“Who are you?”
I heard the alarm in Yohannes’ greeting downstairs and assumed he was on the phone until the shrieking reply.
“Yohannes! Oh my god, I can’t believe I found you!”
“What are you doing in my house?”
This was the practiced, firm assertiveness we had learned to use with people who broke past our boundaries.
I ran downstairs.
She was wearing this year’s tie dye hoodie emblazoned with our ship name, Yoston. She was petite and couldn’t have been older than sixteen. I was a bit relieved. Yes it was a crazy person because she had clearly broken in, but she was just a young girl. A TikTok follower. Someone we would have liked meeting in a circumstance that was actually appropriate.
Her face lit up at the sight of me. “Oh my god, Easton!” She rushed toward me, her arms outstretched.
Yohannes stepped in her way and put both hands up to her in a firm stance, blocking her from advancing toward me. “Do not try to hug him. I understand that you wanted to meet us, and we appreciate that you supported our relationship, but it’s not okay that you just came in here. How did you get in our house?”
She looked at us both. A dawning appeared in her eyes. “Oh no! I’m not like, a stalker, I promise. I’m a normal person. I looked at a bunch of your posts and figured out that you lived here, and I just really had to talk to you so I got in through the window which I know sounds like a lot but you have to hear me out. I love you two, and you can’t break up. I mean, I know you literally just did, but you can’t. You’re too good together to give up on each other. You said you’d never do that. And what about all of us, what about all the fans who need you?”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Christina.”
“Christina,” I said, speaking calmly. “You need to go home, so we’re going to call the police to come help you and make sure you get home safe.” It sounded dumb but I was hoping my phrasing and whatever parasocial relationship she saw us as having with her would lull her. My phone was upstairs, so I said to Yohannes, “Baby, please do that for her right now?”
The accidental term of endearment brought a flush feeling to my face as soon as I said it. I would have to learn to break the habit while we newly figured out where to go from here. I could spend time cringing myself into the sun later. Right now I needed focus. Yohannes would probably agree that we weren’t going to press charges. We just needed her and anyone else who might try this to know it was not going to be rewarded.
She looked stunned. “I’ve supported you this whole time! Why would you call the police on literally your biggest fan?”
She ran into the adjacent room.
We followed her into the kitchen. I wasn’t even fully sure what we thought we would do to stop her, because even though she was the one who broke into our house, she was still a young girl and we were two grown men, so we couldn’t just put our hands on her, right?
She went directly to the knife drawer, opened it, and pulled out the butcher’s knife. She stepped toward the kitchen entrance, sealing off our only exit.
My stomach dropped.
We both backed toward the cabinets on the opposite end.
Yohannes spoke firmly but more gently than before. “Christina, put the knife down.”
She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.
She’d known not just where the kitchen was, but exactly where to grab the knife. Yes, we’d shown our house and posted cooking videos, but there was something intense and unexpected about someone memorizing the layout.
I tried to step in front of Yohannes to protect him and ended up almost tripping over him when he did the same.
Christina looked at us both with a tearfully fond head tilt. “Look at you two right now. You’re magic. This is why you guys are literally the most adorable couple ever. You’re not even on camera and you’re just like this in real life. “ She pulled out her phone and aimed it at us. “I know I lost the moment but do you think you could do something else cute? So I can prove to my friends I met you?”
We looked at each other, realizing that as much as we didn’t want to perform in this girl’s circus, it could buy us time if we tried to distract her. Yohannes put his hand at my waist to pull me close to him. He leaned into my ear and whispered, “I dialed the police and they’re on the line. Let’s hope they can put the pieces together and show up as soon as possible. In the meantime, let’s just try to talk to her.”
I nodded, relieved.
He took my hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. He continued, “I know this is crazy but it’s also so stupid and someday we’ll laugh about it.”
This time I could see he was the one cringing inside. Over the suggestion that we would do anything together someday.
I don’t really cry often, but I found myself blinking back tears.
“Oh no, Easton. Why are you crying?” the girl asked.
“Because I’m tired,” I said. “I’m tired of feeling like a character that other people animate in their minds. I’m tired from what it felt like for three years to hold my boyfriend’s hand and feel guilty whenever I didn’t ‘capture the moment’ with a fucking camera.”
She put her phone down, chastised.
“And I’m tired because all I wanted to ever do is love him and that failed, and now there’s someone in our house, you, and you’re threatening us with a knife over it.”
Christina’s jaw opened. “WHAT? You think I’m threatening you?”
Yohannes said, “Yeah. What else is this?”
She didn’t put the knife down, but she lowered it, to my relief. “I would never ever hurt you. You’re both so pretty. Sorry, I mean, you’re also so nice and such amazing people. I would never hurt you.”
“Okay thanks, that’s great,” Yohannes said. “So that means you can put the knife down.”
“Are you going to get back together?”
She could see the answer in our faces.
“You made me believe in love,” she said tearfully. “But now I know that people can just… stop. Anyone can, at any time. I don’t want to live knowing that.”
She turned the knife on herself.
The second she started falling forward, we shouted no, we rushed to stop her. She hit the ground. The blade came through the other side of her, through the avatars of our faces on the back of the hoodie.
I collapsed beside her. She was still breathing, making stilted jolts of movement. I saw the blood already pooling before Yohannes turned my face and pulled me away.
I don’t know how long it took the police and EMT to arrive. Maybe another minute. Maybe twenty. I was in a haze as Yohannes sat on the floor with me, next to the girl, shaking as he tried to explain things to the emergency line.
I see her outstretched arms every time I descend the stairs. Every meal I make, I see her body on the floor. Every noise I hear from outside, I dread that it’s another child who has come to die in my house.
Everyone heard what had happened. The discourse was more than we could read in a lifetime. A lot of people in the public eye, friends and strangers to us alike, quietly stopped posting their relationships.
Tonight, Yohannes held me, his body spooned up with mine in bed. His arm was wrapped around me and I kissed his fingertips. I got out of bed in hopes that writing and sharing this might calm me enough to sleep some.
I know our relationship is running on trauma, that this is what had brought us back together. Neither of us can go to sleep now without someone to hold us through our nightmares.
We’re going to try, and I know that this time it’s different. We might work out or we might not. But either way, there won’t be a camera in sight.