Love Hacked

I considered him, his response, and the scar on his chin. I decided to let the age issue go and concentrate on his past, starting with his face. It was an ugly scar, but it didn’t make him ugly.

I tipped my head toward his chin. “How did you get that scar?”

He fingered it and surveyed me before answering. “I’ll tell you three stories. When I’m finished, you tell me which one you like the best, which one you like the least, and which one you think is true.”

I sat back in my chair, crossed my legs, and held my coffee in my palms. “All right. Proceed.”

“Story number one.” He gathered a deep breath before he spoke, and I had to remind myself to listen to the words rather than just slather myself in the sound of his voice. “When I was ten, I was walking home from school, and a wolf walked around the corner—just appeared, out of nowhere.”

I smiled into my latte; I loved how much effort he put into making the story sound plausible.

“Of course, I stopped where I stood, and tried to hold perfectly still. But it was too late. The wolf saw me. His eyes….”

“How did you know it was a male wolf?”

“Shh, let me tell you what happened. His eyes were yellow and fierce, and I was scared out of my mind. I thought about running, but I knew the wolf was faster than I was. So I waited. It growled at me—roared really—but I didn’t look away. It started walking toward me, and my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest, but still I didn’t look away.”

I was no longer leaning back in my chair, but rather had become so absorbed that I’d slowly inched forward as he recalled his tale.

“Then the wolf stood directly in front of me, baring his teeth.” Alex demonstrated by pulling back his lips and giving me a quiet growl. “My hands were in tight fists. I thought maybe I’d get at least one good punch before he ate me alive. Then, quick as lightning, the wolf swiped at my face. I think he meant it to be a warning only, but he caught my chin, and he gave me this.” He rubbed the scar pensively as though he were just as lost in the story, remembering it, as I was listening to it.

“When the wolf’s paw came down, I stood completely still. We stared at each other, that wolf and me, as the blood ran down my chin and soaked my shirt. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look away. I didn’t cry. He gave me a once- over—you know, looked at me from head to foot, decided I wasn’t worth eating that day, and just walked away.”

I released the breath I’d been holding and set my cup down. “The wolf just walked away?”

He nodded. “Here is the second story; ready?”

“Yeah, go for it.” He had my undivided attention.

“When I was nine, my father found me in my room and started screaming at me because his whiskey was gone. He had a knife in his hand, a serrated knife, and he kept shaking me. I didn’t say a word. There wasn’t any point; he was so drunk that nothing I had to say mattered. I just looked at him as he roared at me. He didn’t like that much, didn’t like that I wouldn’t respond, so he swiped the knife upward. I think he meant it as a warning, but it caught my chin and soon blood was everywhere—my clothes, his hands, the floor. The sight of the blood must’ve shocked him; maybe he thought it was his, because he left me and slammed the front door behind him.”

Alex’s eyes were steady on mine, waiting for my reaction. I gave him none. I spent most of my week listening to similar stories from kids, some more traumatizing than others. However, with Alex, I couldn’t tell whether the story was true. He hadn’t used too many details or too few, and the inflection of his voice was exactly as it had been during the wolf story—as though he were remembering something that actually occurred.

I nodded faintly, considering the two tales, and in my best psychiatrist’s voice, I said, “Tell me the third story.”

He smiled though it didn’t reach his eyes. “When I was eight I shared a room with three other boys; two were older, one was younger. The two older ones liked to beat the crap out of us, especially the other kid because he’d cry a lot. One day I came home from school and found the oldest kid going through my stuff. I called out to him, asked him what he was doing. When he turned around, he had a knife; it was serrated. He lunged at me, waving the knife wildly in the air, and I punched him in the throat. The knife cut my chin, but I didn’t notice. I just kept hitting him. Somehow, the knife got turned around and ended up in his stomach…and he died.”

Alex held my eyes and again waited for my reaction. I struggled this time, but I felt fairly confident that my expression betrayed nothing of my thoughts.

“I see,” I said in my best psychiatrist’s voice, because I was stalling.

Obviously, the first story was my favorite.

The second story and the third were terribly depressing. Neither was out of the realm of possibility, and both would explain some of Alex’s odd behavior and mannerisms. If the second story were true, he had an alcoholic, abusive father. If the third story were true, he’d either killed his oldest brother—which I seriously doubted—or he’d killed his foster brother and he was a foster child.

But which was true?

Alex watched me as he leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee with the ease of a man who was enjoying himself. I realized that I knew almost nothing about Alex.

I rejected the possibility that he was a foster child almost at once because, as a child psychiatrist, I knew too much about the statistics of foster care—less than one percent graduate college with a bachelor’s degree, more than fifty percent of foster kids end up homeless after reaching eighteen, and most are dead by twenty-six.

The odds of survival for a kid growing up in foster care were worse than a cancer diagnosis.

I thought about the second story and decided that it must be true. I decided he’d made up the third story so the second wouldn’t sound so heinous in comparison. It was very generous of him to cushion my exposure to the reality of his past; it was also an excellent defense mechanism.

“Well?” He replaced his cup in the saucer and met my thoughtful gaze with an untroubled one. “Which one is your favorite?”

“The wolf.”

“And which one is your least favorite?”

“The boys.”

He paused, swallowed, nodded. “And which one do you think is true?”

“Your father.” I answered confidently, but with a frown.

He continued to nod, his jaw set, his expression completely devoid of emotion. Then he said, “I like the wolf story as well. I was listening to a story recently—it was one of the questions during the taping tonight—where a grizzly bear broke out of a zoo. I can’t even imagine what I’d do if I were faced with a grizzly bear.”

“Can’t you?” I studied him with practiced interest. His readiness to change the subject was a bit confounding. Typically, in my experience, once a man opened the door to his broken past, I was pulled under a tsunami of regret, blame, fear, and man-tears.

“What would you do?” He posed the question to me, his expression carefully light.

“I guess I would hope I could distract him with a pot of honey.”

Alex laughed. I was impressed that it didn’t sound at all forced. “It would work, too. If anyone could distract a grizzly bear by being sweet, it would be you.”

I allowed the sound of his laugh to wash over me and lift me up. I returned his smile easily, though my heart felt heavy.

I wasn’t used to ignoring unresolved issues. Alex’s story about his father needed addressing. Alex needed counseling, likely years of psychotherapy.

But for now, I tried to peel away the residue of his desolate tales and enjoy his company. For once, it appeared my date didn’t expect a free therapy session. In fact, he seemed to be hoping I’d go with the flow, ignore the wolf in the room, and continue the date without further reference to his past.

“Do you need another one?” Alex gestured to my drained cup.

“Ah, no. If I have any more, I’ll never sleep tonight.”

“It was a decaf. I asked them to make it a decaf.”

“It was?”

“Yes. You seem like the kind of person who treasures her sleep.”

I blinked at him, surprised by his choice of words. “Thank you; I am.”

He considered me for a minute then grimaced. “I have a confession. I actually overheard you say that once to one of your dates, that you treasure your sleep.”

“Uh, you did?”

“Yeah. I think your exact words were, ‘I treasure my sleep over the wellbeing or interests of my loved ones.’”

I chuckled at that. “Yes. That’s true. My mom once tried to wake me up on a Saturday morning—this was when I was sixteen—because she couldn’t find her car keys, and I refused to get up. I covered my head with a pillow. So she pulled the pillow away, and I covered my head with my comforter. When she pulled that away and shook me again, I rolled off the bed and hid under it, still asleep.”

I was pleased that he was laughing again. “Are you very close with your mom?” he asked easily.

I nodded, smiled at all the combined lovely memories of my childhood. “Yes. We’re best friends. She’s awesome.”