I just wish people didn’t take advantage.
Since I could remember I was always told that being honest was the way to go. When I thought of love and people who love you I thought they would be like that. You know? Honest. So I’m going to take you on a small roller coaster that I call my life so you can see why I feel so bitter when it comes to the thought of people being honest.
The first love of my life, Derek, and I met in high school; he was that badass guy in a leather jacket. My kind of guy you know? Into alternative music and has room for some hip-hop (That’s the dream for a teenage girl in the Bronx). I thought he was the one for me. Like all first loves, of course, there was an issue. He was a young boy. He hasn’t explored the world and he was curious. So we ended it and of course, I was devastated. Looking back now I wish I wasn’t so hooked to the thought of being with him because it made me extremely vulnerable. Derek comes back and he tells me that he’s been seeing someone else, but he wants to fix things with me. I immediately feel the butterflies and I see this as a chance to save what I had. I give myself to him in every way. He takes me without any hesitation and he never brings up the girl again. He tells me how he is done with her and will focus on rebuilding our relationship. The deep pain I felt in my chest felt a bit better. I could see this working out for us. Maybe he would become my high school sweetheart after all. Then one day after skipping school and hiding in his bedroom I snatch his phone playing around trying to get his attention (you know regular high school things). I look down and I see a message. “Hey, babe I guess you forgot to pick me up from school”. My world started to spin. I took all my stuff and I left his house. He was my first love, he was the first person to have all of my trust, he was the first person to burn everything we built straight to the ground. I tried for so long to hold on to what we had. I hoped that there would be a change, but I had to let him go because I wanted to be loved, and I knew I would never feel that with him.
This moment in my life wasn’t just a short two or three months. It took five to six years to fully get over it. It may seem long, but he was all that I had. I wasn’t able to reach out to my family for help because everyone else had their own issues to deal with. I was with him for two years and there was love…. things just got complicated.
My best friend, Mike, and I grew up in the same neighborhood. We watched each other fall in love and go through heartbreaks. He was there when Derek and other jack asses broke my heart. We both even mourned the death of a close friend and I believe that it brought us closer. We ended up falling in love and sometimes I think it’s because we shared the same emotions towards our friend who passed away. Mike was my right-hand man we played video games together and ate junk food at 3am without any regrets. I ended up moving in with him and it was the best decision I made. We were two silly people who were always joking around and watching action movies. When I got this full-tuition scholarship to go to a university out of state and he was so proud of me. He told me that I had to take it and get out of the Bronx. I would have never taken it if I knew that our relationship would change. It’s true when they say that your friends back home stay the same. I would come back home to visit and had new ideas and outlooks on so many things and Mike was just the same old Mike. It seemed like he was stuck with the same thoughts and ideas. This frightened me. The thought of losing Mike made me worried. So I told him how I felt during my summer vacation back. I felt the love slipping away and I was afraid our interests will make us part. He promised me we would work on it. Throughout the summer I worked and focused on saving money. Planning my future with Mike. I wanted him to come with me to school. We could find an apartment and live together. He seemed slightly interested and it gave me hope. So of course I wanted to celebrate. I am a gift giver and I’ve always been. I don’t usually expect anything back so I ended up buying him sneaker probably $200 and Beats headphone that were $300. I didn’t get anything in return, but seeing him happy made me the absolute happiest. Two days before it was time to head back to school I come home and I see this disappointed expression in his face. It doesn’t look like the Mike I know. He says that he can’t do this anymore and give me a bag of all my things. I do not comment or cry. I leave and never come back.
This moment in my life was the hardest because I lost two good friends that summer. I wasn’t as torn as I was with Derek. I was disappointed because in the back of my mind I knew that I would never see Mike again.
The man that I thought I would marry, I’ll call him Phil. Phil and I met in college and hit it off. He was able to read me like no one else (even better than Derek and that’s a first). I was able to tell him about my past experiences with love and how I felt about it all. Being taken advantage isn’t a great feeling and it seemed like he knew from experiences as well. I told him the biggest secret I ever kept from anyone, which was how attached I was to my first love. What I didn’t know was that he was intimidated by him. Now knowing this I wish I knew and maybe things would have been different. Phil wasn’t the smartest guy and he would get himself into trouble every now and then. Once it was so bad he was in jail and I didn’t know who to go to. All I knew was that I wanted to take him out and I was willing to do whatever it was to do so. None of his friends answered my calls for help and weren’t even able to help me out. I had absolutely no money and I ended up asking Derek for money he owed me. It took everything in me not to insult him when I spoke to him, he knew I was vulnerable and tried to convince me to run away and leave Phil, but I just took the money and told him to fuck off. I took Phil out and never told Phil of the encounter. Months later during Christmas break, I leave to my hometown to see family and Phil stays in our apartment. He finds the receipt that shows that Derek gave me money. He never tells me. I come back and I have this weird feeling. Phil and I spoke about cheating and he said that if I were to cheat on him he would forgive me. It was weird because he never brought up cheating in any conversation we ever had. I told him that if he cheated I wouldn’t know what to do. I’ve been through too much to deal with pain like that. School starts up again and then I get a message. Phil is in jail again. It’s sad to say that I wasn’t surprised and knew what to do. I was with a friend. I’ll call her Honey because she’s sweet. Her love was in jail with my Phil so I told her I would try to figure things out so we could get them both out. In the process of figuring things out I hear from Phil and he tells me to contact his friend. I go on his laptop and looked at his messages hoping that I would find his friend’s number. Lucky me I had to go through every message because he doesn’t save numbers often. Then I see a message “niggas got shower and soap could’ve started there” and so many more. My world starts spinning. I want to vomit. I cried. Honey just comes and holds me. I wish this wasn’t true. I take him out of jail. We go home and I sit him down telling him I’m going to make dinner. I smack him straight in the face and tell him not to say a word. I begin reading the messages. I asked him one question “did you have sex with her”. He says, “no”. I ask then say, “ I have her number if I call her and ask her if she had sex with you is she going to say no?” He says “no”. I cry and all I could think of is “how could you? I never did anything wrong to you. I always told you the truth. I did everything for you.” I found out he slept with her on New Year’s Eve. That night before he cheated he called me and told me he missed me and that he loved me. He said hello to everyone in my family. It felt like he lied straight to my face.
This has been one of the worst things that have ever happened to me. Now I cannot believe a word that comes out of anyone’s mouth and I have these people to blame. I don’t regret anything that has happened because it has made me the strong woman I am today.
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