Stalking: My True Story

I was in fifth grade and by no means ready for a boyfriend. I had guys who were friends, but that was all. I wasn't interested in dating. I just enjoyed having friends like any normal person.

X sat in the corner with a big machine to help him read since he was legally blind. He had a braille machine as well. Sometimes the class would have to sit as he noisily typed away on his braille machine, even though you could tell his tutor had a hard time getting him to use it.

Soon enough, some of the guys I didn't really care to be near came to me saying that X liked me.

I refused to believe it. I didn't like X. I had never liked X. I didn't want to have anything to do with X.

Later on, X passed a note to a classmate and soon I found that they were trying to hand a note to me. I had no idea what the note said. I didn't want to know. My friend Christina said she'd take the note and show it to our teacher. I was relieved that she would do this. I didn't want to have to deal with X and his note.

She took it to the teacher and I have no idea what happened. However, nothing happened to X and it seemed Christina got upset. She didn't get in trouble, though. I wonder who wrote what on that piece of paper.

From my seat in what was almost the center of the room, I could see X's large screen so he could read. I looked up one time to see that he had our yearbook and he was staring at my picture around which he had drawn a heart.

This was extremely disturbing.

I didn't not like X because he was blind. That wasn't the problem. I simply didn't like X because I felt he was really gross. His lips stuck out so far and he seemed to drool at random times. He wasn't very clean and didn't have good manners. I just didn't like him.

When we were in line coming back from physical fitness, I found X standing next to me. He started telling me he liked me because of all these different things - even things that people would say were bad.

I still told him I didn't like him like that. I only agreed to be his "friend" because he was going to the same middle school as I and I knew none of his friends were going there.

At first, it was okay. However, it got worse and worse. People started saying that we were a couple. He would send "candygrams" to my homeroom when they sold them and have random people leave gifts for me while out at lunch.

Seventh grade came and things got even worse. His mom paid my mom to take him to his piano and guitar lessons. I also took piano lessons from the same teacher on the same day. It didn't help that people saw him get into the same car with me. I was only his "friend," but X wanted me to be more. I never agreed to this.

One time my mom asked his mom if she could watch us while my parents wen to a meeting one evening. She agreed. My sister and I just wanted to stay inside. X wanted to play outside. He wanted us to play some stupid game with a gun that shot out plastic balls. While I have no problem with grown people acting like kids because we all need to have fun, what he wanted to do was extremely juvenile. So, he took me off to the side and asked me all kinds of personal questions to which all my answers were no. I didn't want to be his girlfriend. I didn't want to kiss him. Yet, his mom seemed to want me to be his girlfriend, too. I went on a trip to New Orleans with them once - which wasn't very fun if I thought about being with X, but I didn't. Instead, I enjoyed what I could. I hate the pictures that were taken of the two of us.

However, that's not what was said in school. First the rumor started that X and I had kissed under the stairway. This wasn't fun. People were already mean to me. I wasn't popular. Time went by and eventually he was suspended from school because he brought a gun and a knife and showed it to somebody in his gym class. I was glad he was gone from that school.

One morning before school, two policemen came and knocked on our door. I hid. I didn't want anything to do with him or his family. My mom said I didn't have to go to school that day, but I did. I also know that his mother had tried to kidnap a little girl that wasn't legally hers to adopt. I just wanted out of that mess. We were also getting plenty of calls from the Women's Correctional Center. We never accepted them.

Eighth grade started and the rumors didn't stop. Instead, they got worse. People would come up to me and say that we had "done it" under the stairs. This was very upsetting. I hated it. Everybody would come up to me and say that we had done that. It was really disturbing and I'd say it wasn't true. However, they just kept saying, "Well X said you did."

High school started and finally the rumors started subsiding. There were still some people who would say them, but it really didn't matter that much. Most people didn't care and they didn't worry about bothering me. I was finally free from X.

I was a senior in high school. I was finally feeling better and had more friends. One day, I went to the mall and went to the music store. I saw X there and simply to be nice I said hi. He called my house. I didn't have a boyfriend and as much as that hurt at times, I was okay with that. There were guys I liked. I had to deal with his questions. "Do you have a boyfriend?" I answered, "Kind of." I didn't really, but I was counting my online guy friend. I didn't want to be involved with X. X said that he wanted to invite my family and I over for a barbecue. I hated this idea, but he had talked to my mom about it first. Luckily that never happened.

I didn't hear from X for awhile and I hoped it was the end.

I was in college and suddenly I get a phone call. It's X. He says he is simply calling his friends. I worry. I had heard he was married, but I didn't know if the marriage lasted or if it was true. What if it was all to calm me and then he wanted to call me and try to persuade me to be his girlfriend? I didn't talk with him for long, but what he did say made me freak. He must've been stalking me in some strange way. He knew what I was doing in college. He knew the church I attended. In fact, he had even gone to the church I attended and talked to the pastor that was there.

He came there one Sunday and he seemed to sit abnormally close to me despite the fact he was with his wife. I hated this. I wanted to be nowhere near him and yet I didn't want people to think I wasn't being friendly. This was a difficult situation. I tried to look at his wife as if to say, "I've no interest in this guy."

One day my pastor calls and asks if my family would be able to take him to our church. I had to tell my mom that I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. I'm quite certain that this was a way he was trying to get near me again.

Luckily, I've not heard from X since then.