The Thin Line Between Love & Hate

The way that I’ve written this story that is based on true events that happened while I was together with the man I'd truly believed was my soul mate, I began writing as if I had been writing to him.

It’s been years since we’ve had any sort of communication, and I can understand why under the circumstances that ended our relationship/friendship once and for all. I just can’t forget about you that easily, I can’t just throw away all the years that we’d spent together, even if some of those memories are/were quite abusive, painful, heartbreaking and terrifying; I mostly am thinking about the times we shared as I’ve never had with anyone but him. Such as the nightly long talks over the phone, or how long it would take for us to say good-bye when we would have to hang up the phone. As well as how long it took to say good-bye after you had come over for a visit. I never thought that my life would be without you at in, which is another reason I decided to have an abortion at that time, I didn’t want to trap you like that, I wanted it to be genuine the reasons we stayed together. So I write this for you Joseph Stanley Ross Merritt; and hope that one day you decide that you could tolerate the possibly even sending/responding me at some point.

This message is for someone that I don’t know anymore, I used to know you quite well. I miss that person terribly, the man you had been when I first met you. Now I am nothing to you but a joke and you are lost forever to me as being the person I used to think was my best friend as well as my partner. There was a time, in fact, I had known you more so than anyone else in your entire life so far, I was not just a friend but I was a companion.

For such a long time we always had exciting adventures and intense conversations, we would talk on the phone for hours on end to the point where we would end up falling asleep while still on the phone together. We were just so attracted to one another, it was hard for us to keep our clothes on half the time we spent together.

I can remember that it wasn’t always terrifying to be with you, that I used to feel so safe, so secure and comforted when I was close to you; I felt that nothing could ever hurt me, or bring me any pain with your arms wrapped around me. That was the old days, back before you ever did anything to harm me. Those will always be the memories that l remember when I think about our time together, those are the memories that I continue to hold close to my heart; that I reminisce about when I feel lonely inside. I know that there is nothing that can erase all that horrible shit that we put each other through and the pain that we both caused each other both physically and mentally.

I don’t know what happened to us that made it fall apart so quickly, how and what was so powerful to destroy that intense love we felt for each other. Truth be told; I hate that I still think about you, and hate that I also don’t ever want to forget our time together; not because ‘it was the best time of my life’ but because it is a part of my life, my history.

Like in all seriousness it’s been well over 6 years and yet I still think about you, even in a great relationship with a good man who treats me so differently than I was used to due to the harsh toll our relationship was like. In all honesty, I properly should have never been with you, not because of all the shit that went down between us but because I was young, and you were my first real love; it was because I would have done anything to be with you, regardless of some times horrific aftermath our fights would turn into.

I still love you to this day and I always will, you were the first person I ever really loved in that sort of way; which I have been told by therapists it was considered almost like an addiction being with you, I was morbidly obsessed.

There wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t have done to make you feel the same way for me, I still remember our first “introduction” to each other was brief during one of the times you had come out to see Sherie it was when I was just 13 and you just turned 19, besides the age difference issue there was also the issue regarding that you and I weren’t even supposed to know each other (officially) since my cousin’s friend Sherie, had the total hots for you; I only randomly heard about you through gossip and other types of conversations I would hear regarding you and what you were like, also got to sneak a few pics of you which is where I developed a crush; you were so sexy and dreamy with the long hair of which reminded me of a common elf from the LOTR series books.

It was then I had to know you, without being allowed to; or anyone finding out. So I hacked my cousin’s MSN messenger and since she only had like 10 contacts I added the 2 emails which I thought could be you since I’d known all the other people. From there it began, I sent you a request and you accepted; then we started chatting in secret, not just over the computer, but also late-night phone calls that would last until you’d have to ‘go pretend to be in bed, and not at the computer’ since your step-dad was waking up for work.

At first, our conversations were just innocent flirting-and other than that just chatting as normal friends would. But it wasn’t long until I told you how I felt a crush on you the moment I first met him, to my surprise you said similar things to me which you expressed wanting to be the one who took my virginity; when I was older. But you’d also express other emotions towards me that you felt that made me feel unlike anything else anyone had ever told me. You made me feel sexy and awoke something inside me that left me feeling hopelessly head over heels for you.

But it wasn’t something that we ever did together, despite though even making plans to hang out it never happened, not til randomly years later would we ever come into contact again after your move to Nelson and your disagreements with how I was living my life. I was curious, I was told you had been a drug user; mostly meth which I was so young when I heard about it I hadn’t even smoked weed. I became more curious after you threatened me to “NEVER try it otherwise you’d break my nose”, guess you were only trying to look out for me, thinking that I’d stay away after your confession to being addicted to it.

It wasn’t long after you disappeared; to Nelson for 4 years that I stopped trying to keep the communication going between us since we’d never be online at the same time. It was then I felt that you were less interested in me and I moved on to become interested in other guys that were more or less available than you had been as well closer to my age.

As a teenager I soon wanted to know/experience what drugs were like, it started with cocaine, then crack, then we met someone who had some crystal meth, which I hadn’t ever tried since I knew you’d be upset with me; but at that time we hadn’t really spoken, or chatted online for several months, possibly even a year by then so I decided to try it with my friends. Which the high was so awesome the first time I remember doing it, was off the back of a toilet in the McDonald’s bathroom on Commercial drive where we all busted out 2 lines for each of us and sniffed them back. The high was instant, and unlike anything, I had ever tried. I felt confident and so comfortable; also so full of wonder and curiosity.

Since I didn’t have a computer; I’d go to the public library in hopes to see you online since we’d always seem to miss each other over MSN messenger so I instead decided that I’d sent you e-mails whenever I could find a computer which then became how we would talk, I truly wish I never deleted all mine after we broke up, I regret tossing out a bunch of stuff I had of us that held good memories of our time together. I wish now more than ever I still had them just so I had some of the good things that we had to read and remember and wonder if you have kept them as you had told me before the last time we broke up you had all of our email conversations saved still. I also wonder if you’ve kept the cheesy notes I wrote for you, along with that super cheesy scrapbook that I made for our 6 month anniversary.

It was just so heartbreaking how you could replace me with someone else without even a shred of emotion towards me and everything that we had been together, years just went just like that. We’d spent the past 5 years together, we could have had a baby; which is something that still haunts me to this day.

I regretted my decision and have ever since, not knowing what my life, possibly our life could have been in the worst scenario that always plays over in my head what COULD have been life been like if I’d only kept our baby girl.....and I’ll never know that answer. Would things be any different for us? I know for sure as hell that I wouldn’t have started using dope again; we all know what I became, you always made sure to tell me that without you I’d be nothing but a junkie, TADA you were right! My life became ONLY and ALL about drugs when you kicked me out for Ava.

That was the only thing that could stop me from wanting to call you, or from thinking about you; cause alcohol didn’t work I would want to drunk dial you, and when I did, you put her on. Not even could you tell me the truth, like I was nothing to you? It wasn’t even hard for you to just simply forget all about me and my existence with Ava, you wouldn’t even talk to me anymore. I know that I never stopped loving you, I still will always have some sick obsession with you in some way. Unfortunately, I know that you no longer are the same person who I'd first fell in love with either on the outside or the inside for some reason. Despite all the previous signs that were a total red flag, I still wanted you to be with me, together as a couple; I wanted to believe that it was all in my head that you were no good. But none of that mattered as long as you were with me; together as a couple.

I have no idea what happened to make it all vanish, something happened that made you hate me. I know that the abortion was hard to get over, it was hard to go through and it still is hard to think about. What I don’t understand is how much it seemed to affect you, but you never expressed anything to me until the last time we were together; which happened to be several years later after you'd tossed me assister that awful night that will forever be in my memory. I hate it, it makes me so sad every time I think about it. The anger and the hated you showed me, along with the frustration and the remorse. I don’t even know what to think about the whole scenario, it all happened so fast. I can’t believe what happened to our feelings for each other, well more so the feelings you had towards me. I know that in my heart, I always will have some love for you. And yet I still have so much love for you even after you broke my heart not just once, but twice did you dump me so easily for some other girl you secretly started seeing behind my back.

The first time hurt so much that I never did fully recover from it, I always had a shield up ( so to speak) protecting myself from ever being hurt like I was when you told me you didn’t want to be with me anymore the first time. I remember how I immediately threw up from feeling as if my heart was just ripped out of my chest and the air had been squished out of my lungs at the same time. I felt so broke at that moment, so mad at myself for not taking your warnings seriously enough. I never did start to treat you any better, I didn’t see anything that I was doing as abusive. I didn’t realize how much I had been making you hurt by the way I would talk to you, how I would manipulate the situation to get whatever I wanted at that time. I admit now that was completely understandable that you didn’t want to continue to be treated like that anymore.

I thought I had lost you forever during those 4 1/2 months you spent with Kristina; not to mention you sent me messages bragging about your new girlfriend and how much better she was than myself and how much prettier and smarter she was than I would ever be. I think that’s when I felt hurt the most. No amount of words could sum up the way I felt after you sent me those messages, you played into every one of my insecurities I had about myself at the time and made me feel that I was incapable of having someone love me for the lack of intelligence I had. It was hard for me to accept your absence in my life since you entered it, but I had no choice.

So I let Anthony set me up with one of his buddies; Ricky. Who in all honesty had similar features that reminded me of you, which I think was one of the reason’s I jumped into a relationship so fast with him, I spent nearly ALL my free time at his place, other than having to go to work or school, I’d spent most nights sleeping over at Ricky’s just trying to keep you out of my mind, which was working quite well for me!

It wasn’t until I received a message from Anthony who had informed me that you had been trying to get a hold of me, or at least get a message to me; but since I had blocked you none of them were coming through to my inbox. I was also so overwhelmed over the fact you’d been trying to get in touch with me. I didn’t take another second for me to re-add/unblock you back on MSN and hear what else you wanted to tell me since I had been pretty much living at Ricky’s I was always able to be online, and at that moment Ricky had still been at work so I could talk to Joe over MSN and not have Ricky be any the wiser. Truth be told I had dreams about you where you’d declare you still loved me and how much you’d miss the shit out of me and have been thinking about me the whole time we were apart.

I just wanted you back in my life, I ignored the whole fact I had been dumped for some other chick that you only met cause you had been looking for someone on a dating website. I once again put all my attention on you, I scheduled my life around when you were available to spend time with me. That was a huge mistake on my part, I realize that now; there was a lot of things that I should have done more, and a lot of things I should have done less. But I wasn’t the most mature 17 years old, I did a lot of stupid things to either get attention or to have people notice me. The relationship never was the same after we got back together after Kristina, I wanted to believe that it was just a phase and we would be back to the way things were before. ( I had been so ignorant that I didn’t realize that is why you left in the first place ) They never did get any better; in fact, they got much much worse; as you know, you were there too.

When I first got the news about being pregnant. It was so exciting, yet scary the moment the doctor told me the result of my pregnancy test. I can remember feeling happy that I was going to be carrying something that we made together inside me, that maybe this would bring us back to the way things were. But that didn’t last long, the concern of being prepared financially for a child over the course of 18+ years, as well as the absence of drugs and alcohol over the course of being pregnant, as well as the fact you had already begun abusing me before I was with the child what would a baby solve? But then there are the days I wish I would have kept our baby and seen where the world would take us.

The abortion ended upbringing on a world full of depression as all my other friends started to have kids. Which made me begin to hate myself for not being brave enough to start a family and lead me back to just wanting to get high so I could get away from that feeling for just a little bit. The worst part of it all is that you never said anything to me regarding the situation at all, if you had only just expressed an ounce of excitement about becoming a father and having a family I would have kept our baby.