This one....this one is going to break your heart. Or make you want to beat the crap out of me. But either way, here is the story of THREE. THREE I have know since the 6th grade. He was a few years older than me and I had the hugest crush on him from the day I met him. We had a small romance when I was 12 but he broke up with me by having a friend tell me that it was over. We went round 2 when I was 15 right before I started dating ONE. THREE was a "bad boy" he was popular, funny, extremely talented, and incredibly sexy. But he was tortured. He didn't have the best relationship with his dad, his dad was a nice guy, but for some reason whatever THREE did was never enough for him and he reminded him of that everyday. Three once told me that "when you hear you're worthless on a daily basis, you eventually have to start believing it" so you can kind of see where the "rebel" in him came from. If memory serves me the reason we didn't survive round 2 was because I wouldn't sleep with him. Now I know what you're thinking... what a jerk right? Yes in his way he was, but I just don't think that THREE could ever let anyone be that close to him, anytime he ever started getting "involved" with a girl, he bailed for one stupid reason or another. Round 3 I was 18 (right before I got involved with TWO) had just moved down to college and ended up living in the same apartment complex as him. He was majoring in parting. He did it like it was an art form. I would go over and watch him drink and other stuff then I would help him up the stairs and put him to bed and lay there just wishing that he would clean up his act and then we could be together. So one day I get this very cryptic phone call from him that said he needed my help, that he couldn't explain why, but he needed me to go over to his apartment and move the rest of his stuff out of his room and just hold on to it for a while. I asked what was going on but he said he couldn't explain, he just said please do this for me and I love you. He'd never said that before to me. So I hung up the phone with this very real feeling that I may never see or hear from him again. I went over to the apartment and it looked like it had be raided. There was stuff missing from every room, it looked deserted, but not that someone had moved out, just taken what they could grab in a hurray look. So I got the remaining items from his room and I waited. I waited for 2 weeks. Then one day THREE showed up on my front porch asking for his stuff. No Hi. How are you? No I'm sorry about making you worry, Just can I get my stuff. So at that point I lost it. I started screaming at him, telling him how selfish he was, how worried I was about him, how I had no idea what had happened to him, that I've been thinking for the last 2 weeks that he was dead in a gutter somewhere, that the last thing he said to me was "I love you" and now all I get is a "can I get my stuff" He just stood there and looked at me like I was crazy, which I'm sure my behavior backed that thinking up nicely, but I didn't even give him the chance to explain I said the only thing that I could think of, what came out of my mouth was "the saddest part about this whole thing is that I am the only damn person in this world who believed in you and I get nothing from you, your dad is right, you are worthless"
I was 22 had just moved home from parting my ass off and living up north. I had what some people would call a wee bit of a breakdown and my parents moved me home for "my own good" I started working at this little gas station in my home town and low and behold who walked in one night. Yep THREE. Looking all fine and sexy as always. He just flashed this no girl can resist smile at me and Round 4 started. This time was different, he was older, more mature if you will and ready for a commitment. I on the other hand was wounded still from TWO and had lived the last 3 years going through men like they were disposable. No one in that time frame got anything other than a bootycall, no emotions were ever attached on my end. I wanted to trust THREE I did, I wanted nothing more than to stay in his little house that he built, in his arms and give my heart to him. We dated for 4 months and one night we were laying on the couch and he asked what I wanted. Like the smartass that I was I responded "a room full of balloons" it was a quote I'd heard in a movie once. A week later THREE invited me over to dinner and when I walked into the room it was full of balloons. He then told me that what I had said to him that night on the front porch changed him. He knew at that point he wasn't good enough for me but over the last few years that's what he'd been working towards, what he wanted more than anything, he said he knew the day he saw me in that gas station that this was his chance. He then asked if I would stay with him, marry him, let him take care of me. I so much wanted to say yes, my heart was screaming yes, but my head my head said that I would be stuck in that town forever. The town that I couldn't wait to get out of when I graduated, the town that so many women were stuck in because the people they loved would never leave. I would never get out of the town and that was my only reason for saying no. I broke his heart and mine too because of geography. I walked away from what could have been the best thing in my life, from a guy that I have no doubt loved me and would have done anything to make me happy, the guy that I had wanted to be with since I was 10. I just walked away. So the tragic part of this story is that I still think of him often, I still miss him, I still get butterflies in my stomach when I'm home and run into him, I still kick myself for not just screaming yes and jumping into his arms. I mean the man filled a room with balloons off a smartass comment. I just walked away. He eventually got married and has 3 beautiful kids and I have no doubt spends everyday doing what he can to make his wife happy. What I thank THREE for is wel... loving me. He loved me like no one else has but I hope that I will find that kind of love again, I just hope I'm smart enough to take care of it this time.
Lesson learned: It doesn't matter where you live what matters is who loves you and wants to be with you. You can't go back...ever. What's done is done and you live with your decisions good or bad it was your decision and you have to deal with the consequences of your own actions. I could have been really happy with THREE, but you can't live on could of, should have, would have. Eventually you have to lie in the bed you made. There is always going to be a battle between your head and your heart, sometimes, just sometimes you should let your heart win. OK enough analogies, you get the point.