This is the story of my year-plus long, long distance relationship that ended in Spring of 2013. Yes it’s a sad story, and you should consider this a trigger warning for the entire saga but it’s a story that needs to be told. Some names have been changed to protect identities but every detail otherwise is accurate to the best of my memory's ability. I will be releasing the story in parts so here is part I. When you're looking at someone through rose colored glasses, all of the red flags just look like flags.

January 2012 A Winter Painted Red

We had been friends for a while, and even “dated” in middle school. whatever that meant. He was always a kind soul to me. He had several siblings, one of which went to middle school with us… she was a grade or two below us. His family was very involved in the community. Cheerleaders, football players, track runners, they were all athletes. I didn’t know much more about them than that in winter of 2012.

It had been almost a year since the last time we had spoken to each other via facebook and even longer since we saw each other in person. I’m not sure what brought me to message him that day but I wish I never had.

The conversation started out very casual. Asking each other what was “new” and how we had been. Sharing a few memories of our history every now and then. That all changed on a day when one way or another the conversation got sexual. At first, it was a joke… he accused me of only contacting him because of my attraction to him. Playing along I responded with “You caught me red-handed.” I didn’t mean it, I was only joking… somewhere along the lines, though, it started becoming a real feeling. I started craving his attention and we started talking about what we would do if and when we were reunited.

This continued for about a year. After which things really started to escalate. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Over the course of that year, Jay and I developed a relationship. It was a complicated one because we never put a “label” on it; he never officially asked me to be his girlfriend but, I thought anyway, that we were committed to each other, that there was an understanding that we were “talking” exclusively to each other. I cared about him so much. As a teenage girl going to a high school worlds away from his, I could have easily chosen not to be faithful. But I thought I loved him, I thought we were going to get married. I endured everything he put me through because I thought that I was supposed to, I thought I was being mature, I thought he loved me.