Introducing: Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero

Rediscovering Roots with Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero

He wasn’t a household name, but he was the one person my soul seemed to be looking for. The hometown headline I didn’t know I’d been waiting to read. 

Not all love stories have a happy ending. 

Sometimes loving someone isn’t enough. 

Two people can be so right for each other — two souls finally coming home — yet, life has other plans. 

This is one of those stories. 

Enter Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero.

We met in December, but I felt him coming in April. 

A little context. Coming from a small town, everyone knows everyone, even if they don’t know each other. Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero and I had similar circles but had never actually crossed paths. Later, I would reflect on that and feel certain the universe was waiting for the right timing. When we weren’t with other people. 

He had a reputation, as I’m sure I did too. But I wasn’t interested in the gossip. I could sense there was something deeper with him than just being the hot guy who couldn’t stay out of trouble. He seemed misunderstood and I could relate. 

That April, it started innocently enough: he followed me on Instagram. A few weeks later he DMed me a video of his dog. I found myself hoping he’d respond to my stories or send me more DMs. He did. Then suddenly he didn’t.  

Still the connection lingered in the air. I knew it was only a matter of time before our paths would cross. 

That December, I was back in my hometown for Christmas and had plans to meet up with █████, a friend who knew him. Getting ready to leave, I knew I was going to his house. I was getting ready to see Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero as if he were the one I had plans with. No reason to think that, no mention of him had been made, but I just knew. 

Sure enough, I pick up my friend and he says Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero was having people over, asked if I wanted to go.

We walked into his house, and the moment we shook hands, everything clicked into place. It was like seeing an old friend: familiar, warm, inevitable.

He looked into my eyes and saw all the way through me. That moment probably lasted only a second, but it felt like so much longer. Everything else in the room seemed to stop. 

He stayed by my side the entire night, finding any reason he could to position himself next to me. I didn’t really know this group of people — only by name — and he sensed my shyness and drew me into the conversation. Everything came back to me, my thoughts, my interests. By the end of the night, he’d made sure I felt like I was home.

New Year’s was approaching. I usually go out of town for the holiday, but in my heart I knew that my hometown was where I was meant to be that year and cancelled my flight. 

That New Year’s, █████ went missing (temporarily - he was fine, just a dead phone and a crushing hangover). I texted Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero, worried. Without hesitation he jumped to help me find █████.

Afterward, I drove away, already missing him. 

Fuck that. 

I called him. 

“Do you want to keep hanging out?” 

I started to turn my car around before he even said yes. I knew he wanted to as much as I did.

From then on, we were either together or talking every day. There were no nerves. No overthinking. Just the quiet certainty that this person understood me on a soul level. That we were meant to be in each other’s lives. 

As a private person in a small town, I liked getting to know someone myself before the small town gossip had a chance to taint things. We didn’t hide that we were falling in love, but we didn’t broadcast it either. From day one until the end, it felt like we were in our own little world. It was sweet. Pure. Truly special. 

I had never felt so safe, so seen, or so adored by a man. He made me feel like the most beautiful, most powerful woman in the world. His pride in me shone through in the way he would beam at me with sincere adoration. 

Being with him returned me to an innocence I hadn’t felt in years. We did whatever we wanted and didn’t second guess a thing. 

We were watching videos on betta fish one night, admiring their beauty and strength. 

“I want one,” he decided, getting up to put on his shoes.

An hour later, we were driving down the backroads toward his house with a new addition to our family. 

The next week, I was on my way to his house when I got a flat tire and texted that I’d be late as a result. 

“Where are you?” he replied instantly.

I dropped a pin with my location. 

“I’m on my way.” 

He switched my tire out and we went on with our day. 

I never had to ask him for anything. He just knew instinctively how to care for me. 

I hadn’t felt that since my dad had died. 

As the anniversary of my dad’s death approached, I started to get anxious. I didn’t want to be back in my childhood home, alone, where my dad had taken his last breaths a few years prior. 

“Let’s go somewhere,” he offered when he sensed me retreating. 

We found a yurt on Airbnb, tucked in the woods near the Yuba River and a tiny little old Nevada town he loved. 

For two days we had no phones, no distractions, just us. We hiked, read by the fire, got lost, and found peace. 

One night, we were lying by the fire in the yurt, his head on my lap as I read to him and played with his hair. He closed his eyes and told me he loved me. 

I didn’t say anything. Even though I knew I felt the same, saying it back was too scary. The awareness that I’d have to go back to my real life sooner or later had been creeping in. 

I knew I loved this man back, but what would that look like when I was back in LA? 

At that moment, I didn’t want my old life anymore. I’d worked for years to create that life, but felt like it no longer fit. A plot of land in the backroads of our hometown to build a house and riding off into our own little world would have been enough for me. More than enough. 

I felt at home with him. It was intense and passionate and real. And I wanted more than anything for it to last.

Unfortunately, things don’t always work out how we want. 

I will never understand why the universe brought us together only to tear us apart. There will always be a part of my heart that belongs to Mr. Hometown Anti-Hero, even though he’s returned to being a familiar stranger. 

Sometimes, when I’m back home, I drive those backroads and pass the vacant fields that could have been ours. I wonder what our life might have looked like if things had been different. Maybe there’s another version of us somewhere… one that got to find out. 

But in this one, I just keep driving. 

Every Mister is part of a bigger picture. If you’re new, here’s why I started opening my diary: Why Write This?