That kiss made it impossible for me not to break my rule of dating people from my school. That kiss made it impossible for me to think straight. Everything from this point on went so quickly. This relationship started fast and we both seemed to be falling very hard for one another. There were phone calls, double dates to the drive-in, there was hand holding as we walked home from different events that we would meet at and love notes passed between classes. It wasn't long before he bought me a blue star sapphire ring that declared to everyone that we were a couple. We had an attraction to each other that was so strong, and raw, unlike anything I had ever felt before. It wasn't like we had these great conversations with each other, because actually we still just did a lot of that teasing and flirting with each other. The feelings that I felt when he would kiss me or touch my hand undeniably made me fall in love the fall of 1968. We fell deeply, hormonally in love with each other.
We were such an unlikely couple, the beauty queen and the scholar. Here I had been told all to often that I was not college material, and he on the other hand had been told he had great potential to go far. This boy was going to go to college, he was smart and he was going to have a great future. Everyone said so, his parents, his teachers, and the school councilors. Unlike me, he had somewhat of a plan for himself, (as did everyone else for him) but there was another side to this boy. A darker side, a troubled side that most people either never saw or choose to over look. This was the side that I thought I could help him heal if I loved him well enough.
We were together whenever it was possible. He had a part time job and worked most weekend nights, but he would come over after work and we would hang around my house. Sometimes we would get together with other couples. We certainly seemed to be growing closer, emotionally and physically. After new years in 1969 we finally made love. This changed everything for me. Now I knew this was the person I was meant to be with. Now I knew that we would be together forever, but with these new feelings also came a emotional change in me. I was no longer willing to accept the fact that he wanted to spend time with anyone but me. This became a problem, between us. When he would tell me he was going out with the boys instead of coming to see me I would cry and carry on wondering why he needed to do that. I couldn't seem to understand his need for that and I fought with him whenever it would happen. Of course, we would make up after he did exactly what he was going to do. My fear now was that he would break up with me and what would I do without him now.
The more these fights came the more I began to see this boys dark side. This boy with all his potential disliked his parents, disliked authority and he disliked himself in a great many ways. So, he drank a great deal , he got fired from his job, and he began to act more out of character that year. A great many people, including his parents, thought it was my fault that he was like this. That somehow I led him astray and down the wrong path. Nothing could of been farther from the truth. This naive 17 year old girl believed in him, I thought I was trying to help him by keeping him close. I thought if I loved him enough that he would see that he did not have to act out and be self destructive. This was the first boy that I felt those hormonal feelings for. The feelings of not wanting to be separated from him, the feelings of passion, the feelings that were so unfamiliar to me. He was the first boy I received a ring from, the first boy that talked to me about love and marriage, and the first boy that I had an intimate relationship with. I thought we would be together forever. I thought that we would be married someday and live the happily ever after ending like those in fairy tales. (This was the beginning of my confusion between sex and love.) If no one else believed in us, at least I did and we would run away together and prove them all wrong was the biggest fantasy that I entertained.
But that fantasy was not what happened...
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