I called my mom, and I said to her, over and over, “Oh, no, I deserve it. I’m sorry you had to hear that. I deserve it, I deserve it…”
But it wasn’t my mom I called—it was my security guy. As my fame had grown, it had become imperative that I have someone who would keep the crazies at bay, and I’d found a guy who once worked in an L.A.-based SWAT team. He was even part of the team that arrested O.J. Simpson.
He was a seriously badass motherfucker, and because I kept calling him “Mom,” he knew.
That guy got into his car, put a light on top, and made it from Canyon Country, more than an hour away, to my log cabin on Lookout Mountain in less than twenty minutes.
When he arrived, he ran up the eighty steps as if in one bound. Coming through the back door, through the kitchen, and into the living room, he found my boyfriend sitting on the couch as though nothing had happened, and me mostly unconscious, in and out and incoherent. Each of my breaths was apparently separated by an eternity, he told me later. “Almost dead,” he said. “You were almost dead.”
I was fading, but when I was awake, I was whispering, “Pretend I’m sleeping. Pretend I’m sleeping.”
My security guy didn’t need any more information.
“You need to leave now,” he said to him.
“Who the fuck are you to…?” he started to say, making as if to fight him.
Bad idea. It didn’t take my security guy long to get him the fuck out.
For the next couple of months, SWAT guys sat outside my house twenty-four hours a day with all the artillery you could possibly imagine in their trunks. One of them, a guy named Bob, kept saying, “I keep seeing that asshole drive by. Can’t I just shoot him? I have a license to actually kill a person.”
I realized a license to kill a person was not a thing, but still, I found it comforting.
“Do whatever you want to do,” I said.
I’m sorry if I keep leading you to believe this is the end of the story. You’d certainly think that it would be… alas.
After I kicked him out, the guy moved into a place in a really nasty part of L.A. It was so bad that he was sharing a room, sleeping on a bunk bed. I felt awful, yet again. I even brought him Christmas presents. I was still trying to be the best girlfriend. I showed up as a surprise at his apartment, dressed in a full Santa suit with the beard, the long white hair, fat tummy, boots. I was carrying a huge satchel of presents over my shoulder.
Because that’s something he had never had: a real Christmas. He had ruined mine every fucking year before that, but still I couldn’tfully see that, or really know it. I wanted to be looked at as an amazing friend who did all these great things.
And yes, I can hear the bargaining in my words. This is how the cycle works.
That man never took full responsibility for anything he ever did. I think I was partly brainwashed for years, somehow thinking that what happened between us was my fault. For years I thought,As much as I sit here and ridicule him, and blame everything on him, there’s this little part of me that added some fuel to the fire in those situations.My mind would say,You did, Christina, you did.I have always had a strong sense that I need to take responsibility for everybody’s pain, and I never want to place responsibility or fault on anybody else about anything.
It’s fucked up—I know that. I can’t bear thinking that I’m too bold or think too highly of myself. I will forever be that girl passing the 20th Century Fox lot and innocently saying, “Oh my god, that’s so weird. That’s where I live!,” and there will always be that silence, and then my friend will always be saying, “You’re doing it.”
It can take more than coming face-to-face with death to get out of a traumatic relationship. It’s not rare for a woman in my situation to stay even when she had the chance to leave. Society often judges women for staying in bad relationships, but it’s not as easy as all that. I’ve lived it. It can feel impossible to break free of these kinds of relationships right up until the moment it’snotimpossible. But for the terrible, seemingly endless stretch during which we stay, or leave and then return, perceptions are warped, feelings subsumed, and fleeing can be harder than staying because remaining in a pain that onefeels comfortable in can be easier than facing the disaster of a relationship that’s over.
More than all that, I think I was still so terrified, in fear for my life.
But there’s another truth: I was allured by the craziness in him. I guess I’ll never know the full truth of who he was.
There’s a certain chaos that casts a shadow over all the relationships I’ve had. Not that they were all like this guy; it’s just that they were lost souls who I thought I could fix. Over and over, I’ve picked men who didn’t treat me very well because I lacked the kind of self-worth that denies such men any kind of sway or power. All too often a small voice in me agreed with them that I wasn’t worth the love I craved. I stayed longer than I should have, and damage begat damage begat damage, until now here I am, lesions pulsing on my brain like broken stoplights.
No one should shame a woman for staying in a terrible situation like the one I faced. Because when we’re in it, we really don’t know what to do. We’re scared.
There should be no shame in staying—please: we are already too hard on ourselves—but there is no survival in it either.
After the real end, through the years he would send me mixtapes of music, things he’d painted from memory, even champagne bottle corks from bottles we had drunk together. It felt like he was always trying to get at me, to remind me he was still around.
In early 1993, a young actor right out of college by the name of David Boreanaz made his first credited appearance on TV inMarried… with Children.He played Kelly’s love interest on an episode called “Movie Show.” I met him first thing that workweek. Davidand I quickly became friends—he was funny and kind and we would pass our lunchtimes together. When, on Thursday of that week, yet again something happened with my boyfriend, I called David, even though I’d known him for only four days.
“I can’t be alone in my house,” I said, and David showed up at the log cabin to keep me company.
David made me feel safe in my house, and a few days later, he and I started a thing. We dated for a few months, and even though it didn’t last, he helped me eventually leave. I adore David for that. Thinking back, I can’t say enough how much I appreciated him for being the reason I was finally able to get back to normal.
After my time with David ended, I went from relationship to relationship, as if being with someone was insurance against going back to that terrible boyfriend. With enough time apart, I felt his hold on me wane, until finally it was done. I haven’t heard from him in decades.
