DISCLAIMER: This entry involves experiences of bullying, sexual misconduct and/or assault, and self-hate and could possibly trigger a reader who may have (or is still) struggling with any of those issues. Please be cautious.
As with all of my entries and stories, each piece of writing I post here is from my personal perspective, experience, logic, and truth. I do not, and nor will I ever claim, that I know best, or all there is to know, about any topic or experience another individual may have experience(d). These are my words, my thoughts, my feelings, my truth.
Though breaking up with John had been the best thing to do at the time, rather than take time to care for myself and make myself whole again, I completely fucked everything up. It’s like John was the calm from the storm, but then I walked right back into it. Clint somehow showed up at my apartment one day, out of nowhere. I don’t even know how he found me. He suddenly appeared on my doorstep and asked if he could spend the night because his girlfriend had kicked him out. I wish I’d told him to fuck off. I wish I’d punched him in the throat. I wish I’d done anything but what I’d done. I let him in, and I let him stay.
We stayed up late talking and all of these old feelings resurfaced. What I thought was lust, if not love, and attraction, were probably insecurity and the reemergence of a desperate need for him to value me. I think I told myself I wanted him to want me so I could tell him to fuck off. I played it that way. I flirted with him, embellished about how well I was doing, when in fact, on the inside, I was reverting right back to that fifteen year old girl who needed him to love me. It was awful.
My roommates were less than impressed, but not in a protective or caring way. They stepped in and told me that if I was going to have boys stay at the apartment, they wouldn’t stand for it. After long arguments and a fight or two, they kicked me out at the same time I said I was moving out. Without a place to go, I contacted my father and asked to move home temporarily until I figured things out.
I moved back home and went right back to where I left off, as though the (almost) two years with John hadn’t even happened. I went back to my old ‘friends’, the ones who’d treated me terribly and believed (if not spread) the awful rumours about me. And Clint and I? Well, we started seeing each other, despite his living with his pregnant girlfriend. Somehow, I’d allowed him to wrap me around his finger again. My gut and intelligence was screaming to get away from it all, but I honestly felt I had no where to go. I think a part of me had given up and felt I should just embrace this life as I clearly couldn’t get away from it. For some reason, I wanted so much to believe all of the bullshit Clint was feeding me. He told me that after I’d left, he’d grown so lost. He couldn’t find me, he couldn’t get a hold of me, and he felt as though he’d lost his mind. He’d realized what a jerk he’d been and wanted so desperately to tell me, but couldn’t. After a while, he gave up and started dating this girl, a single mom only a year older than me, because he’d felt sorry for her. His mom had kicked him out, his family was in shambles, so he moved in with this girl and her son. As time passed though, he knew she’d never love him the way I did. He said he’d made the biggest mistake letting me go, and wanted to make up for it. Blah, blah, blah.
Can you believe I fell for that shit? I swallowed it up as though it were water and I’d just been wandering the dessert for 40 days. It just seemed so romantic and fairy-tale like to me. You know the story, boy meets girl, they fall in love, boy messes up big time, girl takes him back, saves him, and they live happily ever after. I didn’t even acknowledge or recall the serious harm and hurt he’d caused me before. I completely ignored the fact that he was living with another girl who was carrying his child! What was wrong with me???
I remember one night, he showed up at my dad’s place practically in tears. He and his girlfriend had gotten into a big fight. He didn’t want to go back to her place, but I knew I couldn’t have him at my dad’s so, I actually paid for a motel room for us to spend the night. We spent the night together and I can vividly remember my inside voice screaming at me about how wrong it was. But, I silenced it and somehow went through with it.
We ‘dated’ for a short time and his girlfriend knew about it. I think I justified it by telling myself he’d been mine first. And then suddenly, he stopped answering my calls. He wouldn’t see me anymore. He wouldn’t even talk to me. I don’t even remember if I saw him again.
Looking back, what I did was beyond awful, and not only for myself. That poor girl, who was probably trying to build her life, who may have been just as lost as I was. She was pregnant with his child. And while he was a complete ass hole playing us both, I can never make right what wrong I did to her and her family. Whatever relationship I had with him, he was the father of the child she was carrying, and I certainly wasn’t helping anything or anyone. I feel a lot of shame when I think about that time. Despite my fucked up “justifications”, I was wrong. I knew that, and I know it. I doubt it matters to her anymore, if it ever did, but there’s a part of me that wishes and hopes she knows that.
After he disappeared, I continued hanging out with the same terrible people. I was once again, completely lost. Almost eighteen, a high school drop out, and still looking for love in all the wrong places.
Stay tuned for PART EIGHT
Ⓒ May 2022. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.
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