Not So Lucky After All (Lucky: Part 4)

My ex, Lucky, became obsessed. He tried everything to get me to stay and knew he had less than 30 days to change my mind. I was just done. I started sleeping at a friend’s house or at my new friend’s (the guy I met) house most nights. We weren’t intimate. I only had about four hours of sleep anyway between jobs. It was just a place to lay my head where I felt safe.

Lucky’s grandmother paged me one day. I called her on my lunch break from the payphone in our break room. (Yeah, I’m that old.) She asked me what was going on because Lucky was at her house crying every day. He had lost a lot of weight (he was thin to begin with). His hair was turning grey. He was only 21 but looked twice that.

I told her it was just over. She didn’t really believe it and was taking up for him. Once I broke down and shared that he had put his hands on me, she said she couldn’t defend that and do what I had to do to take care of myself.

He started working again. I started moving things out of my apartment and into the trunk of my car because I felt like it was going to get ugly.

I was right.

I went “home” one afternoon when I wasn’t scheduled at the pizza joint to grab more clothes. He was supposed to be at work. Instead, he was sitting on the couch going over the phone bill. He started questioning me about a particular number, yelling and screaming at me that he knew it was a new guy. It was actually my friend Michelle’s number. I told him as much.

He asked why a man answered the phone. I said she lives with her fiance, so why wouldn’t he answer their phone. I picked up the phone to call the number to prove it but he kept yelling at me. I realized I didn’t have to prove anything to him since we had already broken up.

I was sitting on the floor across from the sofa. The coffee table was between us. I was about 4 feet away from him. I tossed the phone on the sofa next to him. I yelled, “I don’t have to prove anything to you.” I got up, grabbed my bag and started to walk out.

He yelled that I threw the phone at him and kicked me, while trying to grab me. I ran down the stairs and went to my neighbors. I asked to borrow the phone. I called the police and my mom. She was about 45 minutes away (got there in about 20) and the police station was five minutes from my apartment. She got there first.

It was a mess. The police were racist white men. They said I got what I deserved for being with a black man and because he had struck me before I deserved it. My mom was not happy. She was yelling at one of them and he threatened to arrest her, then turned on me knowing it would hurt her more.

I asked them to make him leave for 24 hours so I could get my stuff out. They said the only way that would happen is if I pressed charges. I said, fine.

OFFICER TO HIM: Would you like to press charges against her?

HIM: No, what for?

OFFICER: You said she threw a phone at you, right?

HIM: Yes.

OFFICER: Well, would you like to press charges against her?

HIM: No.

OFFICER: Are you sure you don’t want to press charges against her?

HIM: I’m sure.

OFFICER: Let me break this down. You’re going to jail for about 2-3 days. Would you like to press charges against her so she goes too?

HIM: Yeah

I was in disbelief. As I told him and the officers, I was an athlete. I was in shape at that time. If I threw that phone at him from a few feet away his head would’ve been busted open. I gave my keys to my mom and told her to get all my stuff out.

The officer told her he’d arrest her if she set foot in that apartment because it was his too and that would be trespassing. Looking back, I’m not sure that’s correct since I gave permission. Either way, it was a complete mess.

They handcuffed both of us. And put us in the back of the same vehicle, even though there were two cars on scene. Once we got to the station, they handcuffed us to the same link in a bench. I leaned as far away from him as I could get, nearly touching some huge, scruffy looking guy. I felt safer being close to him than my ex.

He was booked on a misdemeanor: battery.

I was booked on a felony: assault with a deadly weapon. That’s right. The phone was deemed a deadly weapon. Even though I didn’t throw it at him.

They took pictures of my leg without bruises, but not the one with bruises.

I spent a few days in Riverside County Detention Center. It was horrible. I was released at about 2am. My mother greeted me with a bouquet of flowers, just happy to see that I was okay, then took me back home with her.

I didn’t want to move back in with her, but that was my only option at that point. The following weekend I had some family and friends go to the apartment with me to remove my belongings. I had to move his table to get my dresser out of the closet and saw a stack of photos I had given him the previous Christmas. They were risque pictures that I definitely did not want him to have anymore.

I lost it. I was screaming and yelling and cussing. My aunt pulled me aside and told me to get it together because she was not there for the drama. I waited in the car for the duration of the event.

Shortly after moving back in with my mom we had to move. Lucky and one of his uncles (a well-known gang member in LA) were leaving death threats on my mom’s answering machine. The police said they couldn’t do anything with that.

I began working at the pizza spot in town again. One day, I received my cap and gown to walk with my class. He showed up in the parking lot of my job to “return” some items I left at the apartment. (Apparently he had to move back in with his grandparents, not too far away from where my family lived.)

He reached in my car and grabbed my cap and gown package. We argued and I was crying and begging him to give it back. He said he would if I went to a hotel with him. I made him get condoms. 

I didn’t see how I could tell anyone that I talked to him; I was so embarrassed and ashamed. I felt like my only option was to give him what he wanted to get my things back. I remember crying while he was on top of me. And leaving feeling as disgusted as ever. I won’t say he raped me, but it was definitely coerced.

I didn’t have any contact with him after that. He drove by my father’s house when he passed away six years later to offer his condolences. My brother spoke to him. He did find me on Facebook about ten years ago. We had a few conversations, but I stopped answering. There’s really nothing for us to talk about.

I’m sad for my younger self who didn’t see that she was worth more, or how to get out of certain situations, or feel like she could say no. I’m sad that I didn’t see or know that for several more years.

My hope in sharing a lot of this is that it may help someone at some point. We know (deep inside) when things aren’t right. Relationships and love shouldn’t hurt. Don’t get me wrong, there may be trying times and rough patches, but toxicity and abuse don’t go away or get better. They get worse.