I was 15 when I became friends with John. Until then, he had been a space-filler, but when he walked into my first hour class my sophomore year of high school, I really took notice of him. He had a powerful presence; he was tall, dark, and handsome, and seemed reasonably intelligent. I had a boyfriend at the time--a sweet, smart guy 3 years older than me--so John and I started as friends. Our friendship, as well as romantic tension, built through that year. I had been dealing with issues of sexual abuse in my life, and I felt like John really supported me in my struggles.

John was friends with both me and my boyfriend, so when he told me that my boyfriend was getting ready to let go, I believed him. After all, the boyfriend was getting ready to go to college; why would he want to be latched to a younger girl back home? At the very beginning of the summer between 10th and 11th grades, I traded boyfriends. Unfortunately, I didn't get that friend back in trade; the (ex) boyfriend would have been a great friend, but John worried that he might try to take advantage of me because we had a past. I agreed that a friendship with a longtime-ex-boyfriend could be weird, so I let the friendship go (and Scott, if you ever read this, you have no idea how sorry I am).

Had John not had the entire summer with me alone, I might have noticed how I was changing. He worked on my self-esteem by preying upon his knowledge of the past abuse that I had endured. He convinced me to actually say the words, "I am a slut because I let them touch me." Flirting was a direct cause of my past abuse. Having males as friends was inviting them to take advantage of me. After all, hadn't John himself been a friend once? Hadn't I snuck behind my ex's back in starting a relationship with John? (That one wasn't as true as it seems...he had noticed and had chosen to let me find my own way of it.) He told me that he didn't want what had happened with my ex to happen to him. Male friendships were banned from the start.

Over that summer, he took me away from my family. My sister was far away, with her husband and first baby on an army base. My dad was working weekdays in another town because it was the only job he could find, and we hadn't been very close around that time. The hardest one was taking me away from my mother. He forced me to see her weaknesses as stupidity; he told me that I was beyond my family's intelligence and that I shouldn't stoop so low as to associate with them. By the end of the summer, the only person left in my life to love was him, and I devoted all of my effort to it.

When we got back in school, it became very apparent how different we were in that environment. I was involved in several organizations and was ranked second in my class; he was a back-of-the-room, I'm-too-good-for-this type who belonged to nothing. He was my lab partner in Bio II and Chem II, and because I covered for him, my grades dropped to the lowest I had ever received (OK, so they were B's...but from a straight-A student, that's a large fall in a short time).

I also had a passion for theater; he forced me to choose between playing Tzeitel in "Fiddler on the Roof" or being with him. He was upset because he felt I had put too much emotion into the wedding scene, which was opposite an acquaintance of ours from choir. When I quit the musical after a big scene at rehearsal, my mom finally took some action. We had a conference with the director (also my English teacher) and the assistant principal. I would have gone back to the show after that conference...if they had let me. To the director, though, a drop was a drop, no matter what the circumstances, and I was out. (**In other words, my teacher could have saved me then, had she been more observant.**)

Somewhere in this semester is where the physical abuse started. It was never anything obvious, like a punch. His tendency when we argued in school (which was almost daily) was to grab my arm and squeeze until I "shut up" and "stopped causing a scene." He did this right in the middle of class (English class, actually) and the teacher never paid any attention to it.

John's way of manipulating me was through mind games. One of his favorites was "Square One." After some imagined failure of mine (such as talking with a male co-worker on break), I was put back to Square One, where I would have to re-earn his trust and love in order to keep our relationship. Through this game, he kept me on the relationship "offensive," making moves to keep our love going. One Valentine's Day, in fact, he rewarded me by telling me that I was off of Square One. Imagine my delight at that gift.

The rest of high school went much this way. I dropped out of organizations one by one, I lost touch with friends one by one, and I endured growing emotional and mental abuse. My goals weakened and my attitude hardened, making me more like him. I retained my academic standing, at least, but I had lost most of the rest of my personality.

Angels come in the strangest forms. I don't know a person in my family who wouldn't laugh if I called my cousin, Jason, an angel. But he saved me. My aunt had remarried while I was in high school (to Jason's father), but Jason remained in Washington until 1995 (my graduating year). He was in trouble in school and on the verge of in trouble with the law. My family sat down with me to tell me that a cousin my age was coming to Michigan and that he needed a good influence to help turn his life around. I found out years later that they also sat him down, told him that his cousin (me) was in a relationship with a terrible guy, and asked him to help however he could. I suppose it was a fair trade.

We got along like brother and sister from the start, and that infuriated John. He was terribly upset that some guy who he didn't consider my relative (even though Jason and I considered ourselves blood) was receiving my attention. Jason encouraged me to break John's rules--we drank, we played, I actually wore a 2-piece swimsuit to the beach...for the first time, I began to break free.

As part of his end of the bargain, Jason was also bringing friends up on many weekends, hoping that I would hit it off with one. Sure enough, when he brought Eric up around the 4th of July, a few sparks flew. One of those sparks, a firecracker "carelessly" aimed at John's butt, caused him to storm away for the rest of the weekend. Eric was no knight in shiny stuff, but he treated me well. I had forgotten what it felt like for a guy to compliment me, to open doors for me, to listen to me. Eric was a smooth one, and I knew that all along, but I was a hungry puppy waiting for those scraps.

Eric and I ended that weekend with a kiss on my hand and an exchange of phone numbers. I hadn't flirted in ages, and I discovered that I had really missed that feeling. However, that weekend had confused me. In a private notebook where I kept teaching observation notes, I wrote a journal entry describing that confusion. In the meantime, Eric was calling me, and Jason had taken time off work to stay up north. Jason's presence was invaluable--for the first time, I considered breaking up with John.

Finally, with a glass of wine, my sister, and my cousin-brother on hand, I picked up the phone and broke up with John. The next couple of days were terrifying and painful--I would relate the feeling to that of breaking a drug addiction. Unfortunately, like many addicts, I could not keep myself away from my vice. I meant to drive to his house just to drop off his things, but ... well ... we all know how that goes. I went back to him, but the uneasy feeling never went away. (Jason, by the way, was angry with me for quite a while for going back to John's house.)

Eric still hadn't left my mind. My family took a trip to Cedar Point around my cousin's birthday, and Jason brought Eric along as part of his birthday present (thanks, dude!). My family still has a picture of the "kids" waiting in line for the Raptor, with Eric's arm around me. We kissed that day. And, by the end of the day, I had had my fun with Eric and was ready to put him behind me, with the lessons he had taught me fresh in my mind. Needless to say, John had no idea that Eric was going on the trip. He was at home, feeding my cat that we kept in the garage (long story).

The cat was in the garage. The observation notebook was in my room. When I got home, he had taken the journal entry from the notebook. What followed was a very ugly scene that is related in Hurt Me, one of my short stories. The only fiction in that story is the part about how he found the notebook. Funny thing is, that scene happened based on the flirting alone--John didn't even know about Cedar Point.

With that behind us, I began the process of making nice--after all, I was going away to college in less than a month, and he was leaving for the army a month after that. When he left for Basic Training, he made me promise that I would send him a letter every day to help get him through. I faithfully did, even though my roommates thought I was nuts. I stayed in my room whenever possible, waiting for that first phonecall from Basic. I got a phone card in my name so that he could call me. We agreed to split the bill, but I never saw his half of the money.

John worried about being so far away from me. He told me often about how other guys were losing their girls while away, how he didn't want to be one of them. He made me promise (again) not to have male friends, a promise I never kept. With so much distance between John and I, I did a lot of dreaming about how well we had gotten along before he was actually my boyfriend. All of my reminiscing about him was based on that time.

I know now that the distance between us actually kept us together longer than I would have stayed otherwise. It was so easy to dream about the good, and to dismiss the bad phonecalls about how my letters weren't long enough as stress from going through Basic. When I finally saw him again that Christmas, I felt like we were in two separate worlds, and wrote another journal entry about how these worlds really cannot connect. Still, I held on.

Throughout that year, I had a few "crushes" on some of my male friends. I suppose that having a boyfriend saved me from the troubles of trying to date any of these guys, but it didn't stop the romantic tension with others. One of these crushes ended up being a bit close to the line. He had been my friend since the very beginning of the year, but despite the fact that others wondered about us, I had never really had any romantic feeling toward him. Then we went out dancing with a group of friends on a night that we were both feeling lonely and disconnected from our significant others. We ended the night dancing very closely and spent the next couple of days experiencing tension (from restraint) like I had never felt before. We brought ourselves out of it by talking through the fact that we wouldn't be getting involved for the right reasons.

In the meantime, while I was banned from going to bars, John was hitting the sleazy ones in Austin. Judging by some of our conversations at the time and by the fact that he later developed some kind of STD (I think ... it wouldn't have affected me, anyway), I am almost positive that he was cheating on me physically and fully in this time. I was in flat denial then, or else I might have paid more attention to some of the important signs.

Toward the end of my first year at school, with this friend in my background and with that disconnected feeling, I began to consider breaking up again. John and I had some terrible fights on the phone. When I came away from these crying, my roommate Becky asked me, "Is this how you want to feel for the rest of your life?" My friends at school said, "Break up with him now, while we're all here to support you. You won't do it when summer gets here." They were right.

I began the summer barely speaking to John. I wasn't even dreaming about him anymore--I was dreaming of some of my guy friends, and I was enjoying feeling independent. Knowing that I was slipping away, John begged me to come to Texas for a visit. I agreed, but asked how we would pay for it. He said to just put the plane ticket on my charge card, and he would pay me back for it when I got to Texas. He said that he would have money saved when I got there for the hotel, too. I booked for a long weekend over the 4th of July.

John had almost no money when I got down there. I had about $50 and my charge card. I paid for the hotel for the 4 nights, at $50 each. I reserved money on my charge to pay for airport parking when I got home. The rest of the money that I had went for food. That amounted to one Burger King meal, some 7-11 Super Nachos, and one nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant, over a span of 4 days. John produced money for alcohol and for a movie from somewhere. I drank too much, I smoked too much, and I ate too little. We bickered a lot, and our physical relationship was the worst ever.

I went home with a bellyache, which I attributed to overeating at my first real meal after the weekend. The cramping lingered, and I was diagnosed with an ulcer soon afterward. I was in debt and couldn't afford payments on my charge card. John was responsible for both, and I was quite angry with him about it. Ironically, on my way to the airport, John told me that he was afraid to let me go, because he was afraid of our future. We had looked at wedding rings, but he didn't like the kinds I like and he was insisting on a ring that I found quite hideous. We were still drifting apart.

It took no time at all for John and I to grow very far apart after school began again. Finally, at the very beginning of October, I calmly asked him 2 questions: "Why did you fall in love with me?" and "What do you love about me now?" He could answer the first one easily enough, but he drew a blank on the second. He continued to insist that I choose between my male friends and him. I chose them. After five hours on the phone, I broke up. My friends were with me as they had promised--Becky, that guy friend, my new roommates, and others.

As you can imagine, this was no clean break. John couldn't let go, and I was trying to be a friend to him and be gentle with him. He still called almost daily, even when I told him to stop. He still withheld the money from me, thinking that I would come back if I knew I would get my money back. He cried when I told him I was dating. He begged me to come back down for another visit. Far away from my family (my parents lived in Vermont at this time), loaded with 19 credit hours (and a few C's from the tests that had been on the day following the 5-hour call), and still not healthy, I flew to my parents' home for an emergency long weekend visit.

Renewed with their love and strength, I came home a bit happier. I began the process of dating and learning about love, trust, and honesty all over again. Four years and one divorce later, I still find myself learning these difficult lessons. However, the most important thing I've learned is that the heart and soul can only heal from within, and that it is up to me and nobody else (even people with the best of intentions) to find my strength again.