It’s a typical weeknight at home; my mom and I are hanging out at the kitchen island, the gravitational center of our home. Correction: I’m shoveling my usual after-school spread of pita chips, hummus and salsa, and my mom is making dinner. We’re chatting, which often means I’m recounting my entire day in minute detail, and she’s listening loyally. Our dog, Sydney, orbits the island looking for fallen chips.
My mom and I have always been close, and I’ve been fairly open with her about my relationship with Henry. She knows most of my inner world, actually — which assignments I’m stressing over, who’s dating who in my class, any drama that arises. I like getting her opinion on these topics. She’s not a pushover, but there aren’t strict rules, either. My mom lets me go to late-night coffee, friends’ houses, and cross country pasta parties the night before races, as long as I always tell her where I’m going and when I’ll be home. She has always told me that I can call her, at any time, under any circumstances, and she’ll come pick me up, no questions asked.
I respect my parents a lot. They grant me a good deal of freedom, and in return, I don’t walk all over them. Throughout all of high school, I have never snuck out of my house. They treat me like an intelligent young woman, and I try to act like one.
While I can talk to my mom about almost anything, my mom and I have not talked very much about sex. I learned the word ‘sex’ in the fourth grade from friends, and when I got home from the playdate, my mom explained to me what it was. Sex to a fourth grader is gross and completely unfathomable. At the time, I thought parents begrudgingly had sex exactly as many times as they had children.
As I got older, my mom and I did have some nuanced conversations about sex, but not many. I once asked her what an orgasm was because I had learned the word; she told me it was something I would ‘just know’ when it happened. Another time, I mentioned something about blowjobs to her when we were on a long car ride, and she told me that I never had to give a blowjob if I didn’t want to. Instead of hearing the advice as I do now at thirty, my teen brain heard my mom isn’t cool, she’s maybe never given a blowjob, and all my cool friends at school talk about blowjobs like they’re a rite of passage — sorry, but Mom is out of her depth here. Hearing this made me begin to distrust her advice, at least where it came to relationships. Blowjobs felt like an inevitability in my life as a (then) straight woman. Although I’d never given one — never even seen a penis in real life before — I knew even then that it was something I would likely have to do to keep a man happy.
It’s a weird age to be a young person. I feel the opposing forces — the desire to share with my mom, to feel childlike and safe, and stay open with her, while at the same time, noticing where I pull away, where I distrust her judgement because of generational differences or because she just ‘doesn’t get it.’
Like always, though, even at the kitchen island, I’m having two conversations at once: I’m talking to my mom, of course, either complaining or bragging or gossiping (or all three simultaneously), and I’m texting my long-distance, Facebook-official boyfriend Henry two-thousand miles away and two hours ahead.
In a particularly smitten moment, as if in a sigh of ecstasy after he’d made me giggle about something, I wrote romantically, “I love you, Henry Allen.” We were big fans of using each other’s names — which, according to psychology, is actually a very potent dopamine drop. To me, it read even more beautifully than just, “I love you.” I love YOU, Henry. Specifically you.
Still smiling, I finished the thought I was sharing with my mom and looked back at my phone, ready for his usual sappy reply.
But Henry sent back only an ellipsis. …
…….
My eyes flicked back to my previous text, wondering what happened. What was I not understanding?
Shit. Allen’s not his middle name. It’s Alex. I’d mixed it up. Whoops.
I caught my mistake and corrected it. I apologized quickly; my bad! So sorry, love!
I thought my quick apology would be enough. I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal, to tell you the truth.
I remember this being the last time that I expected Henry to be able to brush past a mistake like it was the honest-to-God accident that it was. I remember telling my mom, in that conversation, what was happening. How he was getting super upset over it and now giving me the silent treatment. I double-checked myself with her: do you think it’s that big of a deal? My mom and I both agreed that it really shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. This was the first and only time I ever really allowed myself to believe that Henry was overreacting. I kind of wanted to roll my eyes at him. He was being a baby! C’mon, dude, I wanted to say. It was just an accident. We have something good going on here. Let’s not let this ruin our night.
It makes me cringe just to read back that line. Henry Allen. To relive what would become a familiar stomach-dropping feeling when I’d obviously said something wrong and couldn’t take it back. The pregnant pause. An ellipsis, an unhappy emoji — indirect communication that forced me to go back and find my error. It was demoralizing and paternalistic. Despite the entire conversation taking place on a pixelated screen, the feeling was so visceral, so full-body. Face falling, gut sinking, eyes widening, heart racing. No no no no no. He was crushed, he was hurt, he was bitter, he made a scene. It would require groveling, apologizing, and validating his feelings to coax him back into the man who greeted me with kissy-face emojis every morning.
Eventually, I left the kitchen where I was hanging out with my mom, locked myself in the guest bedroom, and pleaded with him, trying to make it right.
Don’t get me wrong—remembering details about your significant other is important. I feel seen when a partner remembers my coffee order (a dirty chai with oat milk) or my birthday (December 1st) or my mom’s name (Hi, Leslie). It is always nice to be seen, but we are humans, not robots, and we are forgetful, but we are still kind and good. Truthfully, I don’t have a great memory! I forget things often. This is forgivable!
I wonder about the influence of media cliches where women get angry at dopey husbands for forgetting anniversaries; “Forgotten Anniversaries” literally has its own TV Tropes Wiki Page. If the people on TV could get mad about their husbands’ forgetfulness, it somehow justified Henry’s anger with me each time I slipped up or forgot something.
563241.
That’s the order of Henry’s favorite Star Wars films, most to least favorite. I don’t even think I’d seen all the Star Wars movies yet (we would watch them all throughout our relationship per his request, and yes, I did get chastised for falling asleep during The Empire Strikes Back). I had always been on the Harry Potter side of nerd, and the Star Wars franchise had always confused me. I didn’t even really understand that the movies released in the 2000s were the prequels to the movies released in the 70s and 80s.
Honestly, I just didn’t really care about Star Wars and never had.
As Henry and I talked and talked, I had to start recognizing Star Wars terms. To this day, I only know what an AT-AT is or can picture Tatooine because Star Wars knowledge became a requisite part of keeping up with Henry. Henry was an absolute brainiac, frequently making allusions and references to past conversations, classic novels, or movies that I did my best to keep up with. It started getting hard to keep up with Henry. Once, to flatter me and my love of writing, he asked me to edit a high school essay he was turning in on Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The page requirement was ten pages; Henry had written 27. I edited all already-perfect 27 pages and had to Sparknotes the novel to even keep up with his nuanced interpretations.
Instead of texting him back right away with whatever came to mind first, as I had in the beginning of our relationship, I started to hover my fingers over the keyboard, thinking through the next right answer. I remember when he would text me in Spanish, complimenting me on being a good practice partner, and I would have to Google words he had used in order to reply. I remember deep down feeling grateful that he was so far away, because I needed a second to keep up with him. We had been walking side by side until now, and I was falling a step behind.
And I remember specifically disappointing him for not remembering which order he ranked all the Star Wars films; after forgetting once and feeling humiliated, I proceeded to write them down on a notecard. I even turned the notecard backwards on my desk, so that he would never see it—not even by accident on a Skype call. Seeing the effort I’d had to make to remember would hurt his feelings just as much as forgetting entirely. He would accept nothing short of me genuinely remembering everything about him. No notes—his was a closed-book exam.
563241.
Like a prisoner number. My very own 24601. I legitimately recited it to myself before I fell asleep so I wouldn’t forget the next time it came up. He was always testing me. All kinds of random facts about Henry were in my brain, from his phone number to the street he grew up on to his labradors’ names.
There weren’t just a handful of pink flags anymore. I was starting to weave and bob between them like an Olympic skier. But what I was losing was the sense I’d had that night when I messed up his middle name. No longer did I even expect or hope that he might be forgiving, someone who could shrug it off. Now, I expected it to become a Thing. I was trained for it. He had convincingly talked over the voice in my head that once said, “Dude, c’mon!”
It’s hard to describe what he was like when he was upset. I think the most painful part about it was that he never assumed that I meant well or remembered that I was a good person at my core. He took each ‘accident,’ each ‘mistake,’ as a personal blow intended to hurt him, as a sign that I didn’t love him enough. I know that intent isn’t everything; actions have consequences, and we have to apologize when we hurt people, whether we meant to or not. Much of the modern anti-racist movement depends on white people refocusing on our impact instead of our intent.
But he didn’t have to torture me. We don’t have to make people sit and squirm in their shame over mixing up a middle name. Each time he would get upset, it would cost me. Instead of focusing on my homework, my family, or my college apps, all had to be set aside until things were right with him again. It was time-consuming to rehabilitate our relationship. I started to walk on eggshells, praying I wouldn’t piss him off so I could focus on my doubles match, the road, my friends—all the other parts of my life. ‘Us’ became warped into me curating the version of myself that he would like best just so I could get through my day and keep up in school. Ironically, I became less and less myself just to keep the illusion alive.
At the time, I thought that these were typical fights that boyfriends and girlfriends had. Everyone said that long distance would be hard, and I thought this was precisely what they meant. I made excuses for him. The distance was weighing on him; it’s just because he misses me. His parents had yelled at him—he’s just upset right now. And he would say this, too! The normalization of people in relationships fighting made me think we were still doing everything right; the messiness was just because we were angsty teenagers still working out the kinks.
Back then, if you’d asked me hypothetically if those reactions were excessive, I’d probably say, ‘Yeah, a little.’ But when it’s real life, and it’s your first boyfriend, and you’ve hurt his feelings, and he’s so upset, and you should’ve just fucking remembered his middle name, and he remembered yours—well, you go to bed feeling like a monster, not a victim.
I had a growing list of rules to keep him happy. I didn’t call them rules. They were just adaptations that I made as I was becoming a better girlfriend. These, I figured, were learned things, and I didn’t have a lot of practice yet. Don’t forget things he tells you. Text back quickly. Text him before and while using any form of social media. Don’t make plans in case he wants to call you. Don’t mention other guys. Star Wars is really important to him. I was paid handsomely for my efforts in flirting and daydreaming and hearing someone tell me they love me every day. The reward was worth the occasional anguish.
The night of my senior prom, which I attended without a date since Henry was in Wisconsin, a big group of friends and I headed to a lake to take prom pictures. We took one full-group picture; there were easily more than twenty of us. All those with dates stood together in their color-coordinating dresses and tuxedos. For the sake of the symmetry of the picture, I was paired up with a random guy from the group who was also going stag. He stood behind me and put his hands on my waist in a long row of couples; parents snapped the picture; we smiled. I don’t even think that guy and I have ever had a one-on-one conversation together.
The minute after the paparazzi-parents had stopped flashing their cameras, my heart stopped. Oh my God. Henry is going to see this. I raced to where I’d stashed my phone, racing against the clock — I had to get to him before one of these overbearing parents posted that picture to Facebook and tagged me. He’d be shocked. He didn’t think I was going with anyone. I wasn’t going with anyone! Oh God, oh God, I panicked. If Henry sees this picture on Facebook before I have a chance to explain it to him, he’s going to ruin my prom night. He’s going to be destroyed. The jealousy would have been out of this world. And if I had said, “Can we talk about this later? I’m in the middle of prom and want it to be special,” I know the cold reply would have scolded me for choosing something as vain as prom over him, my soulmate.
Of course, in the irony of fucking ironies, because I got out ahead of the photo and warned him about it, he acted like it was no big deal. In fact, he acted like I was being a bit crazy for sending out such a warning, as if he was the last person to overreact to something like that. Who, him? Jealous? C’mon, Rachel.
That’s gaslighting, Henry Alex.
In a terrible case of the worst kind of irony, it so happens that the guy I randomly posed with in that prom picture likely assaulted a fellow student a few years later. No one pressed charges. So on prom night, I was in the virtual chokehold of Henry, standing in the foreign arms of a future perpetrator. That is what it’s like to grow up as a teenage girl in America today. All told, I still consider myself one of the lucky ones.
Despite the reddish-pink flags, I didn’t want to burst the bubble of the honeymoon phase by telling anyone what was going on. I wanted my friends and parents to like Henry. I’d even put him in a group chat with some of my friends. The individual incidents were still seemingly small. One forgotten middle name. A Tumblr page accidentally found. I could just remember the order of his favorite Star Wars movies; after all, it was important to him. Since our struggles were happening virtually, remotely, there was no one to notice how we looked together, how little sleep I was getting, or how much I had started crying when he was mad at me. Once, he was upset, and I wasn’t around, so he told me he went to a different girl with his problems. That one made me truly want to rip my heart out of my chest. From then on, I made myself more and more available to him to avoid ever feeling that level of pain again. It was merely him and I, in our text bubble universe, and it became so devastatingly lonely.
Before I even knew the term ‘mental health,’ mine was in decline. A year before, I’d felt a strange sadness at the end of my junior year of high school for the first time in my life. I would say I felt depressed. I was at the end-of-the-year tennis party, watching the girls around me laugh and joke, and I remember distinctly faking my smile for the photo.
Being Sad was kind of cool in its own way, and I leaned into that at times. I was sad. I was certainly not getting enough sleep. Tumblr post after Tumblr post romanticized depression. I wanted to be deep, and I wanted to be perceived as deep.
I watched with surprise as Henry very quickly improved my mental health in our early months and then, twice as fast, began to weigh me down. Began to sink my mental well-being and sap my life force
If you were to go through my school agenda from senior year, amongst the hearts and doodles of his name and football number every which way, you’d also come across drawings like this:
* * *
I really, honestly, in my eighteen-year-old brain, didn’t know that Henry wasn’t my soulmate. I didn’t know that the world is probably full of soulmates, considering the nearly eight billion people on Earth. Whenever things went wrong with us, I told myself, it will be better when we’re together.
And we would be. Soon.
Henry was going to visit me for spring break. He was going to get on a real, nuts-and-bolts airplane, all the way from Wisconsin, and arrive on my doorstep. It would all be better soon.
We were counting down the days.
