My Dear Stranger (16 page)

 
When Patrick was finally ready to release, Stephen seemed to sense it and he stopped kissing me.  While Stephen was looking at his boyfriend, I was mesmerized by the look on Patrick's face.  He looked so different than my stranger did in this moment of release. 

 
He looked beautiful and peaceful, or like content.  Maybe because this wasn't back arching screaming sex he didn't look like my stranger did during His intense releases, or maybe Patrick never looked like that upon release.  I didn’t know.  I had been with my stranger and I had the bad time, both which looked so different to me.
  And thankfully Patrick had the sense to look at me as he released and not at his boyfriend, which would have humiliated me I think.  Actually, I'm sure had he been looking anywhere other than at me, the sense of uselessness and loneliness would have been so complete as to throw me over the proverbial edge.  But he didn't.  He smiled at me, leaned in, and kissed my lips as he had his orgasm.
  Shuddering after his release, he didn't flop on top of me, or even say something stupid and pointless.  He merely leaned down and turned us so we were spooning.  Rubbing his chest against my back he cupped my right breast in his left hand more like a comforting caress than a sexual act, and then he whispered, 'I love you Sadie, and I'm glad I could be with you.'  And that was it.
  Stephen left the bed, walked to Patrick's side, presumably to remove the condom from Patrick and he left the two of us alone.  Patrick pulled the covers up over us, and unbelievably I fell asleep soundly, quickly, and without the constant pain in my chest I lived with each and every night of my life.

 
Hours later, I woke up to Patrick still asleep in bed with me, and no other sound in my apartment so I fell back asleep for another few hours.
  Waking again around 11:30, I actually had to shove Patrick to get him out of my bed, which he did, eventually.  And as he walked out of my bedroom, he didn't say a word, which was good because I had a feeling words were going to mess with my head and cause my sudden peace to crash down all around me. 

 
When I heard my alarm disengage, I wondered about Stephen until I heard them quietly talking in my hallway as they closed my door.  Unbelievably, Stephen must have slept on my couch to leave me and Patrick alone.  Unbelievably, they had both made a kind of love to me that night.  And unbelievably, I felt warmth deep inside me for the first time in years.
  So when Patrick yelled from my door he'd see me later for dinner, I smiled.  I didn't feel awkward, and I didn't feel like we had made a mistake that we could never come back from.  More amazing still, I didn't feel like my life was going to be over soon, nor did I feel the soul-consuming depression I lived with constantly, in that moment.

  And we were fine.  Patrick came back over around 6:00 to make dinner in my apartment. 

 
Walking in, he leaned over the back of my couch and kissed my cheek, as I lay snuggled up in a blanket.  Then he prepared dinner for us.
  And I remember walking into my dining room thinking 'here we go...' when he called me for dinner, but Patrick smiled at me and asked instead, “Do we need to talk about last night?” And shaking my head no, we didn't say another word about the night we kind of made love together as friends.
  And even now when I think back, I realize Patrick really was a little miracle to me at that time.  Remembering how handsome and charismatic and charming he was makes me ache with missing him.  To this day, when I think of my Patrick, my heart breaks when I remember our sudden end.
 

CHAPTER 15

 
3 months after the bizarre night I had sex with Patrick, which was 3 months after the miscarriage, which was 4 months after Him, I entered Patrick’s apartment for my morning coffee.  He and I had an open door policy for food and coffee, so I helped myself once in a while.
  Walking to Patrick's counter, I saw his thesis.  And I don't know why- maybe it was fated. Maybe I was meant for this.  Or maybe I was just nosey.  I don’t know why, but I looked at his thesis with pride.
  Opening the first page I read the dedication to SMA- my initials, and I was so surprised, I smiled instantly as I snatched it up.  After the title followed a 2 line synopsis.
  'The Story of S' was the title, and that’s when I knew. 
  'The Story of S- A tragic tale of a woman drowning in misery through years of undiagnosed mental health issues, suffering through life with Borderline Personality Disorder.' 

 
This was me.  Sadie Madeline Adams.  I was ‘The Story of S’.

 
Running for my home, I took Patrick's thesis and I grabbed my purse and fled my apartment.  Unsure of what I was doing or where I should go, I drove hysterically to a park near the high cliffs of our city.  I drove to the edge, and sat on the edge, while I lived on the edge, holding my story in my shaking hands.
 

 
And so I read.
  And it was all there, too.  Everything.  From my rape right after I moved into my apartment, to last month’s crying jag over the rigatoni I had burned.  Everything was there, and I realized I had been an experiment, and a test.  I was his 4 year PhD thesis.
  I read things from his perspective.  I read things from my perspective.  I read things from an objective perspective.  I read everything.  And I WAS a woman drowning in misery.
 

 
Hours passed as I sat on the edge with my legs dangling, looking at my life from this new perspective. 
  To say I was devastated is an understatement.  To say I was hurt means nothing compared to the despair I felt that day.  To say I was embarrassed is also an understatement.  I was humiliated, and I was destroyed.  Plain and simple.
  I was 'The Story of S' and I couldn't function as I sat on the cliff.
  Reading pages and pages of me was stunning.  Literally, I was stunned by Patrick's observations and insights.  I was amazed by how much manipulation actually occurred between he and I in those last 4 years.  I was simply stunned reading the story of me.
  So I read and reread for 9 1/2 hours the history of those last 4 years of me...
  By 5:30 I was done all but the last chapter.  But for some reason I was waiting to read that chapter.  For some reason I thought my last chapter would be important, so I waited.

 
Eventually, I stood and stretched my aching body as I walked back to my car at the cliffs.  I drove completely numb to a corner store nearby.  Once there, I bought a pack of smokes and a dreadful coffee, then I returned to my spot on the cliffs.
  My cellphone had been shut off hours before when Patrick had called but I refused to listen to my voicemails.  I was homeless and alone.  I couldn't return to my apartment, and I didn't know what to do.  I was utterly alone.  Again.
 

 
Walking back to my cliff-side perch, I lit a cigarette with remarkably steady hands, sipped my gross coffee, and picked up Patrick's thesis for the grand finale.
  And after previously reading his opinions and views of me, I thought little could shock me.  I thought there was little else that could hurt me.  I thought, what could he possibly write that he hadn't already written?
  But I was wrong.
 

 
Flipping to the final chapter I was again stunned by the graphic descriptions of me and my life.  From his observations of my neurotic tendencies, to borderline agoraphobia, to suicidal tendencies to my complete lack of trust in anyone, Patrick nailed me.
  Patrick painted a picture, or rather wrote a thesis, describing the most pathetic woman that had ever existed.  Patrick painted me as the most weak-minded, mentally unstable person walking around unmedicated and free of psychiatric assistance ever.
  Patrick painted me as a complete lunatic capable of nothing in this world except for a complete decline into madness and depression.
 

 
In chapter format with subtitled text, he gave a psychiatric condition followed by endless examples of how I fit within the definition of said condition.  And he told everything. 
  I was stunned.  There were so many psychiatric terms mentioned, and though I knew the definition and example of almost every one of his descriptions, admittedly there were a few which stumped me.
   Suicidal, depressive, neurotic, borderline personality disorder, emotionally unstable personality disorder, social anxiety, social psychosis, etc., I understood all too clearly. 

 
Fits of self-mutilation and excessive alcohol addiction I understood as well.  Inability to relate to others was another I knew, and agreed with totally. 

 
He described how I felt emotions more easily, more deeply, and for longer than most others do.  Therefore, he wrote, I have a harder time getting over situations which most people could get over or move past, quicker and easier, causing me to suffer an abnormal amount of time over one specific crisis than the majority would.  He even gave percentages and references of the things that occurred to me as basis for his conclusions.
  And it was all there.  Everything... well, except for the sex.

 
Amazingly, though I had lived under a microscope for 4 years and had all my mental inadequacies highlighted for purpose of a PhD in Psychology; evidently, Patrick did leave out how he and I had had sex while his partner looked on and aided in our debauchery.  I figured
that
little fact probably wouldn't have sat well with his Psychology professors. 

 
He wrote of my miscarriage as another example of my inability to cope with my outside world, and as an example of my sexual promiscuity because of my lack of social morals and inability to recognize social norms and practices as pertains to relationships. 

 
And that’s when I finally lost it.  Reading the part about my ‘promiscuity’ made me laugh.  Actually, I laughed out loud sitting on my cliff thinking of the 2 men I had ever willingly had sex with for which he was one of them. 

 
I found it hilarious that he said I was promiscuous when I had only ever slept with 2 people my entire life, yet he slept with 2 different people every weekend for the 4 years I had known him. 

 
At that point I had hoped he embellished slightly so that he could simply use another example to pad his thesis, because no one would ever call a 23 year old who had sex with one man, and one friend
once,
a promiscuous woman.  At least I didn't think so.
  Anyway I read my story until the last sentence.  I read with an amazingly clear head and with a complete lack of emotion.  I wasn't crying or hysterical anymore.  I wasn't dying or thinking up new ways to die.  I was just a woman reading a very interesting thesis on a sad, pathetic stranger... Until the very end.
  And then I lost it.
  Patrick went on to describe the depth and very problematic degree of my delusions as based on my alleged sexual relation with an ‘imaginary’ man.  He went on to describe how I would look and speak and act after my supposed affairs with my imaginary lover.  Patrick described seeing me post delusion and almost believing
himself
that a sexual act had occurred, based on the physical signs, and even scents which accompanied these delusional relations.  He went on to describe the nightmares and dreams I had, culminating in sleep walking and sleep talking about an alleged stranger who came to me in the night. 
  Patrick wrote of the confusion he himself felt after my nightly confessions in my sleep about a beautiful stranger who came to me in the night.  He spoke about the depth of my delusion, bordering on schizophrenia, but only as it pertained to my sleeping issues and inability to mentally shut down in my sleep, often causing a sleep-deprived temporary psychosis. 
  And there it was.  My dear stranger as a delusion.  A great delusion I’d spent 7 years suffering through, according to Patrick and his thesis.
 

 
Patrick finished his thesis by basically saying if I lived another 5 years he would be surprised because I was so emotionally and mentally unstable.  Patrick didn't believe it possible someone as weak-willed and emotionally unstable as I was could possibly live much longer than that. 
  He stated that though he would watch and do what he could to help me, with a complete absence of sentimentality, Patrick had faced my inevitable decline and probable death from a variety of suspects. 

 
He even gave hypothetical examples starting with my easy suicide, to a delusional accidental death, and ending with an alcohol related overdose because I drank excessively and alone. 
  He seemed so objective and heartless in his assumption of my death, I found myself as heartless and unemotional reading it.  I read everything amazingly with an almost clinical objectivity.  I read it all like it didn't pertain to me, except for the part about my dear stranger, because that was where my objectivity ended.
 

 
So I closed the thesis and sat with my cold coffee and half pack of cigarettes and tried to understand, or rather digest, everything he said about me.
  I was finished the 'The Story of S' and I desperately needed to understand where I went from that point forward.  So I sat, and thought, and smoked. 
 

 
Eventually I walked back to my car at dusk and wrapped a blanket around myself and grabbed another safety knife from my trunk, but I honestly was clueless.  I didn't know how to proceed from there.  I didn't know what I should do, but I knew I couldn't do it from my home.
  After falling asleep briefly, I heard people playing outside my car, probably teenage lovers and their friends hanging out, so I started my car and drove to the last place I thought I would ever go- my parents’ house.
  Pulling into the driveway, I was surprised to see my mom on the porch having a cigarette.  I just stopped still and stared while she smiled at me and shrugged.  I stared and eventually smiled back.
 

 
“You're dad doesn't know I smoke when I'm stressed, so please don't tell him, okay?” She grinned.
  “No problem,” I grinned back and lit my own smoke.
  Sitting on the porch I asked if we could go to the backyard which she agreed to.  Walking through the side gate there was a very heavy silence all around us, and I didn't know where to begin.
 

 
“What's going on Sadie?  Patrick has called like ten times, and he said you took off and he was worried, and he said he really needed to talk to you and explain everything.  He even told your dad he was worried you might hurt yourself, which freaked him right out.”
  “Where
is
dad?” I asked instead of answering her.
  “He's driving around looking for your car.” Waving her hand outward and shaking her head she smiled, “And I know it's weird that he thinks he can find one little silver car in a city as big as this one, but that's all he could think to do since your phone was off.”
  Smiling and looking at my lap, I realized that felt good.  My dad cared enough to drive around aimlessly looking for me which was really sweet.
  “I would've gone too, but I was holding down the fort in case you came here and needed me,” she said as I quickly looked up into her pretty green eyes.
  “I'm okay.  I just had a major shock today, and my
friend
Patrick isn't such a good friend, and he betrayed me and I'm hurt and I hate him, and I will honestly never speak to him again as long as I live.  That's all,” I mumbled.
  Suddenly laughing, my mom mumbled, “...that's all,” as I laughed too.  That did sound fairly dramatic, even for me.
  “I really do NOT want to ever see him again, so can I stay here tonight, and then go to my apartment with dad tomorrow and move some stuff out for a little while until this blows over.  But I promise I won't stay here long.  I'll get an apartment real soon, but I just need to stay away from Patrick until I can move away and guarantee I never see him again.  Is that okay?  I don't mean to intrude, but I have nowhere else to go.”
  Looking at me, my mom took my hand and rubbed her thumb back and forth across my knuckles.  Looking at our hands, I remember wanting to cry so badly, but I fought emotion in front of my mother.  That was never her thing- emotions or tears.
  “Sadie, you don't have to ask us permission to say here.  Ever.  This is your home too for as long as you need it.  Honestly.  And you know I don't lie or give fake smiles and empty words.  I'm too direct for that.  But what are you going to do?  What do you want to do?”
  “Just like I said.  I'll ask dad to take me home tomorrow so I can pack a few things.  I'm changing my locks so Patrick can't get it, and then I'm moving on.  I do NOT want him in my life for a minute longer.  He used me, but I don't want you to ask how, okay?”
  “Okay.  But you can tell me anything.  I'm really terrific with other people's drama.  You can tell me or ask me anything.”
  “No, I can't.  At least not yet.  But I might, just not today.  I'm so tired, I'm going to pass out.  Do you mind if I just go to bed now?”
  “Go ahead.  I'll call your dad and let him know to come home.  Go to sleep, honey.” And in that moment my mother actually leaned forward and hugged me, which was very awkward for me.
  Panicking, I jumped up and replied quickly as I turned to enter the kitchen sliding doors, “Thanks.  But NO Patrick, okay?  Promise me.  I really will never forgive him for this, so I need you to promise you’ll keep him far away from me, okay?”
  “I promise.  No Patrick, ever.”
  “Thanks.  Um, and good night mom,” I almost choked because it felt so weird to feel like my mother had my back then.
  “Night Sadie,” she spoke as I darted for the stairs.