The Reality of a Broken Soul
The sun hadn’t yet rose and there I was hiding behind a tree across the street. My heart pounding so hard in my chest I half expected it to burst free, as I watched her father walk out the front door and head for his green truck. Did he just look at me? No. I wait for him to leave for what seems like hours, but in reality it was only seconds. I watch as his tail lights fade into the distance, then dart across the street doing my best to dodge the street lights.
I creep across the yard as quietly as possible, and reach her window. Two light taps on it and I see her smiling face. What was I doing visiting a girl four years younger than me at 5:30 in the morning behind her fathers back? Nothing like one would think. I was only 20 years old and she was 16. People could think I was there to take advantage of such a young girl, but it just wasn’t true. I’d crawl up through that window, or sneak through the back door and we’d lay in her bed and I’d hold her. Sure we’d kiss but it wasn’t about sex. I loved her. I truly loved her.
I did this three to four times a week. Always early in the morning. Sometimes she’d skip school that day and we’d spend hours just hanging together. Sometimes we’d play video games, sometimes we’d watch movies. Like Cast Away staring Tom Hanks. She always got a kick when I’d provide the dialog for Wilson the Volleyball. But most of the time we just held each other and talked. We could talk for hours upon hours. I would leave and go home. And we would talk on the phone anywhere between 3 to 6 hours. There was no long pauses of silence. We could just talk about anything.
The only problem that existed in our relationship was her father. Who absolutely hated me. But who wouldn’t right? After all I was the older man trying to ruin his one and only daughter. I was the very definition of evil and impure acts. If he only knew how innocent my intentions were.
A year passed and everything was great. We rarely fought and when we did it didn’t last long. But it was a year into our relationship that sex began coming up. I wasn’t a virgin, but she was. I wanted to be with her sexually but I was absolutely terrified of it. The last thing I wanted was for her to give me her virginity, then we break up and she regret it. If anything I wanted her to know that I truly loved her and that if we did break up she still remembered me fondly.
It was Valentines day 2002. I knew she wanted it on this day. I was so damned scared. I washed my sheets twice and made my bed perfectly. I then covered it in red rose petals and lit a dozen red and white candles. It was on that bed that she told me she wanted to give me the one thing she could only give once. And on that day I accepted that gift. Ill never forget how scared I was I kept asking if she was alright. I truly think she was less nervous than I. After we had made love we laid there in each others arms. And I wiped the tear from her eye, and asked her what was wrong. She told me she never wanted that day to end.
Eventually I moved into a small apartment with two of my friends. While I was there we got the experience of a life time. The two friends I stayed with were a couple. And the girl was more than willing to pick her up and bring her over to stay the whole weekend. I’ll never forget the first night we actually got share a bed together for an entire night. We slept holding each other. And as the night progressed we got hot, as in the rooms temperature was hot. We stopped holding each other but when I woke we were holding hands. Who could ask for more.
Unfortunately things don’t always work like you want them to. I had to move out of my friends apartment, I had to move to my grandparents house. Two counties away. But thank God for my grandfather. He was more than willing to go and pick her up to spend a day with me. So we always got to see each other. It was there at my grandmothers that I asked her to marry me. We had already been together for two years. And I knew in my heart of hearts that I wanted her for my wife. She said yes. Life was going to get better and better.
At around the same time we became engaged I got a job with the Juvenile Court. My dream was starting to come true. Now I was picking her up and were spending so much time together. It was incredible. I had money and the only girl I ever wanted in my life. But as we got closer to our third year, it seemed that the old saying all things must come to an end, was true.
She graduated from High School and went on to college. I never expected things to go down hill so fast. After all only months earlier I was her date to Homecoming and the Prom. I was there for her graduation. I wanted to be a major part of her life. After all she was a major part of mine. But it was college that tore us apart. While she was there she asked me a question, she asked me that if she asked to sleep with someone else would I be ok with that. I didn’t even think really. I just replied yes. Because I knew it would never happen. But the conversation kept coming up in the days after. So I thought more on it, and it made me angry. I told her I couldn’t handle that. She was mine and I was not willing to share her. After all we were to be married. But I didn’t want to be unreasonable. So I told her that we should just stop where we were and give her a break. That if she really wanted to act on this then to go ahead. As the saying goes if you love something let it go, if it comes back to you its yours. If it doesn’t it was never meant to be. But the second I told her this she didn’t want to end it. But I wouldn’t back down. I was afraid that if she didn’t get this out of her system now what was to happen when we were married, or even had children. No, it had to be now. Sometimes I still wonder if I made the right choice.
For weeks she begged me to take her back. But I stood firm. Until finally she stopped asking. After a couple of more weeks I asked her to come back to me. She said no. that scared me. She went to Florida to visit her mother. And on New Years night she went to a party. Before she went to the party I asked her again she said that we’d discuss it when she got back. That night she slept with the second person she had ever been with. On New Years night, she made love to a stranger, while I sat alone in my apartment crying. Praying that she’d come back to me.
The last time I saw her was at the little place I was staying at. She cried in my arms and I held her. I took her back to her college, and she told me. Promised me. We was going to be together again. But it never happened. Two weeks later she met the man she is with now.
Its been a year since then. I still have trouble trusting women now. I’m always expecting to get hurt. Sometimes the loneliness hurts so much I just don’t want to wake up in the morning. But I do and I try to continue on. Thinking of her doesn’t hurt like it used to. But there is still a scar there. Sometimes I go weeks without thinking of her. But then it would just hit me, ‘What is she doing?”
“Does she think of me?”
“Does she ever wonder what if we never broke up?”
“Does she still love me?”
“Do I still love her?”
And here I am 25 years old. I have gotten a major promotion at work and I made my dream come true. I make respectable amounts of money, I’m an independent young man. That sometimes can’t sleep at night because I lie there wondering what did I do wrong.
And why am I alone.
But it wasn’t her fault. I was a bastard in so many ways. I was untrusting. I always thought she was cheating on me. I was this fat guy who had a beautiful young woman. She was incredible. And I refused to believe it was real, I was just waiting for the day that she would cheat on me. It never happened though. But my accusations pushed her away.
So there it is. My story about how I destroyed the one thing in this world that mattered to me. The wounds turn to scars. And sometimes they ache. Other times I look at them as reminders of a time of happiness. When I look back I don’t think of the problems. I remember her smile. The way she’d lean into me as we’d walk causing me to stumble. Or the way she’d run out into traffic yelling, “Get hit, get money!” Or the way she’d giggle when I’d do a raspberry on her soft stomach. The way she loved it when I brushed her hair while we watched a movie. I fucked it all up. Because I couldn’t swallow my pride and face my fears like a man. The break up destroyed what was left of the boy and made room for the man I am today.
