Lost

Never Again

I was so happy. It felt like life was finally perfect. We went through so many rough patches, but I finally figured out what had been going wrong, and I fixed it. Then, I found out that it was too late. He had given up on me. I had pushed him away one too many times and now he was not coming back. Some say I am too young to know what love is, but with the amount of emotional pain I have been going through since March fourth, I would say I know it pretty well.

You see, I had fallen in love with Evan. I did not want to. I wanted to keep my walls up, because that is what I am good at doing. Pushing people away and keeping to myself is my forte. But I let my walls down, I let him in, and I got hooked. He was perfect. He was a gentleman, he had the most beautiful blue eyes, his laugh was contagious, and his humor would put a smile on even the grumpiest of faces. Amazingly, out of everyone at school, he had chosen me to be his. He was a dream, and he was all mine.

The first month of the relationship was the definition of perfection. We would go to the library to study together, and he would shower me with all of his love. Once, he drove me to go hiking on Iron Mountain together. We ate lunch at the top, talked, laughed, and took pictures, and he made it one of the best days of my life. We would go on coffee dates and he would take me to Starbucks, even though he did not like anything there, just because he knew I liked Starbucks. He would come over to my apartment and we would lay in my bed together and have nap dates. Sometimes, we would just sit in his car and talk about anything and everything. As long as we were spending time together, we did not care what we were doing.

It all went downhill after the first month. Evan did not know why I had changed, and he did not know what to do to help. So, let me just explain to you what I never explained to him. Growing up, my mother was the one who mostly raised me. My father, according to her, was a very handsome man who got everywhere by flirting and using his “charm.” This made my mother very jealous. Therefore, all of my life, I had grown up being taught that men cheat and that it is rare for them not to. I watched my mother fall apart multiple times because she found messages between other women and my father that were very inappropriate for a married man. Thanks to this, I have realized I am far too paranoid because I have learned to assume the worst. Unfortunately, this mentality led me to accuse Evan of ridiculous things that he had promised he would never do to me, such as cheating, lying, and accusing him of never wanting to spend time with me. Instead of talking to him about these things, I pushed him away.

My mother is the one who led me to realize that my paranoia was ridiculous. She had learned to let it go years ago, but I did not get the memo. By the time she told me this, Evan had stopped seeing me as the light in his life. I was now an inconvenience. I was his crazy, paranoid, annoying girlfriend, and he did not want me anymore. He had told my friend, Cristina, of his plan to let me go after a week and she showed me the messages. I freaked. I honestly could not think straight, and I stupidly let Cristina think for me. She told me, with utter certainty, that I could do better, he was not worth it, to think about all of the times he had made me cry and realize that he was not treating me the way I deserved. It all made sense at the time, so with tears in my eyes and a demolished heart, I sent him a message that Cristina wrote for me. Evan and I argued, and I ended it, sincerely believing that it was for the best because this is what he wanted, and if I loved him I had to let him go.

I felt empty. I had absolutely no emotion, which surprised me, but made me think it needed to happen since I could not feel the pain. Little did I know, it was just adrenaline. The next day, I broke down. I could not breathe, let alone get out of bed. I played “Tin Man” by Miranda Lambert on repeat and cried until I was so dehydrated I had no tears available to cry anymore. My entire body was simultaneously numb and on fire, my heartbeat switched back and forth between sprinting and crawling, there was knot the size of Jupiter in my throat, and the pain in my heart was so excruciating that I felt like getting hit by a car would hurt less. My mother tried to feed me, but I could not eat anymore. Every time I ate, I remembered his worry when I did not eat, and it made me nauseous. Ironic, is it not? His past worries of my eating disorder are what pushed me deeper into it. School was also a struggle because of the three classes I had with him, and I had to see him be happy without me every day. I even took a few days off because of how painful it was.

I know I have an entire life to live and I will get over it, but right now it feels like nothing matters. I never want to love again. Emotions are too painful. I gave him all of my heart and soul, and when I pushed him away he took them with him. He can keep them, I do not want them anymore. I lost the one person who actually believed in me and my abilities, who helped me build up my self-esteem, who taught me how to believe in myself. I lost him, and I am never getting him back.