Trouble in Paradise (Lucky: Part 2)

I really wanted things to work between Lucky and I. He was my first, and I wanted him to be my last. I daydreamed about our future together and saw no other options. He was my world and I just knew my life would be perfect once I graduated and moved in with him.

Looking back, especially as I see young people around me making similar choices, I realize how I dismissed myself at every turn. Deep down, I knew we weren’t right together. There’s little feelings of doubt or dread that I kept shoving deeper and deeper inside myself to convince myself on the surface it was right.

Now I know that was my own insecurities and feeling of not being worthy enough for more. More love. More respect. More consideration. More of a lot. Those unworthy feelings were just beginning and snowballed into such a huge entity that I nearly suffocated myself much later in life.

Even in high school we broke up a few times. I found out he was cheating one day when he called me to tell me he broke down in Los Angeles (on the way to his uncle’s house). That day was rough. Not because he broke down, but because I started receiving phone calls from another girl.

Apparently he didn’t take that trip alone. He was with his other girlfriend and two of her friends. She read some letters to me over the phone. I was in shock and could just sit there horrified as her and her friends made fun of my words that I had written to him. Those letters were intended for his eyes only.

 Some of the letters included very explicit details of things we had done or discussed doing. I really felt like my heart was breaking and hurt all over. I sobbed in my bed. You know those deep, painful sobs where no sound actually comes out? I spent hours rocking on my bed crying like that.

He called a few times and tried to backtrack and smooth things over. My mom came into my room for something at some point and just held me. I couldn’t even open up to her because at that point anything I shared with her meant my father would know too. I just didn’t have any fight in me to deal with that. I was so alone. I ended up taking him back.

A few months later I found out I had contracted a STD. I had only been with him, so I knew it was because he was unfaithful. I paged him from a payphone and told him when he finally called back. I was hurt, embarrassed, disgusted, and just knew I’d never deal with him again. Of course that didn’t last too long. We both took our medication and ended up back together soon after.

I told him I was pregnant when I was 17. He stopped talking to me for a few months after cussing me out. We ran into each other again and I was clearly no longer pregnant (miscarried), then we started talking again.

Looking back, I see so many incidents where I want to tell my younger self “YOU ARE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS!!!” That probably wouldn’t have helped at that time, though. I know I had to go through certain things in life to become the woman I am today, but some of those things were so very painful. It hurts to look back at how poorly I treated myself.

In between these blows, things were mostly routine. We would sneak around to be with each other as often as possible. We laughed, joked, and listened to the same music. We talked about our future plans together. We talked about committing petty crimes together. I was ready to do any and everything to prove I was his ride or die. I would be there. It was me and him against the world.

In reality, it was exhausting. But it was also one hell of a distraction from all of the things going on at home. I withdrew from friends. I stopped playing sports. I only went to school for half of the day, then left to work.

I forgot to mention somewhere in there he let me know that he had a child. I didn’t get to meet him for over a year.

After one of his transgressions came to light I went to his grandparents house, where he lived, and was going to drop off all his stuff and be done. Or so I thought. It sounded good in my head. I let him sweet talk me, because I wasn’t ready to walk away. We wrote up a contract about how he wouldn’t cheat again and I included all the things I thought I wanted.

His grandmother laughed at us. Now I know why. That piece of paper would never actually mean anything. She knew I had it bad for him, and he had it bad for me. We were both trying to learn how to function in our teen years with a mountain of trauma we both tried to avoid.

Somehow we kept gravitating back together throughout the rest of my high school days. I introduced him to a co-worker at one point and they became roommates. That made things awkward with the guys I worked with. Who knows what all they knew about his actions and habits.

We got into a horrible argument one day when a few of the guys were there. I was furious. I had found some naughty magazines, which made me feel insecure. Then I found a rose made out of condoms that the girl he cheated with had given him, that I thought he threw away.

I went ballistic. He blocked the door so I couldn’t leave. I packed up all the stuff I had there and was screaming and yelling and throwing my things off the balcony so that when I was able to free myself from the apartment I could throw it in my car and leave.

Looking back, all I can think is how embarrassing. And how uncomfortable that must have been for the guys that were there. 

Even after all of that, we kept making our way back to each other.