After I walked out on him in the restaurant, the first time I saw Grant’s car parked on our street late at night, I picked up the phone and came very close to dialing. I would have called Natalie, not Bonnie, even though I knew I would end up calling Bonnie too after Natalie helped me build up my courage. I was totally unnerved. But I didn’t call. I’m trying to be cool about it, but I’m scared. I mean who wouldn’t be. Grant’s stalking me. I began thinking about going back; I actually wanted to.
But I’m trying to think it through, problem-solve the way they teach us at school. I have a lot at stake. Going back would be huge. These months of being on my own have made me think a lot. If I’m not ready, stepping back into the Valley will be like falling into the abyss—“the valley and the shadow,” from the Bible. I have to go back strong enough to “fear no evil,” which means standing up to Bonnie and making her tell me the truth about my real dad, and telling her what I really think about Sterling and church and politics, and what I feel about life.
Strange as it may sound, I’m just as afraid of going back to my old life and pretending to be someone I’m not as I am of anything Grant could do to me. At least, in his twisted way, Grant is being honest now.
If I can’t go back to Bonnie and Sterling strong enough to come out of the closet, so to speak, it will be worse than if I had just stayed in there, because I’ve broken all the rules. It took strength to confront Grant about being straight with me, and I got what I asked for, a more honest relationship. Now I know where I really stand, and even though he totally creeps me out, I know who he really is. I got myself into this, by being stupid and by being brave, and I’m trying to handle it like an adult and find the best way out.
Sometimes when I’m lying in bed and I have the feeling that he’s out there, my mind bounces around inside my skull like a trapped bee. My imagination runs wild with possibilities. There are plenty of true stories, and a lot of them happened near enough to cut through any sense of safety-by-distance I might try to create. Besides Ted Bundy and that Green River guy, who had a wife and a regular job and still killed dozens of girls, there’s that pig farmer guy in Vancouver who killed women and fed the bodies to his pigs, and those sniper guys who killed people in Seattle because of the older guy’s bad marriage. So I lie in bed trying to guess what Grant is thinking. Every sound and every shadow that moves make my heart pound.
Sometimes I’m so scared I cry, and sometimes I get really angry and plot ways to reverse the situation. I’ve been told all my life that when I’m in danger, I’m supposed to “get help,” like there was a Batman or a Zorro out there for all of life’s problems. When I started cutting myself, I knew it wasn’t normal and I tried to think of an adult who could show me where to “get help.” I thought a lot about whom I could tell, but there really wasn’t anyone.
You’d think a school counselor might be a good option, since they’re supposed to be trained to handle emotional stuff. Mrs. Tollefson is nice enough, and great when it comes to helping you think about a career or what college to go to, but if I had told her, it would immediately have gotten back to Bonnie and Sterling. Mrs. Tollefson would have assigned me to some shrink, which might not have been bad if it was the right person, but since Bonnie and Sterling would know, it would have gotten even more stressful. It would be like being in a war and telling your secrets to your enemy so they could use them against you, like me asking Grant to help me figure out how to protect myself against him.
I thought about telling Mr. Smith by writing about it in my journal. He at least didn’t feel like the enemy, but he told us at the beginning of the year that he’s required by law to report anything we write about being abused or about things that might endanger us, including suicide, and he could get fired if he doesn’t, so that would have been just like going to Mrs. Tollefson.
I’ve run my options through my mind. If I was still in the Valley with nothing to lose, calling the police would be my first thought. What if I call the police? It will mean answering a lot of questions and filling out forms. As soon as I pick up the phone, I might as well be calling Bonnie too. So I have to consider that and be prepared for it, but that’s not the biggest problem. Grant hasn’t done anything illegal. He hasn’t threatened me. He hasn’t tried to break into my house. He just makes himself visible at times and in ways that scare me.
He doesn’t park on our street every night and when he does, he doesn’t stay all night, but he does it at times that I’m likely to see the car. It gives me the willies. I get this feeling that I’m being watched sometimes while I’m riding my bike to or from work, and I’ve quit going to the park altogether. I hang out with Ian and Char and their friends as much as I can, which I’m sure they think is a little strange, but they’ve been good about it. I try to stay in public places when I’m alone. I know he follows me. I see his car way too often. Sometimes it’s parked near the restaurant.
Now he’s started actually coming in, getting a table and ordering food when I’m on shift. He doesn’t stare at me or do anything obviously creepy. He doesn’t pretend he doesn’t know me either, which would scare me more. In fact, he’s polite, but his eyes are cold. He calls me by name and treats me the way someone would if he was a regular customer. He tips exactly eighteen percent.
So, if I call the cops, what would I tell them? When my imagination runs wild I get really scared, and I’ve had the phone in my hand more than once. I imagine the conversation going either of two ways. I could get a nice lady cop who would be all sympathetic. I could just tell her the story, and she would let me know that I had been a little stupid, but she would be understanding, even though I couldn’t tell her that I wouldn’t have gotten into the car with him that first day except for all the good luck I was having with people. The nice lady cop I imagine wouldn’t want to know my life history or see my ID, but she still would end up saying that since Grant hadn’t done anything yet, there wasn’t much the police could do. She would start a file and maybe send a patrol car down my street once in a while.
The other extreme would be some pushy guy like Sterling who would want my life story and would make me feel like an idiot, which I don’t need because I feel that way already.
So it’s kind of strange. If Grant doesn’t kill me and throw my body in the Strait or turn it into pellets and feed it to the geese in the park or something like that, there is a good side to all this. There was that moment in the restaurant, the moment of truth, so to speak. I was brave and didn’t back down, and even though I had help from the cider, I did what Natalie does all the time: I said what I thought. I was really scared, but I went through with it anyway, and I’m proud of myself even if it did make my life worse.