My High School Graduation  − 27 June, 2000

It had been a couple of weeks. Just long enough that I wasn’t sobbing every day. This could be good, I realized. I had gotten so attached to him, and perhaps that had been foolish. Page cared about me. There were other guys who cared about me. And maybe I had just fallen in love with the wrong one. Peter came to meet me after school one day. He brought me my favourite bagel. I felt a rush of good things when I saw him. It was hard to suppress it. I took the bag from him and stepped up to kiss him quickly on the lips. As soon as I had done it, I realized that I shouldn’t have. It had been instinct. Old habit. But we were no longer together. I looked down, but he didn’t say anything. We walked together, making small talk. And I asked him to come to my graduation ceremony. I don’t know why I did that. But he seemed happy that I asked, and said that he would come.

At my graduation, I felt good. I was surrounded by my friends. Everyone was happy. I was given an award that I didn’t expect from my Creative Writing teacher. And then, after the ceremony, there he was, shuffling his feet against the dirt outside with his hands in his pocket. When I walked up to him, he put his arms out to me. “I want to get back together,” he said. “I miss you.” And that was all it took.
I invited him to come with me to my friend Melanie’s camp that night. None of my friends were impressed that we had gotten back together, but they bit their tongues. I believed that everything would be better now. He wanted to come back. He had missed me. He would not take me for granted now. There was drinking at the camp. I did not get drunk. But Peter did. He ignored me all night, and I felt the old feelings creeping back in on me. I was angry. Everything would be just as it had been before. This had been my graduation day, my night with my friends – it should have been fun and happy. Instead, I went to bed early, while everyone was still drinking on the patio. Soon afterwards, Peter came stumbling into the room. He climbed into the bed with me, tugging roughly at my clothes and trying to kiss me. I shoved him away, and lay facing away from him – so angry and him and at myself. “You don’t love me,” I said. It wasn’t a question. And I will never forget the way that his reply seemed to seep inside of me and turn me cold from the inside. “I don’t love you. I just wanted to have sex with you.” The truth of it stung. Mostly because, on some level, I had known it all along. The irony of it was not lost on me – he probably didn’t realize that that night was exactly one year to the day from the night that I had lost my virginity to him. And there we were again in bed, only this time, he was being honest.

I can’t fully describe how it felt. That I had been so stupid – it was awful. That I could have loved him so much that I had allowed myself to be used that way. Everything had been a lie. Everything that had meant so much to me meant nothing to him. I felt worthless. I felt small and foolish. A stupid, worthless, foolish girl. I felt parts of me closing off inside, and sealing him out. It must have begun then.

And yet, I stayed. I could have walked then. I don't know why I stayed. Because when he was sober, he tried to take it back? Because I wanted to believe him? Because believing him was a balm to my pride? I don't know. I think because I had given so much to this relationship, I couldn't bear the thought that I would lose it all. He had been my one and only. That was the way I had wanted it to be. I should have just accepted that he was who he was, without getting angry or bitter – everything would have been different. I should have left.