chance at love.

by mariah
(pittsburgh, PA)

He was a troubled kid the first time i meet him. He was into the wrong crowd back then, so was I. I was a drug addict with a problem, so was he. It took me 2 years of being clean. I had to leave my friends I did drugs with, and start a new life. Never have I seen him then. I had one best friend i could ever hope for. We worked together, went to school together, hung out every day, and weekend.

The year he came to my school, a placement/school for kids who get kicked out of their home school's for drug abuse, fighting, being bad. Not one kid there was a bad person. He came there for fighting. He was a big guy, a boxer. Every one of my friends said he was no good. So I went my own way. He dated my friend for a few days there, and she didn't know how he was. He told her he loved her on the second day of dating. He would bug to hang out with her every day. She didn't like it because he didn't know who she was. So she left him.

He didn't seem affected by it. He went around trying to find a girl friend until he started talking to me, asking me if i would want to trip on acid with him, acting like i still did drugs. I told him it's not good. I've been clean for 2 years. He was acting like he was clean too. But he relapsed, and is trying to get clean again. I never dated anyone like him before. I haven't dated anyone in a long time, and I saw something different in him, that what people tell me he's a liar. I thought it was an act. That's not who he is, and he asked me on a piece of paper if I would go out with him. I said yes with a nervous feeling in my stomach. He would text me non-stop, would want to spend every minute he could with me. I would try to push love feelings away as much as i could, not to get attached so i wouldn't get hurt.

We dated for 3 days and never kissed. I wanted to take it slow. He went to a rehab center for 5 days for drugs. His grandmother didn't know who i was and thought he was getting high with me. I told her I was a recovering addict, and haven't smoked pot in 2 years, that i wanted to help him. If i got clean, so could he.


She took my word, and when he got out that's when we had our first kiss. everything was going good until i showed him to a friend. 2 days later I found out he kissed her, my little sister's age at 15, from him a 18 year old. I wanted to leave him as soon as that happened, but I couldn't. I felt loved, but now scared it would happen again.

It did a few weeks later with another girl, calling me telling me to tell Paul to text her. He wanted her to suck his penis. He had a picture he sent her of it. Then everything turned on me as my fault. A few weeks later it happened again with a girl called telling me exactly where and when it happened and why he never answered. He had sex twice with a girl who didn't know he was taken. He played it off and acted as if i was paranoid.

For a year every two weeks it has happened, and i was always the blame.. He left me for another girl he liked, so i went to a party in Pittsburgh. He found out, and overdosed to kill himself, but it didn't work.

Now it's a new year, and on that day he saw me trying to get a friend's number that was a boy, and took me by the front of my hoodie and lifted me up, threatening, asking if i did anything with this boy. No, because i was in a commitment, unlike him.

I could never leave him because he is my rock, and to this day i know who he is, and that's what i fell in love with. Not who he puts out to be. I will not give up on him. So many attempts from me to leave, but not one worked. Love abuse, but never giving up on someone who hasn't had a chance to feel real love.