Weirdness

A week or so later, Brad made it very clear to me that if I didn't break it off with that guy, he was going to break it off with me. It was him and nobody else. He wasn't going to share me, and I definitely understood that feeling. So I broke up with him. He was fine. It's not like we were that serious or anything.

After that, Brad and I had a pretty normal thing going. The only downside was that my mom was not too pleased with the situation. Not only was she not thrilled about me dating anyone, this happened to be a Mormon guy. Now, she didn't have anything really against the religion. In fact, she always told me that they were really good people. However, she didn't want to see me get my heart broken. Also, the whole "being unequally yoked" thing came up a couple of times. It was just inevitable to her that unless one of changed, Heartbreak City was our next stop. Brad was also being cautious. While his mom and siblings loved me, his dad was alot like my mom. It was only acceptable for Brad to date Mormon girls. If they weren't LDS, then he'd better just stay friends with them. Brad decided to keep it quiet from his family.

Since my mom wasn't giving us her approval, we relied on my dad to let us be together. He saw nothing wrong with it, and he actually liked Brad. He knew Brad was a good guy, and he figured it was just harmless dating. We hung out with my family mostly. My stepsister Sarah and her boyfriend, Josh, were also with us all of the time. We weren't alone much, so I think that made my dad feel better too. We played games, watched movies, and went out to eat with my family alot. Our relationship was pretty normal.

One night, he'd come over to watch a movie with me. While we were sitting there, he pulled something out of his pocket. It was a blue plastic ring he had gotten out of a cereal box. He put it on my finger and asked me if I'd marry him someday. I grinned and said "of course" and kissed him. It was one of those cute moments that make other people watching kind of sick.
A few days later, we were teasing eachother and wrestling. He grabbed the ring from me, ran into the bathroom, and flushed it down the toilet. I was so mad at him!! I still bring it up every once in awhile, just to give him a hard time.
We had what we call "slap wars", where we basically just slap eachother in the face. The goal is to duck and try not to get hit. We started that when we were like 15. The nice part about dating him was the game developed a little. In the middle of our slap wars, he would get all sweet and kiss me. In mid-kiss, he'd start laughing and slap me.
He wrote me poems, gave me flowers, and made me feel so incredibly loved all of the time.

We both got our driver's licenses which made things easier. We could meet places. I could visit him at Food Lion where he worked. He drove an old red Lumina. I loved that car, because it had no middle console and I could sit close to him.

Like I said, things were pretty normal. I did notice that he didn't seem to invite me to many of the things he did with his friends. He'd go bowling, shopping, etc with people, and I was never asked to tag along. I remember calling him once to see if he wanted to hang out, and I could hear people in the background. Turns out a bunch of friends were at his house and they were all going bowling. I got mad at him for not ever inviting me to this stuff. I told him it was weird for him to never ask his girlfriend to hang out with him and his friends.

Sometime in March, he started getting a little bit of cold feet. He started acting weird and kept mentioning things like dating other people. I was totally clueless as to what was going on. I thought he just was being stupid and missing the whole dating scene.
He still came over and was sweet to me. Every now and then he'd be cold towards me. He'd go off with friends till midnight and act annoyed if I called him while he was out. One night, I called him around 11pm, and he snapped, "Why the heck did you call my cell phone??" I just wanted to know what time he was going to be home.
He later apologized for being a jerk to me. I thought maybe he was acting like that because his friend Katie was there, but that shouldn't have mattered. I knew they hung out, and it didn't matter to me. They were friends and last I heard, she was dating someone else too.
He still told me he loved me all the time, but something was different. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, though.

My school had what they called an "Elegant Evening". It was just a formal without dates and romance. This was during the big fad of courtship and dating was seen as bad. My mom thought it was silly, so she threw an afterparty for all of us where we could actually dance and be with our boyfriends and girlfriends. I told Brad about it the week before, and he was so awful to me. I wanted him there so badly, and for some reason, he got really mean. He told me he wasn't sure if he was coming to it, then he asked me, "And what's up with all these emails you send me that only say 'I love you' in them? I don't love you, so I don't know why you keep telling me you love me." Normally, I would've laughed, because it just sounded so ridiculous. But he was serious.
Then out of nowhere, he said, "I hope you're not planning on waiting on me while I'm on my mission and not joining my church, because that's just stupid."
He was so hurtful, and I didn't understand where it was coming from? If he didn't really love me then why did he say it all the time and act like it? Did he just like getting me upset or something?
I was so freakin confused.

He came to the afterparty at my house, and I was so excited. I ran up and gave him a hug, but I could tell he didn't really want to be there. He told me he always feels awkward around my friends. He talked to one of the couples there and asked how long they'd been dating. They told him over a year. He replied, "Dang! My relationships usually only last like 2 months and I get bored... well, more like 2 weeks." I acted mad at that comment and walked off. I could hear him call after me. He went and put a random CD in. Turns out it was Lonestar's "Amazed". We had danced to that at my dad's house in my room before. He asked me to dance and whispered, "You remember this song?" I nodded. We danced and he was sweet to me. He had to go home a little after midnight.

A couple of weeks later, we were at my dad's like normal. I mentioned something about how he and his mom were hanging out the other night. He started laughing. I asked him what was so funny. He said, "I lied." I looked at him funny and asked what he had been doing. He replied, "Nothing. Actually, I was on the other line with Katie." What a jerk. Why he thought he needed to lie about that, I'm wasn't sure.

(sidenote: There are still several times in our relationship that I feel sick to my stomach whenever I think about them. This is one of them.)

Anyway, we were at my dad's goofing off. We started hitting eachother (we did this often, mostly because it's how we flirted as kids) and chasing eachother around. I punched him and said, "That one's for lying to me the other night." Then I hit him again. "That's for Katie, that's for Maureen, that's for whoever else there is!" Then he teasingly said, "I miss Katie. She never beat me. In fact, I wish I were with her right now, kissing her, holding her..." The whole time he was saying this I was punching him and he was laughing hysterically. We watched Top Gun, and while I was putting it in, he came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me. I turned around to face him. He kept his arms around me and smiled. He just held me for awhile, and I told him I was missing the movie. He said, "Oh, don't worry about it. Nothing important happens in the beginning anyway."

You get the picture. Things were going really well between us. Yeah, he seemed to have this other little life going on without me at church and all, but that was ok. He'd go through weird freak out phases, but we always seemed to make it through. I knew he loved me and that's all I cared about. He'd never given me any reason not to trust him and vice versa.

My high school graduation was coming up and so was his junior prom. I was so busy with all of our little events that it never really dawned on me that he didn't ask me to his prom. He told me that before we started going out, he had promised Katie he'd take her to prom, since she was homeschooled and wouldn't have a chance to go. I was pretty upset, but decided to play the whole "cool girlfriend" role and said "fine".

May 11, 2000
I broke up with Brad.
I had just left my friend's house and was on my way home. I called Brad to check in and see what was going on. He told me that he didn't think he'd be able to see me that weekend. That was it.
He'd been blowing me off, took another girl to prom, and I was sick of feeling like I was the only one trying to make this all work. I told him I didn't want to be with someone who didn't want to be with me. I told him how he'd forgotten how to love me and it's never about us anymore. It's always about he and his friend Katie and how close they are and how he'll probably marry her just because she's Mormon and I'm not. He said, "What?? I never said I wanted to marry her! When did I say that??" I ignored him and kept giving him reasons as to why this was not working.

He finally agreed to let me go. I started crying and he tried to make me feel better. Once I got home, he called me. While I was on the phone with him, I was listening to my messages. My friend Kevin had left me a message and Brad heard his voice. "Who is that??" he said. I told him, and he just said "oh".
He told me "it had been fun", then said, "There is one thing I'm going to miss... looking into your beautiful eyes."

I was one soggy mess that night.