Bahar was always very mature for her age. Maybe it was the severe abuse she endured under her birth mother that forced her to mature early; she adapted to survive. Little did she know, that her “maturity” would attract an older crowd. She always had older friends around, that eventually lead to an older boyfriend, one that would ruin Bahar’s self esteem for many years to come.

In enters Joker. Yes, he called himself Joker and never went by his actual name. That should have been the first red flag for her to run; he was an aspiring hoodlum. Joker was not just a couple of years older than her, but also a high school dropout. He was always getting into trouble, hung out with the wrong people, moved back into the city with his dad, and there were so many cultural differences.

Joker was honestly the worst. He took advantage of the situation that Bahar was younger than him and naive. He’d manipulate her constantly, tell her how great she was, only to be cheating on her left and right. Some friends had even seen him out to lunch with other girls and once Bahar would confront him, they’d argue, he’d make her feel like she wasn’t worthy of love, stop talking for a day or two and then come back to her like nothing happened. During the entire relationship, Bahar never felt secure, but for some reason she’d stick around. She was never calm when they were together, she was constantly at the edge of her seat waiting for him to have an outburst over anything, even down to no cell service. Little did Bahar know… a relationship like this would happen to her again.

Bahar was decent looking during this time, in her awkward stage obviously like everyone else. She was smart, funny, charismatic, but she never felt pretty enough. Joker was not attractive, not smart, had a raspy voice, and terrible skin. No one understood the attraction there, truthfully neither did Bahar.

Once Bahar turned 16, she started to feel more comfortable in her own skin. Her confidence started to grow and she started to pull away from Joker. Bahar was always busy. Her parents gave her cool cars, but she had to work Summers and when she was 16 years old, she got her first after school job. At first she hated the fact her parents pushed her into working, but it taught her the value of hard work and the value of a dollar. She was still able to maintain her grades, was in the National Honors Society, and scored high on her SAT’s. She knew she had a great future ahead and knew Joker was bad news. In her Senior year, she phased him out and he went into a panic. Started asking her friends about her, trying to pop up at her job, professing his love for her etc etc etc.

For a short while, she would fall for it, but once mid senior year of high school came around she found out he was in a serious relationship with another woman named Fernanda. At that point she was finally done emotionally and had completely detached herself from him. She was free and could finally breathe.

Joker was an emotional and psychological predator, Bahar was his prey.