I could start from the very beginning, and in a way I will. But on almost every account, it's just your typical story of a guy who fell inlove with a girl that was already with someone. The one where that other someone was a scum bag & treated the girl terrible, & everyone saw it except the girl. The one where the good guy stays in the shadows and plays the best friend role while the girl slowly realizes how bad she fucked up by choosing the shitty one. This story could've ended like the rest of them where the girl finally wises up, picks the other guy, & they live happily ever after. Which is what i wanted to happen. That's what should have happened. But God (& the Illinois State's Attorney) had different plans for us.

—I'll add minor details as the story goes along.

Fast forward through the best summer of my life. (2017) VERY slowly but nonetheless VERY surely, i fell head over heels for the boy who loved me at my worst, & stood back & waited (i'm sure while losing hope a time or 10) for me to leave my nightmare of a "relationship" so he could treat me right. It started out very slow. I was not over my previous relationship (and wouldn't be for the first several months of my relationship with Aaron) and just needed someone, something to distract me from the devastation i had inside. Then almost as if it happened over night, i was obsessed with the boy who was supposed to be my "rebound." I swear it was a one night stand gone wrong. I woke up the next day & was trying to sneak out when he woke up & asked if I wanted to go get breakfast. (I would later find out that he just didn't want me to leave.) Well shit.... you know a bitch love breakfast. Boom. It was all over from there. I was captivated by the dude that I couldn't figure out. I was infatuated with the way he looked at me, laughed at me.... the way he loved me, but I had no idea why he did. What i could not, would not get over, was the way he made me love myself.

When I finally gave Aaron the time of day, i weighed 99 pounds, had a face FULL of stress breakouts, was either drunk or high (or both) everyday. That didn't make him love me any less. It was almost as if it made him love me more. I was disgusted with myself. I felt like a whale, despite being the skinniest I had ever been. I was disgusted with my skin color and the acne. I hated feeling like I needed drugs and alcohol to get me through the day. I was 21 and going absolutely no where in life. I didn't have a job and i wasn't in school. I was broken. Damaged goods. Shattered into a million pieces that I was certain would never be put back together. I absolutely hated myself, and I'll be honest, some days I still do. But he took it all in stride & NEVER ONCE made me feel like I wasn't the most beautiful thing to ever walk the earth. Even in the coming months when we would have our knock down, drag out brawls, he continually told me how much he loved me and how beautiful I am. For that, I would never give up.

On August 10th, 2017 I hadn't my first night at my first job in almost a year. Bartending at a biker bar... look momma I made it, right? Jesus. I'm still embarrassed. It was bike night of course so everyone is running around like crazy to serve the area's finest. I'm standing there with my thumb up my ass having absolutely no clue what is going on. I had spent PLENTY of time in a bar that year, but it's a helluva lot different when you're on the outside. So I just started stocking shit before I lost my mind. The whole time my phone is exploding in my back pocket. I assumed that it was everyone wanting me to come to the bar where we always hung out. Finally after 15 minutes of my phone continually ringing, I stepped off to the bathroom to answer it. It was Aaron's best friend, Ethan.

"Hey... uh.. uhm," his voice started to crack, "Uh, me and Aaron got in a fight with that n****r that lives across the street, and uh... well he, he stabbed Aaron, you need to get over to the hospital."

I didn't scream, I didn't cry, I didn't have a meltdown. I went into straight panic mode. I ran out of the bathroom to my boss who was sitting at the corner of the bar and stuttered worse than Forrest Gump on cocaine.

"I, i, i, i, have to go. Sssssomeone just stabbed my boyfriend." She looked at me like 'who the fuck did I just hire?' I didn't even wait for her to tell me to go or what I should do I just ran out the door, got in my car, and flew 100 mph over the river to Missouri. I had no idea what kind of scene I'd be walking into. Was it flesh wounds? Was he bleeding out? Was he already dead?

During that car ride was when I realized, I was madly inlove with this boy & if I lose him, my world will never be the same. I am not the person who needs to lose something to appreciate it. Or i wasn't at least. And then I met Aaron and experienced his unconditional love (that of which I was not, and still am not worthy of.) I took extreme advantage of the love this boy had for me. I knew that no matter what I did he was going to love me no matter what. He would continue to take me out & buy me drinks, and then hold my hair back and wipe my mouth when all 20 of them came back up later. It wasn't until I got that call that he could be dying that I realized just how big of a scum bag I was. I could lose the one good thing that ever came into my life. That was enough to make my heart drop out of my ass.

When i I got there, i will never forget rushing back to the trauma room not knowing what kind of state he was in. His dumb ass looks me in the eye, sobbing & says, WORD FOR WORD, "they cut my favorite work jorts." I swear my jaw hit the floor. Are you kidding me? That's what your worried about? You just got fucking shanked, with God only know what, and your crying because of your jorts!? I quickly realize that he's completely out of it and is in complete shock. Then I saw the blood. Lots and lots of blood. His clothes were covered, the sheets were covered, HE was covered in more blood than I had probably ever seen come out of a human. We sat there waiting for his mom who was rushing to get there from a few towns over. He refused to go to surgery without her. I just held his hand and sat on his bed while we both choked back tears. I couldn't believe what was happening. Do you ever have those moments in life where you think to yourself (sometimes out loud) and just say 'what in the fuck am I doing? How did I get myself involved with this kind of life?' This was one of those moments from me. STABBED? The boy I had fallen inlove with was STABBED???? What in the fuck.

While in his fragile, and borderline incoherent state, he was being that guy. The one the nurses roll their eyes at and talk shit on in the nurse's station. The one nurse who wasn't even on his case came in there and tried to lay down the law, telling him they didn't have time to wait & that she was taking him now. She caught a long hard, nostril flare "look" from me & a "she will be here any minute, I'll let you know when she's here," then rolled her eyes and walked out. (FOH bitch, the only one bossing this boy around is me.) When his mom got there, we convinced him he needed surgery & that he would be fine, and with a bunch of attitude and some tears he signed the paper and went back.

I sat in the waiting room praying this knife didn't puncture his colon & that he wouldn't need a colostomy bag.. man, I just figured out I loved this dude. Now he's gonna have a poop bag? That's frickin karma right there, good call Soph.

Some members of his family came & waited, (ya know the type that made an appearance just to say that they showed up.) My good friend Amy came, who is coincidentally Aaron's Ex girlfriend. I don't really remember anyone else, i was in some sort of shock myself. When Ethan and his girlfriend got there, I realized that he had been stabbed too. They were mostly flesh wounds, so they admitted him to be stitched up and given antibiotics. Very few times have I seen Ethan be anything but a complete and total dickwad. But the night of August 10th, I saw a dude full of emotion, in the fact he realized he had gotten his friend into a situation where they didn't come on top. Boys fight, I know this. I've seen all those boys in their group fight a million times. With each other, with their other friends, strangers, family. Sometimes they win, sometimes they take a nap in the yard. Boys punch each other. That's just what they do. I get that? I wish I could punch more people. But boys don't stab each other. This was one for the books. This was THE situation. The one that changes people. The one that made us all day "...damn. Things are different."

When he woke up from surgery, somehow we were all allowed to go back to the PACU to see him. Amy and I had gotten coffee & were running up and down the halls being idiots. (We can have fun literally anywhere.) Someone (who I can't remember for the life of me) came out of the PACU to tell me he was asking for me.. i was kind of shocked but it made me feel all warm inside. He laid there totally out of it & just kept blowing me kisses telling me to kiss him. I turned 10378 shades of red seeing as though we weren't even anything official and his whole family was standing there. Great. Just great. Now his whole family is going to realize I've been banging this dude all this time and that we were more than friends.

After staying the night so he could be monitored, we were released the next morning to go home with 3 scars, some bandages, and some percocet for the pain. He slept most of the day and didn't want to move much, which left yours truly to be his little house bitch. I didn't mind. It was the least I could do. The night after, we decided to head out to Belleville to watch our friend in the demolition derby. (I said we love each other, not that we're not a little white trash on the weekends.) While I hung out with my friend Brittany, he hung out with her boyfriend Hayden who was running in the demo. When Brittany and I walked away from the boys, she told me that they had already talked about it, and that if we wanted to or needed to, we could come stay at their house while we look for a new place to live. Keep in mind the lease aaron was in with his friends was almost up, but apparently the 'brotha's' were stalking the house and knew where Ethan and Aaron lived. OOOOO BIG BAD SOUTHERN ILLINOIS WANNABE BIKERS. I never really understood why they were so mad... it wasn't like any of them got stabbed. When Aaron told me that Hayden had said the same thing to him as Brittany did to me, we talked about it & figured it was a good thing. It wasn't like we had anywhere else to go. So that's what we did. The next day we packed up our shit and said peace out to 302. Which as I know now, is just where life was about to begin. Ohhh to go back to 302... life was so simple.

Two weeks went by so fast forward to August 26th, 2017. We had just celebrated my mom's birthday that Friday, Aaron's first official family get together. Life was great. Everyone was a fan, which was something extremely foreign to me. I had only ever dated rude, unappreciative assholes before I guess. That Sunday, we were heading home from a birthday party/ hippie fest in Chester. It was the perfect day spent outside with my mom, sister, & other extended family members. Let me just say, Waterloo is a small town. Too fucking small. So small that ALL the police officers know my car by the Alabama sticker I have on my back window. And my busted ass headlight. (As I said, i was a POS and wrecked my precious Debbie while drunk. I can't believe I drove her around as a hoop-dee but whatever.) With that being said, I get pulled over "for having a headlight out." I pulled onto a side street and instead of walking up to MY driver window, the cop walks right over to Aaron in the passenger seat. He says some dumb shit, then walks away forgetting to ask for my license and insurance, which he quickly came back for. Next thing I know,

"Aaron, you want to step out of the car for me?"

My heart starts pounding, "do you have anything in your pockets? Go ahead and empty them out for me." Are they about to fucking arrest him? What did he do? I swear we haven't been out since he got stabbed. There no way he can be in trouble? "Go ahead and put your hands behind your back for me."

Nope. Fuck no. Absolutely not. This isn't happening.

I FLING my car door open and come flying out of my car like a bat outta hell. "WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON?!?" He asked me to get back in my car and drew a fucking gun on me. Stun gun, tazer I don't even know, i didn't care. Ooooo yeah, little 5'0, 100 lb, platinum blonde hair, blue eyed Soph is such a threat to this 6'5, 280 lb cop. Fuck outta here. I said "You're going to shoot me? Really? What the fuck are the charges?" He told informed me that he was being charged with Aggravated battery & mob action. I just laughed. As I'm losing my mind, a cop I know on a personal level pulls up to "assist." I said "M**** what the fuck? What is this? You could've have warned us!" He told me it was out of control and that he couldn't warn me. (Mind you this was Sunday night & we had called Friday asking of charges had been filed or warrants had been issued, because the CHILD that stabbed them was black & playing the race card. Naturally.) I personally told each of the officers, including the one I know personally, to go fuck themselves, got in my car, sped off and started making calls to figure out where I was going to get $4,000 to bail my boyfriend out of jail.

That's where the story of my boyfriend going to prison for being stabbed began.