In junior high, my best friend was this guy named Nathan (I've mentioned before here that he saved my life once when we were inter-tubing at the local reservoir and I almost drowned). In high school, we drifted apart, primarily because he was becoming more and more involved in drugs and I wasn't interested in going down that road.
During our Senior year, he got another classmate pregnant and they ended up getting married. We were working at the same grocery store at the time and I know he was trying to get clean but having a rough go of it.
After graduation, I lost all contact with him. A couple of years later, I got the news that his marriage had failed. He ended up going to her apartment where he poured gas over himself and lit himself on fire in front of her and their daughter.
She recently wrote a
book about her experience and recovery. It turned out that through all of their time together, he was regularly beating her up. I had no idea that was happening or that he was even capable of that. She says in the book that the police believe that if she hadn't had someone with her that day, he probably would have killed her and possibly their daughter first since he had repeatedly told her that "if I can't have you, no one will".
It's been tough getting my mind around the whole thing.