Happy Holidays, Love Satan

or why i write the reluctant graduate

what happens to a woman of a certain age?

thirty-something, i don’t recall

who for some inexplicable reason,

falls in tender love

with somebody she used to know

but doesn’t really know that well?

- "apollo and persephone”, written by myself

Parts of this narrative are changed to protect the parties involved, but the events that happened are real. TW: mentions of DV

This Christmas, I celebrated six years of sobriety from him.

I have been recovering from the drug that was “Keith” since 2015.

Despite this triumph, I still have little to show for it.

But as they say, if you build a house on a broken foundation, it will crumble.

People who are broken inside look for anyone to fill the void—this is the beginning of the end for many dreams, hopes, and aspirations.

My void was filled with frivolous spending, casual sex, and fumbling attempts to manipulate my friends and family.

But this is the middle of the story.

When I met Keith, I was already in a bad place.

My parents had given me an ultimatum—improve my grades, or drop out of school.

I chose the latter.

They didn’t know that though.

To them, I was just a little more withdrawn and closeted than usual.

But as one year became two that I was out of school, I wondered when this particular game would end.

When will my parents swoop in and save me from the worst mistake of my life?

They never did. Keith got there first.

Keith was a security guard at the bookstore I worked at.

He made $18.50 an hour and was twenty-eight years old.

For a nineteen-year-old girl who made half that amount but did twice the work, this was like meeting a millionaire.

He approached me while I was reading a NYLON magazine, asking for a Terry Goodkind book recommendation.

I had no idea who that was, but he gestured to the science fiction section and I rehashed the script my manager told me to say when I didn’t know a book—when in doubt, lie.

“Oh yeah, I’ve read Terry. Great stuff. Which one were you looking for in particular?”

This was the first time that I spoke to Keith, and I was nervous. I wasn’t attracted to him, but he was attracted to me, which was intriguing.

He had bloodshot eyes, and when I asked him if he was tired, he stared more at my breasts before answering, “No, I was up all night reading”.

This was the beginning of many “talks” with Keith—he always talked about himself, never asking about me, while staring at my body in half anguish, half-lust.

I never cared, though.

My fragmented mind made up for the bad conversation.

I used to maladaptive daydream in my youth to cope with a home that was like walking on eggshells or rather glass.

This “relationship” was no different.

On Thanksgiving weekend 2012, he asked for my number.

In May of 2013, we had our first date.

In June of the same year, I lost my virginity to him.

And on and on it went until Christmas 2014.

His mother was “his friend and enemy all rolled into one”, a line that many bad men use when they know deep in their hearts that the fatal flaw is within themselves.

But at the time I believed him.

Why? Because I met her, and she had an even worse attitude than her son and the same amount of myopia that he suffered from.

They never wanted to leave their drab and cramped home to travel around their block let alone the world.

And they were religious.

His friends at work used to call him The Preacher because of his firm belief in God.

This I found most hilarious.

Did God tell him to slap me clear across the face halfway through lovemaking before continuing like nothing happened?

The first Christmas we were supposed to spend with each other, he had a tooth abscess that kept him bedridden.

Yet he was able to use his mouth enough to bother me on the phone throughout my family’s holiday party, which I foolishly invited him to despite him describing my apartment as an “African hut”.

The last Christmas we spent together was at his place, a filthy hovel with two bad cats and a persistent odor that never evaporated from the air.

I wanted to play Christmas music on his laptop, but he refused to let me handle it, probably because of his porn addiction.

I spent my last paycheck on the food that I was to prepare for the event—all of his mom’s favorite foods, including too-salty store-bought lasagna and half-baked chocolate chip cookies.

His mother wasn’t invited.

But she showed up anyway.

His mood soured then. She inspected every part of his place, always with a complaint or retort.

Half of them I didn’t even blame her for.

But when she finally left and I tried to leave too, he started a fight with me.

Whatever spell I was under—the long nights pretending that I was still enrolled in school, my quiet walks in the park after saying that I was in class, my laid-off status from my job, and my quiet rage building up to a loud anger—broke, and I snapped.

I started screaming, then crying, then scream-crying while he mocked me, threatening to call the police.

Then he put me in a headlock, knocking me clear to the floor.

His almost 6-foot self pinning 5 foot 3 inches down, my glasses broken, all I thought was “Am I going to die today?”

I managed to break free, threw my copy of his apartment keys to his feet, and ran, never looking back.

---

The Reluctant Grad was born from fear, shame, and guilt more than anything else.

I wanted to help young women in my situation be able to rebuild themselves.

I never thought that I deserved to have any of the achievements that I have now.

But today, I am learning to claim them—not as tokens of luck, but as symbols of hard-fought victories. The journey has been long, but with each step forward, I rewrite my story with hope, strength, and purpose.