The Boy Who Knew Me When(2)

From that day on we spent every day together, things escalated quickly and before we knew it we were a couple. Our only problem was that I only loved and lusted for him, but I was never “in love” with him. I gave him everything that I could possibly give but in the end my failure as a human being, my failure to give myself fully to anyone, failed us both.

About a week before homecoming, I gave him my body and from that moment I knew things had to end. Please, do not misunderstand me: the sex was perfect, he made my toes curl, my breasts peak and my body throb and pulsate in ways that made me feel completely weak from head to toe in the most amazing way. Feeling him inside of me was one of the best things that ever happened in my 18 years of existence.

I have no doubts that he was the one everything was meant to happen with. He was kind, gentle, giving and mad about me. But there was nothing else there for me; suddenly I realized he was nothing more to me than a friend. Afterward I felt a sense of doom, I felt dead inside and I ended up spending all of the next day in my room crying for reasons I did not yet know.

Around midnight I stumbled into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of my red puffy face and realized just how much I hated myself. It was then that I also realized I had not been crying because I was sad about giving Brandon my virginity, no, I was crying because when all was said and done he told me he loved me.

He said that he loved me so much he was planning on skipping out on Columbia University to stick it out with me at a frickin’ community college. My inability to commit to life was about to take him down as well and it terrified me. I cared too much about him to destroy him. I am simply not worth that kind of love and commitment. Brandon, sweet, delectable, perfectly drool-worthy Brandon was and is too good for me. That is when I decided to end things. He was angry at first, said a bunch of things he didn’t mean and just got up and walked away.

To be honest the entire time that I was breaking his heart all I wanted to do was rip off his clothes and ride him until the cows came home. But for his own sake I had to keep my distance and not allow myself to give him another inch of me.

Once graduation was over Brandon apologized saying he didn’t want to lose me as a friend; I on the other hand never did apologize. Not because I was not sorry but because I couldn’t let him know that I was ripped to shreds over pushing him away. He had become such a huge part of my life and though I was not in love with him, how could I be, I still cared about him deeply.

I could not for the life of me imagine going our separate ways, never again having him there to keep me safe, something he never failed to do. But as my mother always said “If you love something, set it free, if it loves you in return, it will come home again.” so I set him free. Only I hoped he would never come back again because I was nothing and he deserved someone that was not only something but someone who could and would give him everything.





“You know…Brandon’s plane leaves in a few hours.”

Brea never failed to point out the obvious. She had come over to help me pack the rest of my things so that we could move into our new apartment in Austin which we had found a few weeks before.

“Yeah I know, what do you want me to do about it?” I asked defensibly.

I couldn’t think about Brandon, it had been months since I ended things and I could barely stand to look at him without my eyes welling up with tears. Brea kept telling me how much she knew I was hurting.

“Jemma, look, I know you love Brandon, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. You cannot keep shutting him out. Four years,” she sighed, “you are throwing away four fucking years! If you did that to me I would want to ring your neck! Instead Brandon just wants to be your friend and you are tearing his heart out by ignoring him!”

I slammed my dresser drawer and tossed a handful of socks into my Hello Kitty travel-all.

“Fuck Brea! Don’t you think I know I am hurting him? Do you think I WANT to hurt him? Stop fucking throwing this shit in my face. He was going to give up a perfectly good opportunity, one I would KILL to have but fucked up to the point of no return. I don’t deserve him. Better I break his heart knowing he can take it than take his life knowing he won’t recover.”

I watched Brea’s face turn from angry to flabbergasted in a matter of seconds.

“You know Jem, I love you, you know I do, but you are fucking stupid as fuck. And you got one thing right in that stupid bullshit pity filled rant you just gave: you don’t deserve him!”

Brea, huffed out a pissed off sigh and stormed toward the door to my room. She briefly stopped to face me before leaving.