Content warning: descriptions of attempted sexual assault and domestic violence.

There was one secret that I never shared with anyone but Mom, and it slowly drained me of life. Back in grade school, I was an average girl who was just as prone to fanciful illusions of romance as the next. There were even a few occasions that I had a crush on some guy in my class. However, that all changed when Mom started dating again once I got to junior high.

After she gave birth to me, Mom threw herself into working multiple jobs to provide for me. She was still a young woman and strikingly gorgeous, but she regularly rejected offers from men to take her out. She wanted to focus on raising me and didn’t care about romance anymore. That is, until she met Peter.

Peter was a soldier from the United States that was stationed nearby. Apparently, he would often go to the bar where Mom worked solely to see her. At first, he was really charming and romantic. He would stay until closing to help her clean up and then he would walk her home. He would show up with flowers and chocolates, all the cliché romantic tropes from books and movies.

Three months of his constant charm was enough to weaken Mom’s resolve and she decided to date Peter. She thought he was a kind man who truly loved her, he pursued her for months without expectations after all. My first exposure to romance was something I could never forget.

The first time I met him, I thought there was something off about how he acted. His smile seemed insincere and cynical, like he was playing the role of a suave prince. He would come over pretty regularly to play with me, but I never liked spending time with him. He scared me, but Mom would laugh off my concerns, attributing my uneasiness to my lack of exposure to men.

It wasn’t long until Peter began to show his true colors. He would demand free drinks at the bar and then drunkenly try to force himself on Mom after they closed. He would come over with his army buddies and eat all the food Mom worked hard to buy for us. They would sexually harass Mom all while Peter laughed at the scene.

Mom finally summoned the courage to tell him to leave and never come back, that they were breaking up. In response to Mom’s staunch rejection, he beat her and insulted her. He called her a slut for having a child out of wedlock, berating her for being a bad mother and how she needed him.

She laid in a ball, trembling and crying from fear, accepting his punishment. Once he was confident that she was pacified, he turned his attention towards me. His hands felt like iron vices around my biceps as he forced me to the ground. His intentions were clear, and I could do nothing but watch as he clawed at my school uniform, too drunk to be able to undo it.

Just as he finally unbuttoned my shirt, he was struck hard on the back of the head with a fire extinguisher. Mom hit him repeatedly until she was confident, he wasn’t going to get up. She grabbed me and ran to a neighbor’s apartment, who graciously sheltered us until the police arrived.

We sat huddled in the corner of the apartment for what felt like hours, despite being safely away from him. Even after the police took him away and the paramedics tended to our injuries, Mom refused to let me go. The fear we shared, that terror, was what made me feel like relationships caused nothing but pain.

Peter was charged and sent back to the United States, banned from ever entering Japan again. It took a couple years before Mom returned to her usual cheerful self, but I never got past it. Even with him gone, I was terrified that Mom would bring home another man someday and it would happen all over again.

Instead, Mom swore off dating altogether. She never wanted to put me in danger again, but I didn’t blame her for what happened. It wasn’t her fault that the man she thought was kind and gentle was actually a monster underneath the facade. Even so, she wasn’t going to take the chance again with the hope that the next one wouldn’t be violent.

However, I never was able to forget that experience. Mom was over the moon that she finally met a nice man who treated her kindly and did all the romantic things she dreamed of. But that dream became a waking nightmare for me, sullying the whole idea of romance. It took a while, but I was able to respect other people not sharing my views, but they never had to experience what I did. Only Mom and I knew what happened and I refused to talk about it with anyone. That pain was ever present, a constant drain on my soul.

Five years later and I was finally beginning to budge on my aversion to romance. The reason for the change was because of an annoying, love obsessed gyaru who thought love would make her happy. Meeting her and getting closer to her was when everything began to change within me.

For the first time in my life, I thought seriously about my sexuality, and discovered that I was attracted to women. Unfortunately, the person I used to make that discovery was the very same gyaru who made me change in the first place. I told myself that it meant nothing, that I just used her as a proxy for my mental simulation, but deep down I knew it was a lie.

This knowledge was what drove me to make another change; to distance myself from her. It’s not like I wanted to date her, or even touch her, but I needed to remove myself from the person who was making me consider the possibility of a relationship. I didn’t want to change, I wanted things to stay the same as always. Because love never made me happy.

Mom was the only one I needed, because I knew I would be safe with her. Making the same mistakes as her wasn’t something I ever wanted to do. Thus, in order to keep myself safe, I would never fall in love.

The following day, I told Sasaki-san to stop coming over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Whatcha reading, kiddo?” Mom asked in her usual peppy tone.

“It’s a light novel about two girls who fall in love. I think I might prefer this kind of thing.” Mom knew everything about me, and I knew she wouldn’t hate me for how I felt. If anything, she would be happy that I thought about the subject at all.

“Oh? Sounds like you’re starting to open yourself up to the world of romance! So, you like girls, eh? Do you have a crush on somebody?” She was still a gyaru no matter how old she was, hungry for scandalous gossip and juicy secrets.

“Nope, I just wanted to learn more about my condition.”

“Hmmm… Rina-chan hasn’t been around lately, is there a reason for that?” Mom was obviously implying something that was absolutely true but not something I could openly admit to.

“Not particularly, I just prefer being alone. That’s why I told her to stop coming over.”

“Oh geez, of course you did. Is this because she’s dating Sato-san?”

I shrugged my shoulders dismissively, not allowing her to get a reaction out of me. “Well, if she has a boyfriend, then she should be hanging out with him instead of me. But that wasn’t why I told her to leave me alone. She was annoying and asked too many personal questions. Besides, I could never get any reading done when she was here.”

“Uh-huh. You’re not just pushing her away because you’re afraid that you’ll fall for her?” Mom was giving me a sly grin, acting as if she had me figured out. It was only slightly infuriating whenever she vocalized my feelings better than I could.

“It’s for the best.”

“...Still can’t allow yourself to fall in love?” She sounded depressed, like she let me down by being a poor role model for healthy relationships.

“I’m not in love with that bumbling idiot. She is utterly useless when it comes to anything that doesn’t involve makeup, she’s not a good student, and we have nothing in common. Plus, even if I did feel that way, we graduate in less than a year, it would just be a waste of time.”

“I see… What does she want to do when she graduates?”

Why was Mom so interested in Sasaki-san’s future? Ever since Sasaki-san stopped coming over, Mom seemed to be increasingly interested in her. What was the purpose of her inquiring about someone who I didn’t want to engage with more than I already had?

“She said something about becoming a beautician or something. Such a stereotypical gyaru.”

“She and I are similar in a lot of ways. In high school, I wanted to study cosmetology and work in a salon before everything happened. Sayaka, I don’t think she would treat you poorly. You can’t assume everyone is going to be just like him.”

“...Are you starting to date again?” My hands were trembling in fear. She never talked about him before, why would she be so dismissive of his behavior if she wasn’t trying to make me less anxious?

“Of course not, sweetie. Just because I’m not interested in dating doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be either. Love isn’t a bad thing; it actually feels really great. My relationships haven’t gone the way I may have wanted them to, but that doesn’t mean that I regret ever falling in love.”

“Mom, please stop trying to change my mind. I’m fine without that in my life. All I need is you, because you’ll never let me get hurt, right Mom?”

“Right… Do you think it was my fault for what happened?”

Mom was acting strangely serious for once. We never discussed the events of that day, but she must have felt some guilt for how I changed my views on relationships.

“It wasn’t your fault that he lied to you or that he hurt us. But he deceived you for so long that I can’t allow myself to ever feel that way because I may be deceived too. Being alone isn’t nearly as scary as being trapped and hurt by someone I believed I could trust.”

“I… I understand. Well, as long as you’re happy, then I suppose it's alright. But you shouldn’t avoid your friend who cares a lot about you. Even if you fall in love with her, you don’t need to change how to interact with her.”

Mom brought it back to Sasaki-san for some reason. Did she figure out that I was actually scared of falling for her or was there something else? It had been two weeks since I talked to her, I even ignored her at school despite us sitting next to each other. Why was Mom so concerned about someone I didn’t want to talk to anymore?

“It’s fine, Mom. I’m okay without her. Maybe one day I will fall in love, but I’m not in a rush. There’s no reason that I should jump at the first person who made me reconsider my feelings, especially since I’m only in high school.”

“Alright, I just don’t want you to limit yourself unnecessarily.” Mom hugged me, squeezing me tightly against her bosom affectionately.