Walking with my head down, like a cartoon where the raincloud looms over the sad person’s head, I wish I had never walked into the school that day to see her eyes staring into mine. I wish I never went to the bonfire where she happened to be when we first met. Sometimes I think about how much more I’d be able to do with my life if I had never met her, but I always think about how happy we were when it all first started out.

Then emotions and feelings turned sour, and her heart began to turn cold. I wish I never gave her my all, so she could just throw me out into the rain, which was colder than water under three feet of ice. She always yelled down the hallway at me, “You need to shave!” Then on Valentine’s Day I stayed up all night just to be the first one to tell her, “Happy Valentines Day!” She seemed like she cared, but never let me in like I let her in. The pain and suffering could be seen coming from miles away but I ignored it. The thoughts that ran through my head were all about her, and I always found myself putting her first. When the time came, I was the first one to hold her, the first one to be by her side, the first one to wipe the tears, the first one to make her smile, but I was always the last one on her mind.

Then that one day she took everything from me, my emotions, my heart, and almost my life. She left me battered and bruised with nothing in the world to care about anymore. It was hard to go on day by day, and she just saw me as a speck of dirt if she even saw me at all. She took everything from me July 25, 2010. I was always honest to her. Never once did I lie to her, and I gave her everything I had. For her it wasn’t good enough, so I thought my all was never going to be good enough for anyone. I shed tears that ran down my face like a little kid who had just fallen off a bike, that tasted so much like salt, and felt so cold to the touch but warm running down my face. I would never be good enough for anyone or even anything. She made me feel weak, powerless, used, angry, sad, scared, lost, but most of all I felt alone. I just thought about what I could have done and not about what had already happened. ‘How could we go from being with each other laughing, smiling, and singing our song to her growing distant and just leaving me behind?’ It was like the world set me up to fail, and I was heading straight down that lonely path just digging myself a deeper hole.

Through the whole breakup, I kept telling myself, ‘It’s your own fault; you let this happen because you’re not good enough. You’ll never be good enough because you let the world down,’ and I believed every word I told myself because there was really nothing else I would accept in my mind for some reason and I have no clue why. Looking back on it now, I regret the actions I did. She didn’t help me out with the breakup either. She just piled on the guilt that I felt saying that every negative guy she met was just like me. She even dedicated “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem to me and said that song represented everything I truly was, and I just took it all. I took all the bashing, all the tears, all the harassment, all the negativity, and all the pain in hopes that I’d never have to watch her walk away from me. The irony in the whole situation was that no matter how hard I would have tried, she was still going to walk away.

She met a new guy about a week after we broke up. It didn’t make sense to me because I still loved her, but she was over the emotions she had for me in less than a week. It hurt because I had to watch her fall in love with another guy. They didn’t try to hide it; they just kissed him right in front of me. My feelings meant nothing to her. I read the “love notes” that he’d written her and the love notes that she had written him. She always told me that I didn’t love her like he did; I wasn’t as sweet as he was, and I wasn’t the kind of guy he was. Being alone was the price I had to pay because I cared for her and was willing to wait for her, and yet she felt in love with another guy so fast. They were always together, and for some reason when I saw them, they’d always be close. It messed with my head. I hated him for having her, and I hated her for leaving me all on my own. Sadly, even I began to hate myself because in my mind I was the one who let her down. The person who failed her in the end was me, and I was the one who had to suffer for the whole situation. That’s when I really shut myself out.

After taking all the bashing and everything, I shut myself out of the world for about one and a half years maybe two. My mind was my own; I wouldn’t talk to anyone about how I was feeling, and I didn’t talk much in school like I used to. People finally wanted to help me. Pain wasn’t an option. I didn’t want to get hurt, so I didn’t let them into my thoughts, my mind, or my emotions. ‘None of them understand what I’m going through, so why bother?’ I told myself when someone tried to offer me some help or advice. My own family was worried about me because I was so quiet and all I did was sleep when I arrived home from school and sports. I cried every day, either in the shower or when I went to bed. I always listened to the song I gave her, remembering how it used to be and not how it really was. I could only think of how I had failed her more than I had ever failed a person in my life. It scared me, knowing that at any moment anyone can leave. No matter how nice or how much I may love him or her, he or she has the power to just walk away. At that moment when that thought hit me, it all began to make sense finally that I wasn’t looking at my situation clearly.

I’ve finally realized, almost four years later, that I’m not alone, and the way that I reacted was so far off from the right way because I did it on my own. The whole time I grieved over being alone and how everyone was abandoning me. I never let anyone in my life, so no one could help me. Not all people have to deal with losing their first love; some people can really hold on to what they have and the person they are with. But I’ve grown to realize that choosing the path that takes a person down a dark road all alone is never the best option. It gave me the power to share my advice with people that might be going through the same situation, but it also helps others realize certain facts about the world. If a person is willing to hurt someone he or she loves and put him or her down during a relationship, then that person isn’t worth the time, effort, or heartache. Every person in this world deserves to have one person who truly cares about him, no matter what the person has done or who he is. No one should have to suffer walking down a path in life alone; sometimes simply being by the person is enough. Once the pain and thoughts finally find a way out, the person can finally find peace with himself or herself. I know that it truly helped me in my life to finally open up and realize that not all paths have to be walked alone.