Idiot Read online

  “Damon? Let me in!” a high-pitched, angry voice yelled from outside the door.

  Damon’s eyes popped open. “Oh shit, oh shit—”

  In his alarmed flailing, he had accidentally pushed me off the couch. Or maybe it was on purpose. He wasn’t the sweetest guy in the world.

  I looked at the door and saw one mascara-laden eye peeking in. Of course. Another woman.

  “Damon, who is that?? Why does she have a key??” I whispered.

  “She’s my girlfriend. Laura, you have to run; she’s gonna kill you!”

  SLAM! The woman outside, whose name I found out was Olivia, was trying to slam the door open with all her might. She saw me, and she was just as mad as I was. Except she probably didn’t have the extra bit of terror layered on top of it.

  SLAM! The chain lock was quivering against her force. My momentary appreciation for her crazy-strength was cut short by her yelling, “I’m gonna fucking kill you both!”

  That was my cue to get out.

  “Go go go!” Damon yelled to me.

  I ran out the back door as fast as I could, as a screaming match started between them. I looked back at the apartment complex to see my suitcase and belongings being thrown out the window onto the front lawn. I kept running for a couple blocks. Having just woken up, and still reeling from my morning blunt, I was especially disoriented and freaked out. Holy shit.

  At least it all made sense now. That was why we hadn’t gone straight to the Beverly Hills apartment when we got into LA. That’s why we spent a week at Damon’s parents’ place. Damon had calculated the moment when he thought Olivia would be out of town and took us there, hoping that he would figure it out from there.

  As great as this clarity was, it did nothing to save me right then. Think, Laura, think. What was I supposed to do? Where was I supposed to go? Lavan had always protected me in New York, but he wasn’t here. I didn’t know anyone here anymore, but I did have a cell phone. You’ll be happy to know that this was one of the fleeting moments in between Damon’s cell phone–smashing rages. He had actually gotten me this one as an apology for smashing the last one. Sweet!

  Only one problem. The phone was completely new. Even if I had some long-lost contact in LA who could come to my rescue right now, I didn’t have their number saved. I didn’t have any numbers saved. I pulled it out anyway, hoping someone’s name and number would just come to me. And then I saw it. One phone number in my contacts listed as:

  LEO AND ANDRE GOOD-TIME BITCHESSSSS

  Oh my God. The two guys I met in West Hollywood a few nights ago. We were all super high and drunk at the time . . . they probably didn’t remember me at all. No, they definitely didn’t remember me at all. I distinctly remember them talking to me sparingly in between making out with each other. But I had no choice. I was shaking and scared. I had no money, no place to go, and no one to help me.

  I called them and got an answer on the second ring.

  “Hey! Um . . . You probably don’t remember me, but this is Laura. We met at that launch party a couple nights ago. I’m really tall and blonde and did a weird impression of Christina Aguilera?”

  “Oh yes! Beautiful noodle girl! What up, bitch??”

  “Um . . . I kind of got kicked out of my apartment by my boyfriend’s . . . other girlfriend. And I kind of think she’s going to kill me if I go back there. So I was wondering if I could maybe come over while I figure out where to go.”

  There was a pause. Oh no. I asked too much. I started to blabber on, “I’m sorry, it’s really okay—”

  “GIRL. We got you, honey. Don’t move.”

  I nearly cried tears of relief.

  I stood on that street corner for thirty more minutes until I heard loud EDM music PUMPING from a beat-up twenty-year-old Toyota Camry in broad daylight. There they were, loud enough to be a club on wheels and slowly pulling up on Hollywood Blvd, definitely out of place among the BMWs and Porsches that were swerving to speed around them.

  Leo manually rolled the passenger-side window down and then yelled, “GET IN, BITCH!”

  I hopped in the backseat.

  “Where to?” they asked.

  First we went back to Damon and HIS GIRLFRIEND’s apartment to pick my belongings off the front lawn. Leo and Andre didn’t even bat an eye at this. At any of it, I was a random girl they met once. They had no reason in the world to trust me! I could have just killed someone! I could have been running from the law! But they didn’t ask questions. They were just generous, and I appreciated it so much. We headed back to their apartment to figure out my next steps.

  As I was sitting in their cluttered backseat, I tried to focus my brain in spite of the loud bass literally shaking the seat. I still didn’t know what to do, though. There was no way I was going home again. Besides the very important fact that I didn’t have money for a plane ticket, I had finally made it back to LA! Leaving would be giving up. I’d live on the street before I left LA again.

  Then something magical happened.

  We walked into Leo and Andre’s West Hollywood apartment. Their roommate was standing there with her suitcase packed. She was crying and looked surprised to see us, like she was trying to avoid us. She wiped her eyes.

  “I’m moving back home to Oklahoma. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t make it in this city!”

  Andre gasped.

  Leo put his hands on his hips. “Excuse me? Girl, you did not give me ANY notice. What am I supposed to do? Conjure a roommate out of thin air?”

  The roommate sniffled. “I just have to leave. I have to. I’m sorry.”

  She walked past us and slammed the door.

  “I’ll move in. Today,” I said. “Now. I’ll move in now.”

  They looked at me for a minute. Then Leo raised an eyebrow. “Welcome home, bitch.”

  I moved right into the other room. It was as simple as that. I slept on the disgusting, stained carpet that night. The room was completely empty except for me and my suitcase.

  The only bad news was that things weren’t over with Damon yet. He came over and explained the situation.

  “Oli and I were together for like eight years, but we’re not together anymore. I don’t love her like I love you. We just live together, but we’re not together anymore. I told her you’re my number one. She knows.”

  Oh cool, that checks out. He also added that he couldn’t kick her out or get another apartment because he can’t have his name on the lease. It was her name on the apartment. Those tricky paper trail challenges sure required him to have a ton of girlfriends.

  He’d come over some nights to sleep over or hang out. And I continued to let him. I kept convincing myself that all the bad things he did to me were one-time things, even when they repeated. I stayed with him.

  Living with Leo and Andre did give me breathing room from Damon’s crazy mania. I had fun with them and soon fell into an easy rhythm. They were both very immersed in the gay party culture of West Hollywood, so life there was a constant party. I’d come home in the afternoon to find them in my dresses dancing aggressively to Lady Gaga.

  “You guys went through my stuff?!”

  Leo and Andre looked down.

  “Well you both look amazing. Carry on.”

  They were hard drug users, too, and just like Damon, they didn’t judge me for my ways. Quite the opposite, actually. The apartment was always fully stocked with hard drugs. But as much as we enabled one another, we protected and took care of one another. They liked Damon, too, a lot. But in their defense, I don’t think they quite knew how crazy he was. They just thought he was a wacky, super-cute bi dude that they both loved to flirt with. We all got on pretty well when Damon wasn’t being terrifying.

  Outside of partying, dressing fabulously, and doing drugs, I never was entirely sure what Leo and Andre did beyond believing they were in the industry. But somehow they were both incredibly, unapologetically themselves. Even though I was living in constant fear of Damon’s episodes, I was happier now that I was liv
ing with Leo and Andre.

  But then I got a call from my parents.

  “Laura . . . Honey . . . Grandma’s sick. You need to come home to say good-bye to her.”

  I told Damon through tears that my grandma was dying and that I had to leave. Even though he hated letting me out of his sight, he let me go. I mean, what could he do?

  I flew home immediately and burst through the front door of my house.

  “Where’s Grandma? Is she okay? And what’s fatally progressive death syndrome?”

  My mom sat me down on the couch. “Laura . . .”

  “What? What is it? Is she dead? Did she die already?? Oh my God, I never said good-bye!”

  “Grandma’s fine.”

  I looked at my mom, stunned. “She . . . pulled through? Even though it’s called death syndrome?”

  “Sweetie, I made up death syndrome. We just . . . we heard you were in trouble, sweetie. We heard you needed a way out from Damon.”

  I stood up. “Excuse me? Why did you lie to me? And I don’t need a way out from anything. I’m FINE.”

  “Sweetie, we didn’t know how else to help! Your friend Lavan called us in such a panic, we were worried—”

  “You don’t have to worry about me! I’m an adult, fully capable of making my own decisions.” Then I stomped off to my childhood bedroom and slammed the door.

  How dare they try to control my life right now! I was happy with Damon. He had changed; he was better now. We had a ton of fun when he wasn’t being crazy and I wasn’t completely terrified of him.

  By “had a ton of fun” I of course mean “did a ton of drugs.”

  Here’s how my parents found out about the whole situation: Remember my photographer friend Lavan? Me neither, apparently! As you might recall, I had called Lavan to basically save me from Damon’s clutches when we were in New York . . . and then I never showed up. I didn’t have a phone at the time to let him know I was okay, and when I got a new one, I didn’t have his number.

  Well, it turns out that was very alarming for him. He had no idea what happened to me and he knew the full scope of how scary and dangerous Damon was. He had no way of contacting me, but he had my parents’ phone number. I’d often call them on his phone when we would shoot, because of Damon’s issue with me having contact with the outside world.

  He called my parents and let them know I was in danger, that I needed a way out of an abusive relationship. My parents tried to figure out the most delicate way possible for me to come home. They knew Damon wouldn’t let me leave any other way. They were scared he would overhear and hurt me. So they came up with this brilliant, very shitty plan. And as soon as I called them from my new number in Los Angeles, they put their plan into action.

  I just felt manipulated and betrayed. It didn’t help that I was in this rebellious phase of my life where whatever they wanted me to do, I would do the opposite. I pushed them away and flew straight back to LA.

  But first I went to visit my grandma, just to make sure she was okay. She had just finished running a 5K. . . . Just kidding. . . . But she def wasn’t dead.

  I’m telling you guys, my eighteen-year-old brain was not fully formed at all. Going back to Damon was not a rational choice! But between my lack of understanding at what a healthy relationship looked like and his manipulation and control over me, I went back without question.

  I resumed my life in LA at Leo and Andre’s house. There, I received two very important things:

  1. A slight amount of distance from Damon.

  2. The longest amount of time so far that Damon let me have a cell phone without breaking it.

  Either I was getting better at living in the complete isolation that he found acceptable, or he had forgotten that I had a phone he could smash. Judging by the fact that he was still screaming at me pretty often, I think he had totally forgotten that I had a phone.

  Since I had some alone time, living away from Damon, I could sometimes make calls without worrying about him hearing me. Which meant . . .

  Rinnnng rinnnng . . .

  Colleen: Hello?

  Me: Hey dude. Damon’s being fucking crazy again today.

  Colleen: Shit. What’s he doing?

  Me: He just lost it and was screaming at me because I didn’t let him into the apartment immediately after he knocked. I was in the shower! Like, what the fuck?

  Colleen: Wow. Sounds like that was really your fault, though. Did you have to shower?

  Me: Ha-ha, dude! I don’t know what to do. I’m scared.

  Colleen: Okay, well . . . Do you feel like the side character in the horror movie or the lead? Because the side character dies really early, but the lead usually at least makes it to the end.

  Me: Hmmmm. I think I’m still the lead.

  Only Colleen could make me laugh about shit this fucked up. We started to talk every day. She’d listen without judging me, or preaching to me, or telling me what to do. So I felt comfortable enough to tell her everything.

  I told her about how Damon would lose his mind if I said the wrong thing or talked to anyone on the street. I told her about how he would grab me so hard that I would bruise. About how he thought he owned me. Only she knew the full extent of Damon’s bullshit.

  One time, Damon was pissed off at me, so he stole my phone. Hey, at least he didn’t smash it! He just erased all my contacts and changed the name on my voice mail recording. To Satan.

  Everyone who called me heard this: “You have reached the voice mailbox of SATAN.”

  Colleen and I had a pretty good laugh at that one.

  Don’t get me wrong, she really was scared for me. She really wanted to get me out of this relationship, and she saw how dangerous Damon was. By this time, I think I was the only person who didn’t want me to leave Damon. But Colleen was fucking smart and understood me better than anyone. She knew that if she told me to get the fuck away from that horrible person, then I would probably ice her out or rebel by getting closer to Damon. I wasn’t taking anyone’s advice.

  So my sweet, sweet sister just fucking listened.

  I started to get a little bolder with my phone calls. I’d call Colleen to talk while Damon was passed out in the other room. I mean, when Damon passed out, this was not a light nap. This was “Is he dead? I can’t tell, but let’s wait another hour before calling an ambulance.” I could scream into his ear without him waking up, so it was fine.

  One time Damon was sleeping in the living room. I was making lunch in the kitchen area while talking to Colleen.

  “I don’t know, I really think he’s losing it. He doesn’t seem sane anymore. I feel like he’s going to murder me.”

  Damon’s eyes popped open. He turned to me. He had heard everything.

  “Oh shit.”

  His face contorted into a rageful, icy, inhumane glare. His eyes were bulging from their sockets. A vein I never saw before looked like it was about to burst from his neck. In one swift movement, he grabbed a size 11 high-heel boot that Leo had worn out last night and CHUCKED IT AT MY HEAD WITH ALL HIS MIGHT.

  What is it about being absolutely insane that makes a person’s aim impeccable?

  He stood up, fists clenched and head jerking around with rage. I ran out the front door and down the long hallway.

  “Oh my God, Colleen, he threw a shoe at me! He threw a shoe at me!”

  “Oh God, okay, are you running? Run!!”

  “Yeah, yeah I’m running!” I panted.

  “Is he following you?”

  I turned back to see Damon following behind me in a slow and steady pace. As if he knew that once he got his hands on me, taking me out would be no problem. It was horrifying.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he running or is it the slow serial-killer walk?”

  “Slow serial-killer walk! Slow serial-killer walk!”

  “FUCKING RUN!”

  I ran out of the apartment complex and hid out for a couple hours at a nearby café until Damon had calmed down. Another day in paradise.


  Nothing about my life in LA was sustainable, and things began to get more and more chaotic for me. I started to have trouble eating for a couple reasons. The first was that I was too stressed out when I was with Damon to eat anything. It was like my body was constantly in fight-or-flight mode. Did you guys know that when your body feels like you’re in life-threatening danger, it slows down your digestion and pumps your body with adrenaline so that you can survive running for your life for a few extra days or have the strength to lift a car off your baby? That’s the truth. I’d be so scared, I’d go days at a time without feeling any hunger. The only times I’d feel like I could eat were when Damon wasn’t around. For some reason my body knew I was in danger, but my brain . . . couldn’t quite place its source!

  The second problem was that when Damon wasn’t around and I finally felt like I could eat, I didn’t have any money to buy food. I was financially dependent on him. Because of my addiction, I was in no state to hold down a job. I’m sure he didn’t mind having the control over my life. I’d sometimes be so hungry that I’d go out on the street and find a random stranger, ask them if they wanted to get a bite to eat, and then eat a meal with them just so that I’d have a way to get food.

  I never had an eating disorder or anything, but I was losing weight quickly. I looked like I was wasting away.

  A few days after the shoe incident, Colleen gave me another call.

  “I’m thinking of moving out to LA.”

  “Really? Since when?”

  “Um. Since forever. That was my dream before it was yours.”

  I scoffed. “I’ve literally never heard you say that before.”

  “Okay fine. I just decided yesterday. But come on! Help me get out of Mom and Dad’s house. Can I move in with you?”

  I think she knew that I wasn’t going to be able to leave Damon on my own. I think she thought that if she came, she could help me get out. So that’s what she did. She picked up her entire life, quit her job, and moved into Leo and Andre’s apartment with me. I mean, she did also want to get out of our parents’ house. And LA was not the worst place to do so. We were going to have fun together.

  On the day she arrived, she took one look at me and breathed, “Whoa.”