Dena

   My relationship with Dena started off really well, but it was clear almost right away that she had been in some sort of abusive relationship in the past. She would flinch when I reached for the remote control or something as if I was going to hit her. I took it in stride and remained sensitive to that fact.

  We dated for a few weeks before we had sex. Granted, we fooled around before then and even played around with whipped cream, but it is not very sexy when you start smelling like sour dairy products before you get home. When we actually “made love” for the first time, it was in New Jersey at her aunt and uncle’s house. Loving my “virginity in NJ is not something I am proud of, but a bunch of us had opted to go on an overnight road trip to Six Flags Amusement Park. Jennifer, from my Boston road trip, (Ed. Note: See 9/13/11) drove us all in her big blue station wagon. George and Denver came, and Dan brought Stacey. Jennifer had a huge crush on George, but George wasn’t interested. It kind of became a run on joke because she would confess her love for him, he would tell her that they were better off as friends and then she would act as if she never told him and confess again a few days or weeks later.

  However, one night, after a couple weeks of dating I had agreed to hang out with my friends and told Dena I wasn’t going to be able to hang out with her. No problem there until I saw her the next day. When I gave her a hug she said “ouch.” As was my experience, up to that moment, hugs were not supposed to cause pain. After a brief back and forth with her it was revealed to me that she used her free evening the night before to cut her stomach with a knife. Not deep, just enough to show marks. It was at that moment that I realized that one way or another I could not be the one to end this relationship and that I was in it for the long haul because I was not strong enough to handle being responsible for her hurting herself or worse.

   About a month into our relationship, on a Monday holiday, Dena convinced me to volunteer to help Laurie and her school club to transplant beach grass on the dunes of the beach to preserve them. On top of that, I was told to recruit Sean as well. I agreed,  even though Sean and Laurie’s relationship was questionably close given the fact the Laurie was still dating Denver.

  When we got to the beach we were told to separate into two groups. One group would pull beach grass from one area and load it onto a pickup truck and the other group would plant the beach grass in another location. Laurie quickly grabbed Dena and switched to the opposite group as Sean and I. On top of that, Laurie was downright rude to Sean and Dena followed suit. They all but ignored us during the whole excursion, sat together on the bus away from us, and afterwards, when the bus stopped at McDonald’s on the way back to the school, she seemed a little shocked that I ordered food for just myself (I may have even bought Sean his lunch because I felt so bad), which Laurie cuntered with a "no problem, we’ll just go sit by ourselves" in a taunting voice.  This may have been the actual incident that inspired my "…Laurie get run over by a car…" comment. 

   When the bus finally returned to the school and we got off Dena came over to me and said "Hi" as if I’d just drive her home and nothing was the matter, but I didn’t even want to look at her I was so livid. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?"

  "What?" Dena replied as if she was oblivious. I never wanted to hit a girl in my life but I wanted to smack Dena upside the head about a million times. On the inside. In reality, all I could muster was grab her by the shoulders and literally tried to shake some sense into her.

  "What are you thinking?! How could you treat my friend like that?! I did this so we could spend the day together and you ignored me the whole day?!?"

  Laurie grabbed her and pulled her away and said "Don’t you ever do that to her" and takes her away. I didn’t even care. I drove some of the other volunteers home and had no idea what was to become of our relationship.

  She called that night and apologized. I apologized for shaking her, but not for my anger.