First love usually never works out. If it's your first relationship or your third, first love will change everything you know. It starts fuzzy and warm, almost like you're in a haze, but with my first love, the haze blinded me from all the wrongs of my partner. When he was gone for long periods of time, I thought nothing of it. When I heard rumors of him, I brushed them off because I trusted him with all my heart.
Bad idea past me.
After two and a half years with him, things came crashing down. Two fights, and one break during finals, yet I still couldn't see what was wrong. When he officially blind side dumped me in March despite reassuring me that he loved me just the night before, I felt like I lost everything. So then when we decided to just be friends, I thought I could still have some love in my life despite having moved on, but how wrong was I.
To recount old memories and laugh again, we went out for coffee and I brought with my old journal that I had written down in during our relationship. It was a Nicholas Sparks-style confession of love in this small notebook that I had held close to my heart and I believed that if he read this, I would finally receive closure after what had happened. However, the exact opposite happened. When we parted ways, I left the book with him. "I'll read it when I get home," he told me. Besides, I was leaving for Italy in less than 36 hours, so I thought nothing of it. Later that night, everything I thought had happened, changed in an instant.
I received his text that he had read my book and that he had something to confess. Most of me didn't care too much about what he had to say because I had moved on from him, but there was a part of me that wanted him to say that he made a mistake, that he wants me back.
I was not prepared for what he said that night.
"I cheated on you."
I'm sorry, what?
Two hours later, I have been filled in by him that he had cheated on me four times with four different people for various lengths of time and did various things that we had never done together. The first time he cheated on me was a mere eight months into our two and a half year relationship that meant the world to me. One of those girls was a close friend of mine that had just left for college. How convenient.
That next morning, I got on a plane with my mind swirling with new information and my notebook back in my hands that had an apology written in the last ten pages in scratchy handwriting that wasn't mine.
Being cheated on by your first love leaves a bad taste in your mouth for a while. Anyone who comes afterward doesn't get the treatment they deserve because of the anxiety that filled the cracks in your heart. They don't deserve the outbursts, the accusations, the overthinking, the pain that someone had created in your heart. It takes a while to either forgive them for what they did, which was the path I took, or to just take the time to heal. The right person will come along and help refill those cracks with love, instead of doubt.
