My Story with D

Sensitive topic warning - references to emotional abuse.

This is how it all started: my story with D. I met the most interesting person on a Friday four years ago. They were fascinating enough that I broke my own rules. For one thing, I thought I was a straight cis woman, but when I met this person (let’s for the sake of their privacy, call them “D,”) everything that was previously normal to me went out the window. D was hosting an event I attended. I spent most of that event less engaged in the activity than I’d expected to be. We were making our own hats and I’d been looking forward to it for so long. I’d never done anything like it before and I had no idea how it would go. The results could have been terrible or wonderful; that was what was so exciting about it. No one else I knew was going, so it was my solo venture, or so I thought.

Whenever D entered the room, the whole atmosphere changed. They were tall and imposing but simultaneously meek and mild mannered. The juxtaposition in their manner applied to every aspect of them. I couldn’t help staring at them, trying to work out what was in front of me. Maybe that was the beauty of them: they couldn’t be worked out like a concise sum.

The class was filled to the brim. There must have been forty students, which seemed like a big undertaking for a single coordinator. D didn’t look fazed at all by this. In fact, they looked in their element. They were wearing a striped boatneck T-shirt, cropped trousers and a pair of brogues. They had a short haircut that curled charmingly at the fringe. They had several visible piercings and tattoos. That has always been a weakness of mine. I love seeing personal inscriptions and choices displayed on someone’s skin. It’s like you get to read a personal blurb about who they are before you even start talking to them.

D showed us an array of hats that they had made. They were steampunk ones with brims decorated with vintage relics. I could picture D wearing them and carrying them off like most people couldn’t. In addition to those, they showed us some fascinators, some top hats, some straw hats and hairbands. There were so many different interpretations of the same thing that I didn’t know where to start. I just knew I was hooked from the get-go.

D encouraged us to all get to our feet and to peruse the displays, selecting whatever materials we liked. There was a generous selection of supplies available to us. The lady beside me told me she liked my shoes. I told her I liked her top, but really, I hadn’t noticed anything about anyone in the room but D. I gathered some bits and pieces that I planned to add to my hat. I wanted to make a decorative top hat: something inspired by D’s but not a direct copy of theirs.

I returned to my table, seated behind a glue gun and a cutting mat. D was waiting patiently at the head of the classroom. They looked like they could have stood there forever, answering questions and instructing others on how to do everything. I noticed they had a habit of playing with their sleeves. They turned them back and then pulled them back again. There was a tattoo on the underside of their forearm, but I couldn’t quite work out what it was. They gave me a serene smile for a moment, and we had unbroken eye contact for a long minute. Everyone else in the room was distracted, searching for whatever they wanted to use to make their hat. The hat had become redundant to me by then. I just wanted to get a chance to talk to D.

Whenever we were underway with our hats, D did a tour of the room, checking out all our creations. Mine was looking a little lopsided, but D was encouraging.

“Love the hat. It’s one I’d wear myself,” they said, with a charismatic grin.

There was something that felt slightly “off” about them, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. It was probably just my nerves. I knew I was in the presence of someone exceptional.

After the class ended, and I was reasonably satisfied with the outcome of the hat I’d made. (It was neither terrible nor wonderful,) I gathered my possessions together and reluctantly got ready to leave. I wanted a last chance to see D before I left. I knew I might never see them again, but I’d think about them for a long time after that.

Before I could contemplate what to say, D made a beeline for me.

“Do you want to get a coffee or a drink?” they asked me.

I was completely taken aback, but I nodded eagerly. I hoped I didn’t look too desperate. I couldn’t believe that someone as traditional as I was, was going on a date with a person whose gender I couldn’t name. But that felt like something inconsequential. I just wanted to bask in the glory of being around D.

They took me by the arm and led me out of the room. Their stride was sure, and I was the only one that felt any nerves; I knew that. Maybe this wasn’t new to them. They didn’t ask where I wanted to go. They just took me somewhere and I followed, listening to the gushing compliments they gave me on the way.

“You’re extremely beautiful… I’ve never seen anyone like you… it feels like love at first sight.”

“Wow, I don’t know what to say,” I said, shyly.

“Say you feel the same way. I know you do anyway … you couldn’t stop staring at me.”

It was true, but it felt too soon to express such sentiments. I didn’t know how much of it was caused by the illusion of infatuation. I still didn’t know what to think about dating someone non-binary. It was completely new to me. My brain told me I needed to take baby steps, even though my heart told me to jump in.

I was overruled by the stronger feeling of the two. I got swept up into the greatest romance of my life. It was just too easy to love D. D emanated confidence. D was surefooted about life. D was ambitious and believed in themselves, more than anyone I had ever met, and it paid off. D was the luckiest person I’d ever met. D got invited to host workshops so often they couldn’t agree to all of them. D got asked to speak at bigger and bigger events. D’s haircut changed on a weekly basis. It was always short, but one week, they’d have streaks of blue, the next, pink, the next, a new fringe, the next an undercut. D was proud of their hair. They talked about it excessively. I couldn’t stop admiring it. Whenever I forgot to, D wouldn’t take long to remind me to do it. D loved nothing more than a long look in the mirror. D was creating a persona for the public eye. They had aspirations that went beyond doing well for themselves locally. I was happy to be a supporting part in that picture, at first.

D and I travelled the world together. They always had plenty of funds and they were extremely generous with them. They’d whisk me off to Thailand one month and New Zealand the next. I saw every continent with them. I had every eventful experience I’d ever had with them by my side. D opened a portal that led me into a world I didn’t know could be real. Everything was memorable with D.

The bad parts were memorable with D too, like the first time D snatched my phone out of my hand, because I wasn’t giving them enough attention. They put it away and wouldn’t give it back until I earned it. The first time D told me to stop wearing what I wore. D told me my dress was too short and I needed to wear something classier. D told me to stop playing to the feminine constructs of our society. D told me I wasn’t free enough, I wasn’t strong-willed enough, I let people dim my light. They weren’t counted in that; they were trying their utmost to improve me – to bring out the best in me. D was a believer in my ability to be better. D knew the steps I needed to follow to get there.

Meanwhile, D pursued their own big goals and they got offered bigger and bigger opportunities while I got smaller and smaller by their side. Still, I couldn’t help adoring D. I adored D with the adoration most humans direct towards a deity. I could never be good enough for D. I could never be as remarkable as D. I could never be an equal partner to D.

One day, D trampled on the hat I’d made at our first meeting. D called it a copy-cat version of their own. D stomped their disgust for me into the hat. The hat became flattened, as if it was disappearing into the carpet, becoming one with the floor, as if it had never had structure – as if it had never been there at all. I felt for that hat.

One day, D disowned me. They left the country in pursuit of a bigger dream. They didn’t leave a note. They didn’t leave any form of explanation. They just changed their number and left, and I was left to reassemble the fragmented shards of the life I had once had. But I’ve realised I can’t, now that D is gone. D is at the heart and core of me. I don’t know how to stand on my own two feet anymore. As it turns out, I am terrible at hat-making. Without D, I’m nothing and no one. This is how it all ended: my story with D.