My Friend Dated a Neo-Nazi

My friend was just fifteen years old when she got her abortion.

She was in a relationship with a boy we will call Cody.

Cody was a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi from a rough-around-the-edges Texas redneck family.

My friend, whom we will call Maryanne, is half-South Pacific Asian, raised by her white grandparents and an unstable single mother.

Perhaps her relative non-whiteness was part of the reason he felt so comfortable verbally and physically abusing her.

When she realized she was pregnant, she quickly set about figuring out how to get an abortion as a minor without parental consent.

She forged papers.

Borrowed money from a generous friend to pay for the expensive procedure.

Told her mom she would be spending the weekend at a friend’s.

Cody did not come with her to the abortion.

After a doctor and nurse completed her procedure, she felt curious.

“Can I see it?”

The nurse, looking appalled, told her that was a bad idea.

Heading home later that day, she named the fetus and gave it a burial.

In her mind.

Almost twenty years later, she told me as we lounged around her apartment complex pool:

“I would have an eighteen year old right now. That’s crazy.”

“I literally can’t imagine that,” I responded. “Do you wish you did?”

“Hell no! I’d never raise a kid with Cody.”

I shuddered just thinking about Cody.

I’d heard stories over the years.

He’d once drugged her until she passed out.

Then recorded himself on video anally raping her.

When she came to, he forced her to watch.

This was a sort of wake-up call for Maryanne.

She finally left him.

He didn’t let go easy.

He once snuck into her bedroom window while she was out.

Hid under her bed.

Waited there for hours and hours for her to return.

She finally got back from a night out partying.

Then realized there was something moving under her bed, caught a flash of it through her mirror as she sat there removing her makeup.

She jumped up and screamed bloody murder.

Then she realized:

It was Cody.

“I was initially terrified,” she told me. “Then I started to feel so much pity for him. He was so lonely.”

Still, she kept her distance.

A few years later, Cody became engaged to someone.

He messaged her on Facebook to apologize for being so terrible to her during their rocky teenage relationship.

“I was awful back then,” He offered up.

“I’m glad you’ve changed,” she wrote back.

A few years later, Maryanne met a handsome Army boy.

Both half-Guamanian and half-American White, they instantly bonded.

They married after a whirlwind six-month long-distance romance.

They were happy together.

For awhile.

My friend eventually grew bored and restless.

She began cheating.

A lot.

Like, she literally had overseas lovers in Europe booking trips to see her in the U.S.

Eventually, she told her heartbroken but seemingly clueless husband that she wanted a divorce.

Though she finally filed recently, they are still technically married. Years later.

Her current boyfriend, however, has no idea she’s still technically married to her ex.

She doesn’t feel too guilty about lying to him though.

Seeing as how he’s lied to her about some pretty intense shit. Not the least of which was repeatedly cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend.

In fact, he pretended that his identity was stolen after an apartment complex rejected his application due to the fact that has a pretty intense criminal record.

“I have enemies out to get me,” He told my friend. “My identity was stolen in my hometown by someone with the same name as me. That’s exactly why I moved to the Island.”

[Side-note: They met while she was on vacation on the Virgin Islands, where he lived and worked until moving Stateside to be with her. Apparently, the Island attracts criminals, due to the fact that there is no extradition for crimes.]

She did a little digging on the Internet to find out what exactly the criminal charges were for.

He had held someone at gunpoint.

And apparently endangered a minor in the process.

“It wasn’t me,” He told her. “Someone with the same name as me in the same town stole my identity. For real.”

And she believes it.

Or, at least, she did.

Last week, I ran into them again. A mutual close friend’s wedding.

I found myself seated right in between them, as they leaned over me to bark disparaging insults to each other all night.

Things got particularly heated after I became speaking with the Convict about his time on the Island.

“It’s where murderers go,” she interrupted. “It’s a bunch of murderers on that island!”

She got up and marched off.

I looked over at Convict.

He was purple, fuming.

She knows, I thought to myself. And she’s still with him.

An hour later, I saw them making out in a corner, apparently reconciled.

The next morning, however, she was posting Rupi Kaur quotes about heartbreak and betrayal.

In response, he began posting odes to his undying love for her on his Instagram.

Then, later that same day, Maryanne texted me to let me know that she and her man would be out of town that weekend, on a spur-of-the-moment romantic getaway trip.

Some habits die hard, I guess.