Growing up, I was blessed with an amazing family, and for my eighteen birthday and graduation, my grandparents took me on a cruise.

It was amazing, and while on the ship, I met a man. He was perfect: red hair, played guitar, and seemed to genuinely care about me. At first, I was skeptical but after a few days, we begin to really click. As the cruise was approaching its end, we traded numbers and promised to stay in touch. However; I never expected us to become anything more than a friendly conversation.

Boy, was I wrong, within a month I was transferring colleges and moving to his city. As a young naive eighteen-year old, I believed we were meant to be. When I first moved to his city, everything was perfect, we went on extravagant dates and traveled a lot. It seemed as if my dream of meeting my soulmate and growing old with them had finally happened... but then his demons began to slowly show themselves. Starting out with verbal altercations, calling me fat and saying he would never love me because I wasn't his ex. I would always make excuses for his behavior blaming it on the booze. Every fight would end with me locking myself in the bathroom crying, I couldn't understand why I wasn't good enough for him. It didn't take long for his rages to become violent.... and that's when my story takes a turn for the worse.

I'll never forget the first time he hit me, we had just got back from a night out on the town when all of a sudden he snapped. He looked at me and said, " I don't love you, you're not Kels" and hit me in the face. I was baffled, did he really just hit me?! Am I losing my mind? I was terrified, but I didn't know what to do, I didn't know anybody in that horrid city. My family was almost two hours away and I didn't want them worrying about me. I locked myself in a room and went to bed. In the morning when I finally got the courage to confront him, it was if nothing had ever happened.. and that was only the begging of my downfall. I hit rock bottom depression and anxiety had taken over, I no longer tried in school and my GPA suffered. I was terrified to go home and terrified to hide from him.

Then it happened, my worst nightmare. Another altercation had happened during his drunken rage. I had just pulled into his house and was having him get out of the car so I could go stay with a friend, because I knew his behavior was only going to escalate. He acted as if he was going to get out and go inside, but then he started throwing up everywhere. I had no choice but to get out and help him at least get into his house. After throwing up, he pulled a knife on me and told me to get into the house.

Once inside the house we began to argue more, he tried stabbing me but only caused a scratch. He wasn't happy with that, and before I knew it, I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun. I said a prayer and prepared myself to meet my creator. He pulled the trigger... and it was empty. I began to sob uncontrollably, the person I had once loved just tried to kill me. I grabbed all of my stuff, hit him with a box fan, and left.

If I could tell my abuser one thing, I would tell him that he no longer controls my life. I am happy and free. I am finally living a life without fear and pain. I pray for any girl who dates him or anybody like him. Nobody deserves to be treated that way. All girls need to know that they are strong enough to overcome an abusive situation. The situation does not dictate your life, you are the author of your own story and your story isn't over yet!