It all started after my first girlfriend in 8th grade, Nicole, broke up with me. I had thought I had experience heartbreak before, but I hadn’t until I was blindsided by being dumped by her. We were only one day away from being together a month. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and I wish I could’ve hated her. It’s like without her in my life, the colors weren’t as bright, and everything I once knew became foggy. I was walking through a world that had become so very dull. I tried to hat her, but just ended up making myself sick, and it broke my heart even more to try and be mad at her.

I tried to hate her for almost an entire month, but instead of being able to hate her, I realized why I hurt so much. I thought I had been in love with some guys, and I discovered that they had never even come close to making me feel the way Nicole did. I never told her I loved her while we were dating, and I should have. I decided I wasn’t going to wait for her to talk to me. I had to tell her how I felt, and it seemed like this was my last chance to tell her I loved her, whether she felt the same or not. I had to try.

I wrote her this extremely long note expressing how I felt, but I was scared to give it to her. I wanted to know how she felt, but at the same time, I was scared of being rejected. I didn’t want to feel like I meant nothing to her, or that I was just some fling or experiment.

When I finally gave her friend the note to give to her, since we avoided each other, I was ready for her answer of ‘I don’t love you back, so leave me alone.’ But when she wrote me back it wasn’t like that at all. She said, she had felt the same way, and that she had missed me. I didn’t expect that answer at all, I had set myself up to be ready for failure. That was probably one of the happiest days of my life. It was the first time ever, I had cried because I was happy.

This is what made it even worse when she broke up with me only 3 weeks later. It all started with one of my exes saying that we were dating. We were friends, but I was definitely not dating my ex. Nicole heard this from one of her friends, and I didn’t help the matter. Nicole was upset, and I was being more defensive then I should’ve been when I was accused of cheating. I was walking out of the lunchroom with my ex, and that’s when I was Nicole crying. I just walked past her, even though deep down, I just wanted to wrap my arms around her, tell her it wasn’t true, I loved her, and I wasn’t going anywhere. I regret walking past her more than anything else I’ve ever done.

After lunch, I wrote Nicole a note, and so did my ex, telling her nothing was going on between us. Instead of believing us, she believed her friend. I probably would’ve done the same thing if I was in her position, but I wouldn’t do that knowing what I know now. She broke up with me for the second time. I felt like there was so much more I could’ve done to prevent that, but I didn’t do anything. I just let it fall apart. It felt like the sunshine had been ripped out of my life once more, and like a gigantic part of me was missing.