It’s not that I did not see it; it’s that I chose to ignore it.

He was a broken boy without a mother or father, the by-product a passionate love turned fervent hate, a cog in the foster system. He came from nothing: the only bed he had ever slept in was the hospital bed, his clothes were tattered, and his hair was disheveled. He spoke only bitterly of love with a sharp tongue; the only intimacy he had ever known was dirty and drunken. The only god that he worshiped was whatever could get him high.

He was a hurricane, destroying everything that crossed his path. Kicked out of countless schools for disorder and misconduct, he was failing out of what seemed to be life itself. His behavior had tainted his name and sabotaged his chances of escaping the foster system before he aged out of it. In short, he was a mess.

But I was a mess, too. I met him, after all, in the psych ward following my second suicide attempt.

For some reason I cannot understand, he became fixated with me. I didn’t mind our friendship; in the hospital, you do what you must to make long days a little less lugubrious. I became his confidant, the one who he would run to when his sadness got the better of him. When he couldn’t contain his rage and his knuckles met drywall in a fury of anger, I was the one who calmed him down. I would sit patiently with him in the day room and examine the bruises on his fist as he choked on his own guilt and embarrassment.

“I messed up again. I messed up again,” he would tell me in a strained voice as he struggled to look me in the eyes. He would degrade himself, tear himself apart in front of me, and I would hastily put him back together like the loose pieces of a puzzle.

“Shh,” I would whisper. “We all mess up. You’re trying. That’s what matters.”

My heart was too soft, too tender, to turn him away; though I knew of his intentions, I could not bring myself to believe that the vulnerable boy who cried in front of me was the monster he saw when he looked in the mirror. I did not reciprocate his attraction, but I could not deny my quiet affection for him--he was a friend, after all, and he had seen me cry, too.

5’8” with caramel skin that was surprisingly soft and warm to the touch, he could be gentle when he wanted to be. Under the yellow light, we sat at the dining room table; he stroked the side of my face and told me, “Don’t cry anymore. Look at me.” For the first time in my life, I didn’t flinch in fear at his touch; he laced his fingers through mine. “I love you. I’ll always love you. We don’t need anyone else; it’s just you and me.”

Words like that carry so much weight, and yet they seem to always come too soon. How could I love you if I can’t even love myself? I wondered silently. Still, I said nothing, just awkwardly withdrew my hand from his. “It’s getting late; I should take you home.”

When I dropped him off at his house, he introduced me to his temporary family as his girlfriend. I thought to myself that perhaps it was just a slip of the tongue, but I knew it really wasn’t.

After I unceremoniously became his girlfriend, we would often talk on the phone. In the beginning, we talked about school and family and friends. I was recovering well from my hospitalization, and it seemed as though he was, too. He told me that he was drug-free and that he had stopped self-harming. He told me that his life was turning around. He could see a future--a future with me.

Those words frightened me, but I didn’t know how to tell him. He ended every call with “I love you.” If I even showed the slightest bit of hesitation, he would become upset. “You don’t love me? Why don’t you love me?” When he said it like that, it made me seem so cruel to withhold it when he so willingly gave it to me. After so many times, I learned how to swallow my discomfort and stammer it back.

He became incessantly needy, his requests unrelenting. He wanted me to tell him that I loved him, to promise him eternity, to make him the center of my universe. I wanted to focus on my studies, to take care of my family, to take care of myself. He never hesitated to tell me that I was selfish, that I was cold, that I was uncaring. He occupied my thoughts; he took up my time. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see myself anymore. All that I saw was him and that bitter look in his eye.

Any “mistake” I made was an invitation for him to get revenge. If I hurt him some way, then it was only proper that he hurt me, too--that was his reasoning. If I didn’t call him in time, he found someone else to keep him busy. If he couldn’t sleep one night, it was only because I hadn’t told him I loved him in a while. If he argued with his foster parents, it was always about me. He would scream at me over the phone if he had a bad day, cuss at me, and call me names.

I was the problem. It was me all along--I was toxic.

No.

It’s not that I didn’t see it back then; it’s that I chose to ignore it. My heart was too soft, too tender, to turn him away when he appeared on my doorstep like an abandoned dog.

He was manipulative. Abusive.

He was a hurricane; he destroyed everything in his path--he almost destroyed me.

He wore a charming smile with ragged teeth, like that of a cunning coyote; he stared at me greedily the way a hunter eyes its prey.

I learned my lesson that day: sometimes a coyote has to beg before it bites the hand that feeds it.