Not So True Love

******** Save your judgements and read at your own discretion.

My first boyfriend as I mentioned cheated on me because I wouldn’t have sex with him.  There was a lot of pressure.  His 13 year old sister was having sex and I was at 14 and 15.  He even once said “put out or get out” when we were driving, he meant get out of the relationship, but I got out of the car at the next stopping of the car.  He still calls 30 years later, but whatever.  I was the one that got away for him.

My junior year I started dating a guy 2 years older than me.  He was a wrestler and a surfer.  Very fun, handsome, life of the party.  I loved him right away.  I honestly don’t know why he liked me, but he did.  We did so many fun things together; the beach, camping, and my best friend was dating one of his best friends.  It worked out great.  I finally felt like I belonged somewhere.  He groomed me very slowly.  Telling me he liked me wearing this or that.  Telling me who we were going to hang out with.  He was a wrestler with a loud mouth and he liked to fight.  So he got into a lot of fights with people.  It was just his way.  He had that tough guy reputation.

The first time he hit me was three months into our relationship.  He was frustrated because something on his truck was broken and he was having a hard time fixing it.  Of course, I left.  Then the next day I got a dozen red roses left on my car at school (he had already graduated).  No one knew what happened, they just saw the roses and thought I had this amazing boyfriend.

So this is how it went for three years.  He hit me, called me slut whore whatever else and then I would get a dozen red roses.  I still hate flowers as a gift.  It’s sickening.

You are probably wondering why I stayed or did I fight back.  We broke up a million times and got back together.  It was so complicated.

Into my senior year, I had sex for the first time and got pregnant.  Fuck.  I KNOW.  I went and had an abortion.  I am still and fucked up about it because now I am not able to have kids, but I am happy I am not tied to that asshole.  I lied to my mom (I did eventually tell her when he tried to tell her how horrible I was).  He took money out of savings to pay for it, lying to his own parents.  His parents thought he was selling drugs and kicked him out.  So I felt obligated towards him.

Things were bad.  He was getting worse.  Now I was the biggest slut on the planet according to him.  I was finally able to break up with him right after Thanksgiving, but he was not giving up.  How could I reject him even though I was such a terrible person.  At this point, he started stalking me.  Driving by my house at all hours.  I could hear his loud truck.   I did gymnastics 3 nights a week at gym a town over and he climbed onto a balcony and hid in the mats to watch.  He knocked one over and that is how we discovered him.  I have no idea how many times he did that.  All the while he was calling and leaving me terrible messages.

Over Christmas, I got a job in a retail store.  He would wait for me in the underground parking.  One morning he was there and I took off running.  He caught me and threw me down and kicked me.  I got up and ran into work and they had to call security.

Still our friends didn’t know.  My best friend didn’t know.  I had picked a stupid fight with her and wasn’t talking to anyone.  He alienated me and I had let him.  I helped him by picking a fight with my other friends because I couldn’t talk about it.  I had found a random girl that everyone knew to be easy and made her my friend.  If she was a slut (which she wasn’t), then so was I.  I wasn’t having sex, but he deemed me a slut so ergo.  That’s what I thought I was.

So my new friend and I started hanging out more and more.  He showed up everywhere.  He threw me down and knocked the wind out of me one night in the front yard of a house party.  A guy from another high school saw and threw him down right next to me.  Man, did I cause a stir up that night. He was screaming at me across the party calling me a whore and a slut.  Ugh it was so bad.  Another guy got so mad, they got into a fist fight.  My ex got the upper hand which made the guy more mad.  He left and came back with his friends, which were bad news.  They pulled a gun on him.

A gun.

Yes, he abused me, but I loved him.  I don’t know why so don’t ask.  A gun.  So I stepped in front of the gun.  I didn’t even think about it.  I just stepped in the middle.  Someone called the cops and so everyone started to split.

The bad guys, picked me up and threw me in the back of a truck and wouldn’t you know it.  I got out and stayed.  He kicked the ever loving shit out of me that night.

We didn’t get back together and he was still mad.  I am not sure how much long later, but I found a picture of me (which I still have) with my face all marked up and it says on the back “for a good time” on it.  Maybe he did it, or maybe one of my friends that I had given it to did, I don’t know.

The night I found the picture I was with easy going girl at a hangout and people kept coming up to me asking me if I was going to fight this local fighter girl.  I had no idea what they were talking about.  I soon realized, he had put this girl up to beating me up because him kicking my ass in public and humiliating me wasn’t going to make him look good.  So when the girl got there, my friend and I left.

She confronted us in the parking lot.  My friend, did something I was so proud of, stuck up for me.  The girl got in our faces.  I was terrified.  I am not a fighter.  We pushed our way into her truck and left.  They all followed in a caravan.  We didn’t know where to go, so we went to guys house that had the guns.  I couldn’t go home.  I didn’t want crazy pants to know where I lived.

He kept pulling his truck in front of hers and slamming on the breaks.  It was crazy!  Finally we pulled down the right street and missed the fucking house.  The caravan over must have amped her up because she was out of the car before I was and punched me in the face before I was fully standing.  Then she grabbed my wrists and kneed me in the crotch.  Yes that hurts a girl.  Its bone.  So that shot my adrenaline up.  So dating a wrestler, he taught me how to throw someone on the ground and that’s what I did.  I threw that bitch on the ground and watched her head bounce right off the concrete.  My hair was to my waist at that point so fists were flying and man did she pull a lot of my hair out.  One minute we were on the ground, the next we were up and then finally someone broke it up.

The whole time we were fighting, my ex kept yelling “KEEP HITTING HER!!!!!    SHE DESERVES TO DIE!!!!”

The girl told me everyone hates me.  Well, she was the one that was bleeding.  I guess I surprised people.  Myself included because I never fought back with him.  I will say though, neither of us won.  How humiliating is two girls rolling around like that!?  TRASH.  I was 17, and for me it was self defense for her it was fun.

I went home with ripped jeans and had to explain it to my mom.  My perfect mom.  WOOOOF.  She left him a message saying never to come near me again and we filed a restraining order against both.  That was fun.

My mom was starting to date my step dad so my Dad had to take me to court.  My Dad was never around when I was growing up so this was pretty awkward.  So here we are in court, my Ex showed and the Fighter did not.  So hers went through automatically.  My Ex tried to tell about the abortion and what a slut I was and the judge shut him down immediately by saying “Young Man, either you are saying you had sex with a minor or what you are saying is defamatory.  Either way, I would shut your mouth!”  I were granted a 6 month restraining order.

During that 6 months he moved into the house up the street so he could keep an eye on me.  He even took my new friend to prom to get back at me.  I don’t even know what she was thinking.  I went with a friend.

Once the restraining order ended, he was right back around.  We all went camping and I had drank way too much and was throwing up.  He was calling me names and kicked me in the stomach.  A guy there who I didn’t know from school, was a dark character, who is actually now in prison, kicked his ass pretty good when I passed out.  I woke up to my ex with a black eye and the guy never uttered a word to me.  Of course my Ex blamed me.  It was my fault he got his ass kicked.

We got back together a few months after the restraining order.  I KNOW, I am an idiot, but those abusers have a tendency to be so charming.  He cheated and abused.  Round and round we went.  I was insecure.  I believed I was everything he said I was.

Finally when I was 19, he came to my restaurant job.  There was a girl there, he always chatted her up.  I asked her if she hooked up with him, straight out.  She took a step away from me, just a short step away before saying no.  I knew she was lying.  I knew I was done.

I walked him out of the restaurant and told him I knew.  He called me crazy and all the names.  I told him he could have her because he would never touch me again.  He never did again.

He moved on to abuse her for the next few years.  She would call me in tears and she would call the cops on him.  I was finally free…….or am I?