time; even her therapist said that it was a serious and positive life-changing event that Marissa had been able to let someone new in.
It was like a shock to the heart the day that I met Dominique for the first time. I’m not a fanciful or love letter type of guy but I swear to god, for a minute time stopped and the only person in the entire universe who existed for me was her. I felt as though when I took her hand in mine that there was a connection there, an invisible tether that caused me to hold onto her for longer than was necessary. Had the choice been mine I would have continued holding her hand for a lot longer than that.