Four Years

Technically it was October 20th, 2012 at an unholy hour in the morning. I came back to my dorm high after spending the evening at a friend's, and I was furious with you. We’d been playing cat and mouse for months now, and I was tired of being strung along. That night I was ready to cut it off. I was about to walk away, forgetting everything that might have been.

You met me at my door; disheveled, your appearance matching mine. Despite my tired eyes, I was fuming with anger, saturating the air with tension. You sat on the chair, and I sat stiffly on the edge of my bed. We start to argue in whispers, careful not to wake my roommates. I tell you how I have wanted to be your girlfriend since we began fucking months ago and this was your opportunity to make it happen before I walked away.

I asked the question countless times. Are we going to make this a real relationship? Can you make up your mind? Each version of the question had a different answer. My frustration was becoming an active volcano, tired of being taunted with possibility. Moments before the violent eruption, you looked up at me with your deep brown eyes and messy hair and said, “Okay.” That one word, one syllable coming from your mouth was enough to cease the eruption.

I won. Logging into my Facebook, I changed my status to “In a Relationship” and waited for you to accept my request.

October 19th, 2013.

One year. Our honeymoon period was the entirety of that first year. While I was home for the summer my phone buzzed every morning with extensive “I love you because” text messages. Every song reminded me of you. I talked about you constantly. My boyfriend plays guitar. MY boyfriend is a political science major. He and I fight a lot, but loving each other the way we do makes up for it. I bragged about my gorgeous, mysterious boyfriend who had chosen ME from a sea of 85,000 students. By the end of the summer, my friends could finish the stories I had about us without me saying a word.

You stayed at my apartment, a fifteen-second walk from yours, every night. Our lives intertwined; I couldn’t breathe without you there. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Publix subs for every meal, wings with Cassidy, and endless amounts of ice cream. Our first “I love you.” Watching movies. Sex. When things were good, they were perfect. We had our routine. But we had our fights; regular fights. Guilt trips, manipulation, crying in the corner. It was okay though, the love we had for each other made up for it.

We went to Disney for our anniversary. I forced you to get those cheesy anniversary buttons and share the excitement I had for this momentous day: our anniversary and my first time at Disneyworld. Standing in front of Cinderella’s castle, we took the stereotypical kissing picture. I smiled ear-to-ear the entire day, remembering where we’d been a year ago and how far we’d come.

October 19th, 2014

Two years. Social media saw our New Year kisses, trips to Universal Studios, and cheesy pictures, but we were spiraling downwards. We built façade around our seemingly perfect relationship. No one saw the constant fighting. No one heard you call me a joke, and nobody witnessed me hurl your razor and clothes at you, screaming for you to get out of my house. Three days without you and desperate apologies were shrouded in our dysfunctional cloak. No one saw the abusive patterns emerge from the darkest parts of us.

So many opportunities to walk away and neither one of us took them. I had convinced myself that you were the best I was going to get because who else could love someone as fucked up like me, a thought you had implanted in my head through seemingly innocent comments. We needed each other, and our dysfunction reaffirmed the sick desire our fights fulfilled.

Our time at UCF was ending. Graduation was rapidly approaching, and big decisions were begging to be made. I asked you to move to Colorado with me. The unknown taunted me every day. On July 7th, you said yes, filling me with a false sense of hope that maybe our relationship would be salvageable if you came home with me. On July 9th, you said no, and that was your final answer. I was distraught, but we talked ourselves into trying long distance for an undetermined amount of time. I sent you Pinterest articles about how to survive long distance relationships and formulated an entire plan in my head. We got this, I told myself tentatively.

No, we did not. We did not have this at all. But it was too late. I was Colorado bound, having no idea when I would see you again.

October 19th, 2015

Three years. I wish I could say that our long distance endeavor started off hopeful, but it did not. Our daily conversations felt uneventful. Skype calls were forced, unlike the enthusiasm we had had our first summer apart. You told me that you would come to Colorado for our three-year anniversary, but that day came and went. I begged and pleaded with you to visit me, knowing that the light of our dysfunctional relationship was waning. This was our saving grace.

Begrudgingly, you conceded and bought your ticket to see me for a week in November. You came up the escalator into the terminal wearing caramel colored corduroys and a black V-neck. I wanted to recognize your walk right away, easing my anxiety with the familiarity, but there was a skip missing in your gait. I knew before you even got to me that this was over. The week we spent together was awkward; we weren’t in sync anymore. Long lulls in the conversation created tension between us. Your lips didn’t fit right against mine anymore like we were trying to force a jigsaw puzzle piece in where it didn’t belong. The only solace of our week together was in bed. Sleeping next to you felt good. Maybe it was not you being in my bed as much as it was a comfort to my lonely nights.

A week came and went. The conversation during the drive to the airport filled the now familiar feeling of awkward. With each mile away from home, I wanted to turn around and make things right. Hitting rewind, I wanted to go back. I wanted everything we had two years ago. But as we got closer to the airport, I realized that those moments were gone, and it was too late. I was ready for you to get on the plane and take the shambles of our relationship with you.

October 19th, 2016

Four years. A week after you came to visit, you ended our relationship. I wasn’t too heartbroken because subconsciously I had prepared myself for the end. If anything, I was angry. Mad at you for dragging our relationship along for an extra four months when you could have walked away before I left Orlando, and I was angry for not ending it myself.

The anger built up inside of me for months, until one day I found myself sitting on a rock overlooking the forests and valleys of Colorado’s mountains. Not a cloud in the atmosphere, the sky was entirely blue, fading into the white horizon. The sun was bright, and despite the typical Colorado March weather, it was warm on my rock. I sat and ruminated in my anger. It had weighed me down for too long, and at this point, I didn’t even know why these feelings were inside of me anymore.

Clarity hit me like a gust of wind. You had destroyed my self-esteem, self-worth, and confidence. You had convinced me that I was unworthy of any love but yours: conditional and abusive. You had left me broken and alone to pick up the pieces, but I let it get to this point. I was angry with myself for letting you damage me so deeply. I didn’t walk away when I should have. Our relationship grabbed onto my wrist and refused to let go for three years, and another four months after it had died. To free myself of the anger, I had to cut the cold, lifeless appendage from my wrist. Sitting on my rock, overlooking the dense forest, that’s exactly what I did. I inhaled deeply as the wind carried you away from me, leaving me finally at peace. You no longer had a hold over me. It was going to be an uphill battle, but I could finally let go of the hostility and pain to rebuild my confidence. I was worthy of love. I am not damaged.

I found someone who loves me. I found someone who thinks I am worthy of love and happiness. Someone who loves me for me, despite the wreckage you left behind. She does her best to put the pieces of me back together, but even after a year, there are parts of me that are still so broken. The wind may have carried away the anger I had towards you, but it did not heal the sores of emotional abuse.

We sit in her car, mid conversation. She’s expressing a minor irritation regarding our relationship and the fact that she feels as if the ghost of you still lingers. Her words are calm, but all I hear is your voice. You’re whispering in my ear, “Why are you feeling this way? I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s all in your head. I don’t even get why you’re mad; it’s dumb.” I find myself apologizing to your hallucination. She looks confused, unaware of the torment occurring in my skull. The conversation continues, and I’m trying to focus on her voice; the emphasis on each consonant, the way she starts her sentences with, “baby.” But your voice gets louder. I’m screaming back at you in my head. GET OUT! LET ME GO, PLEASE!

This beautiful woman is trying her hardest to love me and treat me better than you ever did. Sometimes, she tells me that I treat her like she’s you, in the way that I pacify arguments and repress my feelings; doing my best not to upset her for something she’s not even mad about. She sees the scars you left, and it destroys me to know that she has to kiss my wounds. She has to pick me back up and hold my hand as I learn what a healthy relationship is. It’s not her job. Despite how much I thought I had healed, your hold on me is still there.

Please let me go. Let her teach me what healthy and happy looks like. I want to know what a healthy relationship can do, but I am afraid you are holding me back. Free me from your abusive grasp and let me cut your dead hand off of my wrist. I deserve better, and she is trying to show me the truth in that.

Someday October 19th will just be another day, not a reminder of our happiness turning to a grotesque monster that took me hostage. Today I am going to spend the day with the girl that loves me. She’s going to try to fill our day with things that will heal every scar you left. She’s going to kiss me and tell me why she loves me. She will let me talk without interruption or invalidating what I have to say. She will tell me how beautiful I am without hesitation or allusion to my weight. She will be everything you’re not. And that’s how I will let go of you. Every step I go with her takes me a mile away from you. Time heals all wounds. October 19th is just another day.