It was late, and I was getting sleepy, so at one point I said it was time to go home. My friends had already left, so I was alone with my new acquaintance, who said he was leaving too and would walk me to the bus stop to make sure I was safe. We picked up our coats from the cloakroom and stepped out into the winter night. We chatted a bit at the bus stop, then my bus arrived, so I said goodbye and got on. He followed me up the steps behind me.
“Didn't you say you don’t live this way?” I asked.
“I’m walking you home,” he replied.
“No need. I live pretty far.”
“That’s no problem for me.”
This was the first moment I felt uneasy. Back then I lived in the suburbs, and I’d told him several times that I was going far and he really didn’t need to walk me all the way home. I didn’t say it out loud, but I wasn’t happy about him knowing where I lived either.
Standing in front of my house, he then asked if he could come up, and I firmly said no. “Come on, I walked you all this way!” That sentence set off alarm bells in my head. Call it a sixth sense or whatever you want, but from that moment on, I was sure this man would never come near me again, and I wouldn’t let him into my home. I told him straight up that I hadn’t asked him to walk me home, and even if I had, it didn’t mean I owed him entry.
He then tried to convince me to at least let him use the bathroom, trying to guilt-trip me into feeling like I was being rude and harsh for refusing. But by then, I didn’t care about anything. I ran to the door, unlocked it, and slammed it shut behind me in a flash.
Nothing else mattered—I just wanted to get as far away as possible from this man who was clearly trying to pressure me into something I had clearly said no to.
I Forgot About It for Years
Back then, social media was still pretty new. Everyone was on Facebook, but we didn’t have smartphones buzzing with every message yet.
It wasn’t until months later that I noticed message requests from him under his name. I had no idea how he found me; it must have taken him a while to track me down. His first message said he thought he’d reach out before sending a friend request. Then he asked if I was going to the club where we met that Saturday. His last message came a few days later: “If you don’t want to talk, just say so, but I really don’t like this silence…”
The ellipsis at the end of that message looked ominous and threatening in the white chat window. A chill ran down my spine. “This guy is a walking red flag, lucky I got away,” I thought, and then I didn’t think about him for years.
Ten years later, I was scrolling on my phone on my then-boyfriend’s couch when I saw his face again on Facebook. But this time, it was on a wanted poster. Out of jealousy, he had brutally beaten the girl he had been dating just months before.
After he was caught, of course, he shed crocodile tears and claimed he only lost his mind over love—as if you could believe someone loved a person they were capable of hitting with a hammer.
My stomach clenched as I read the news about him. Because I knew exactly that even 10 years ago, he was a manipulative, possessive person who thought he was entitled to everything. I don’t know what wounds he carried inside, but I do know they were there back then, and he did nothing about them. He let them grow, let them become his own truth, and now a young woman is dead because of him—and he’s still alive.
There’s no justice. No lesson either. Just the painful truth that we still have to teach our daughters to protect themselves because we haven’t taught our sons they have no right to hurt them.
