Ride On

Sweet Leanne

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Leanne was a sweet girl. Like most of us in the group I hung out with, she was fortunate enough to have a stable, supportive family who loved her and provided everything she needed (and most of what she wanted). She was athletic and outgoing enough that by the time we were freshmen in high school, she was a cheerleader. She was an above-average student who, through effort, got good grades. She was good-natured, quick with a smile and laugh, and slightly gullible.

Just like with most teens, throughout our years in high school we started to branch out and try new things. We met other students and started new friendships. We started dating outside of our core group. I couldn’t say how it started; but Leanne started spending time with Dan in our senior year — even though he was no longer a student. Most of us either knew him or those he hung out with. At a minimum, we knew his reputation.

Dan had the same background as us. He had caring, well-off parents and seemed to have everything he needed to succeed. What we knew about Dan was that he wasn’t nice, and he didn’t respect anybody. I played on the football team with him when he was a senior. He didn’t play much in the games. He never earned the starting position and was second or third-string behind a junior classmate, which he resented.

At one point in his senior year, he injured his hand as he punched a wall at a party. He was upset because the girl he wanted to date was in a room with another guy. Nearly everyone knew he had taken advantage of a girl who had little interest in him. Her life, or at least the remaining two years I saw, was changed.

Knowing Dan’s behavior, we were shocked when Leanne started hanging out with him. We jokingly said, “Oh, Leanne’s going through a ‘bad boy’ phase.” When they spent more time together, people expressed growing concern, warning her it wasn’t going to end well.

The more we tried to help her see the danger in the path she was heading down, the more she shut us out. Dan became her sole source of information. When he told her he was the only one who cared about her, she listened. She started to believe her life wasn’t rich and full without him. He said he would make her life great, and she believed.

The more outlandish his behavior became, the more she refused to listen to reason. No matter how unsupportable his excuses, the more she shut out concerned friends. She had entirely closed off to her friends before we graduated. Despite her parents’ concern, she dedicated herself to following Dan a few years after high school.

I left town to go to school, and lost track of her. It wasn’t just me. She had turned away from all her friends and disappeared into Dan’s world.

I was surprised to see her at a reunion a few years ago, decades after we left school. It was startling. She had aged prematurely and looked frail and empty. It was clear she’d had a very hard life. While talking to her, I noticed a periodic, recognizable flash in her otherwise dulled eyes. There were also traces of the smile she used to flash effortlessly. It was distorted, though, like a dog trying to suppress a snarl. Sweet Leanne was still in there but buried under decades of abuse and addiction.

A classmate, Rob, befriended her at the reunion. Dan had passed away, leaving Leanne with neither money nor health. In conversations with Rob, I learned more about the “missing years” in Leanne’s life.

After they got married Dan started abusing her. She followed him to different towns, always under the guise it would be better. Suffering setback after setback, she still believed him when he told her he would make her life great. They would be rich.

His addictions became more apparent. She joined him in drug use. She cycled between heavy use, guilt and recovery. She would pull away long enough to know he had drained her of money, health and motivation. He would swear he was changed. He’d say she could do no better than him and that nobody else wanted her, so she stayed with him.

During those earlier decades, as they cycled through periods of sobriety, they would get financial help from her parents to “get back on their feet.” Eventually, her parents cut her off if Dan was in her life. She chose Dan.

Looking into Leanne’s eyes at that reunion, you could see a hollow, emptied-out shell of what had once been a vivacious, spirited young woman with unlimited potential and every reason to believe a good, happy life was ahead.

It was sad but not unexpected when Rob said she passed away less than a year after the reunion. She gave her life chasing empty promises from a conniving fraud. Dan drained her spirit and much of her parents’ wealth.

I admit I feel a little guilty about her tragic life. Was there more we could have done as friends? I’m not sure any of us could have helped her once she started believing him and resisted the truth of what we all saw. Maybe we could have tried harder to shine a light on her path. She became blind to anything but what came from him, no matter how clearly it deviated from reality.

Sadly, some people never recover from a “bad boy” phase. They continue down a path paved by false promises. They don’t travel alone. They bring those who see the truth and care about them along. It becomes a tragedy for us all.

Mark Michel is a retired commercial airline pilot and a Key Pen Parks commissioner. He lives in Lakebay.


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