My Testimony (Part 2)

I had a moment yesterday after hitting “post” where I felt sick to my stomach. There was no going back now. If you read Part 1, thank you. I have chosen to break this up into several posts due to its length.

So…

I met this boy in high school. He was a senior; I was a freshman. It was at the end of the school year and I signed his yearbook. I wrote the random, “Congratulations on graduation! Keep in touch!” and left my phone number. I never imagined he would call me for any reason. I barely knew him, and he couldn’t be interested in me, anyway. Only—he did call. For the first time in a very long time, I felt noticed.

He did all of those sweet things to make a girl feel special: he wrote me sweet love letters and told me he loved me. By this time, I was spending so much time with him that I had alienated most of my friends. My parents had forbidden us to see each other (because they could obviously see something that I couldn’t). Yet, I found a way to see him. He was like an addiction to me. I couldn’t think of anyone else or anything besides the life he was promising me. He loved me, and if my parents loved me too, they would want me to be happy…

One day, my mother and I had a very heated argument. I decided the next day while my parents were working that I was moving out. And, I did. At the age of 16, I packed my car full of everything I could take, and I left home. My parents knew where I was and even came with a police officer once to bring me back home. However, because of the heated argument my mom and I had, social services/child welfare could not make me leave. I was trying to go to school, working part time, and living with my boyfriend and his family. I had made some very adult like decisions. I felt he was worth the sacrifice. He had given me an engagement ring to profess his love for me, after all.

As time went on, my boyfriend was slowly revealing himself. He had been unfaithful to me numerous times, and I was always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to change. What was there left to lose? I had already given up my family and most of my friends. He decided to enlist in the Navy and was sent to boot-camp, then later being stationed in FL. All of this time, I was living with his family…”loving” him faithfully and counting down the days until I was 18 and could join him. I had our life all mapped out. (Anyone else ever do that?) “We would get married and live on the naval base. My parents would eventually come around after they saw how happy I was.”

As a few months passed by, we eventually moved into our own place. I was still in NC while he was in FL and the separation felt like he was on the other side of the moon. I “loved” him…

And he loved me so much he impregnated another girl in FL. I was in initial shock. I felt the wind knocked out of me. I felt the deepest hurt and sadness beyond anything I had ever felt before. In that moment, I wanted to die.

More to come.