Heather T Stone

If you approached me on the street trying to sell me something, you would think I was a bitch.

You would expect respect, possibly even a handshake. You would see my arms crossed over my chest and my eyes avoiding yours. I would be short with you. I would tell you I didn’t need or want anything you had to sell me. I would cut you off and try to get you to leave me alone as fast as possible.

I’ve got resting bitch face. If you don’t know what that means, when I’m making no expression, I look angry. Snotty. Standoffish.

But what I really am is traumatized.

And you don’t know my history.

What I’m actually doing is scanning.

I’m memorizing your hair, your eyes, the ring on your finger—anything I might need to describe later. I’m watching where your hands are and what they might do next. I’m checking the distance between us.

I’m trying to get my stomach to unclench.

I’m trying to remember to breathe.

I’m scanning for exits. I’m scanning for danger.

I may not be meeting your eyes, but I’m looking at you.

You don’t know that I once had restraining orders against people who said they loved me. Tires had been slashed. Death threats had been made. I’d already fled two homes with nothing but the clothes on my back. I was in hiding.

I’d been through a domestic violence program, and I was terrified to face the world.

I was also trying to be brave.

One day, I was standing outside speaking to my landlord when a man walked down the street in a suit.

He held out his hand.

I shook it.

Then he grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

He said things that didn’t make sense.

He loved me.

He didn’t know me.

I felt his strength as he pulled me into his chest. He was crushing me. I tried to pull away, but I quickly realized I was no match for him.

My eighty-year-old landlord was screaming, “Get off of her!”

The man didn’t let go. He tried to kiss me.

I fought back, but he had me pinned against his chest.

Nothing changed until my landlord threatened his life.

He finally released me and ran down the street, screaming for my landlord not to take his life.

A few days later, he found me at work, in the service department of a car dealership five miles from my home.

I told the maintenance man. He recognized him immediately.

The maintenance man said he had a reputation for getting “frisky,” as though that was what had happened.

I was told he had developmental disabilities and couldn’t drive.

If he couldn’t drive, how did he find both my job and my home?

His father came and got him.

I didn’t press charges.

I’ll always wonder whether that was the right decision.

I wish I could say this was the only time a stranger grabbed me and tried to overpower me.

It wasn’t.

So, the next time someone seems standoffish in public, give them some grace.

Some of us are trying our best just to survive on streets you see as normal.

You see a man in a suit.

I see the man in a suit.

So many suits.

I don’t shake hands anymore.

I’m okay with that.

I always will be.