Purified - Bennoda

Chapter Five

I woke up feeling more tired than I had before I tried to sleep, noticing Mike still wasn't back. Pushing the nightmare aside that sends chills down my spine, I remember Mike wanted me to call him. Grabbing my phone off the nightstand, I tried giving him a call, but it didn't go through. I tried again, then figured his phone must be dead. Tossing my phone aside, I start getting lost in thought.

I'm unsure why I'm suddenly having these nightmares - memories - about Charlie. As a kid, I always had nightmares about my loved ones or myself dying because of my fear of death. Once I accepted death and stopped being afraid of it, those nightmares were replaced with Charlie. Falling into insomnia, I submitted to drug abuse in order to stop the terrible dreams. When I joined Linkin Park and our first album did wonderfully, I quit using and the nightmares stayed away - perhaps because of how happy I felt at the time. Maybe the joy had worn out and I was still deeply horrified by Charlie. It's not like he left me alone after the abuse stopped, so maybe the persistence he held after was still getting to me.

We went to the same school and he was only a few years older than me, so I saw him nearly everyday after the abuse stopped when I was ten and moved out of the neighborhood. Charlie kept trying to talk to me, asking to hang out, but I finally felt free for the first time in all my life, I refused to let him take power again, but he didn't quit attempting to get close to me. He would repeatedly approach me and act like we were friends, no matter how much I ignored him. My first year into high school, I took art as an extra class and of course Charlie ended up in the same hour. The first year of art, he would stare at me most of class time and glaring at the friends around my table. He ended up befriending one of my other childhood friends from the same neighborhood and would loudly talk to them when I was around, like he was trying to make me jealous.

Apparently his first attempt to win me over failed, because the next year I took art and he happened to be in the same class as me again. This time, while I was trying to sit by myself since I had no friends in the hour, he would sit as close to me as possible, our knees would be touching. He started drawing me pictures - like of my name or something to do with my favorite band - and pushing me to stay the night. I could tell he wasn't going to stop bothering me, so I caved, thinking maybe things were different since it had been a few years.

We went to his place and it looked extremely different. It wasn't so cold and dark, the shades were even open, and it was clean. His mother was awake and home, actually doing stuff around the house and his bedroom looked more mature. We went out and got pizza, the first time he ever really offered me food, I really thought he changed. I didn't even think it was weird when he asked if I wanted to share his bed, but I still took on the floor. He gave me blankets and pillows, offering more if I needed, he seemed to have really changed his tune. The next day, he exposed himself, that he hadn't gone through some transformation and became a better person from it. He started talking about how I looked while I slept and started being creepy again. Wishing his change was true, I honestly just ignored the strange comments.

His odd behavior continued in art class throughout the rest of the year. I would switch tables, sit by other people, but Charlie would continue to sit next to me. Once he even pulled an entire table next to mine, almost squishing my fingers in the process, just to get that spot. Eventually, I got fed up and switched hours - a week later, Charlie left the school. He did plenty more strange stuff while we were in school, but I thought it would all be over after graduation. I was wrong.

At all of my jobs after graduating high school, Charlie would happen to come in one day and then suddenly start coming in more and more after seeing I worked there. When I was working fast food, he'd be going through the drive-thru and see I was running a register inside and proceed to come in after getting his meal, just to talk to me while I awkwardly stood there, struggling to respond. At the gas station, he would pump gas and then sit in his car and stare at me through the window. When I had the grocery store job, he would circle around the isles I was stocking, like a shark around its prey.

One of those occasions, he mentioned he would often drive by the park I spent most of my free time with my friends. He would see them around without me and either ask where I was or give them death stares. He even snapped at one of my friends who tried talking to him. None of my friends liked him, even the friend Charlie basically stole from me to try and make me jealous.

My friend, Sean, was unfortunately my replacement to Charlie, though he didn't tell me if he'd done the same things to him. I would start hinting at what Charlie did to me, but he'd push it away instantly or refuse to talk about it. Their friendship made me feel more guilty about not saying anything about Charlie sooner. One day, I ran into Sean again and he seemed happier than usual.

He explained him and Charlie shared dorms when they went to college, even though in the past Sean told me how annoying he thought he was - it caught me off guard. When he came out as gay and informed Charlie he had a boyfriend, their friendship immediately fell apart. Charlie grew incredibly angry at Sean, to the point where my friend moved out and left the dorm. Sean filled me in on some of the creepy things Charlie did - like having a stash of Sean's underwear in his room - and it truly angered me.

I feel immensely guilty about what happened between them, wishing I warned Sean from the beginning. I was struggling with many different things after I got away from Charlie that I couldn't stop them from being friends. I'm not sure I would've been able to stop them, but I should've tried. I thought after his fallout with Sean, Charlie would give up on talking to me. I was wrong once again.

When Facebook came out, I shouldn't have made an account. He added me and I was curious about what he was up to, so I ignorantly accepted. He started messaging me and it was normal until he said something about the "poke" feature on Facebook meant wanting to have sex and started poking me everyday. I ignored them and after about a year, when I finally realized I needed to block him, I noticed he never stopped poking me and I had a long list of pokes just from him. After blocking him, I started getting practically identical messages from recently made profiles. I'm unsure if Charlie was trying to catfish me, but what he had already done to me online was enough to keep me away from the internet for the most part.

Sometimes I can't believe how many times I went back to him, wanting to believe he changed. I mostly just wanted to forgive him, let the past go, and move on, but I think he missed hurting me - that is probably what scares me to this day.  I'm miles away from him, it's been years since we spoke, and yet it still doesn't feel over. I'm afraid its never really been over and all those times I felt free, I was actually living an illusion. During and even after high school, he kept tabs on me and making inappropriate comments. What if he never stopped keeping track of me and having his disgusting thoughts?