I'm not entirely sure how it happened.

Like the title suggests, I am not necessarily sure how my life has become exactly what it is. I mean, not that it's bad.

Let's cut right to the point, I may or may not be in like with a manic depressive drug addict.

It all started at my nineteenth birthday, which was April 27th. There's this guy named Dillon, who I didn't know well at the time. He graduated two years ahead of me from my high school and while in school I only knew of him. I met him a week before my party, at my friend Patty's house. I walked away from meeting him with a distinct memory of absolute hatred.

He's almost everything I can't stand in a person wrapped up into the body of someone I find so ultimately attractive. Outside he is attractive; tattoos, blue-green eyes, nose ring, and good style. Inside, he is self-centered, cruel, and has a serious god complex. At first, I couldn't stand him.

Somehow, he ended up at my birthday party. I was beyond trashed. To be honest, a lot of people ended up at my birthday party and most of them I didn't really know. In the end, Dillon hit someone. He was a closer friend to me than Dillon was but I still thought it was hilarious because who he hit was someone who annoyed me and who constantly creeped on me and my friends. I saw how angry his friends were though and trying to be a good person, led a completely out-of-his-mind-wasted Dillon away from the party. This is where the bullshit starts.

I brought him to the trampoline in the back of my best friend's house. Both of us were inebriated (me a lot less than him though) and he kissed me. It wasn't the first time he kissed me (the first time I was sitting on the floor in my best friend's dark bathroom, holding some girl I didn't know's hair as she threw up. He sang a bit of a WATIC song to me and then kissed me and left. It excited me at the time) so I was whatever about it. We made out but when it got too heated I was off the trampoline and heading back to the house. Later that night, two other girls told me he hooked up with them too and all of a sudden I was pissed that I'd made that mistake. The next day he claimed not to remember any part of the night, including hitting our friend.

Whatever. At that point, I was glad he couldn't remember. I figured that we could be friends without the weirdness. My best friend, Jen, had other plans. I'd told Dillon a limited amount of what happened; he knew we were on the trampoline but didn't know about the kissing. Jen made it obvious that more happened when he visited us at our job a few days later which led to Dillon asking questions. Eventually, I told him that we made out but that it was no big deal and I was over it.

So that's where it started. We would text a little bit and he would tell me I was cute but I didn't think anything serious of it. I made my mistakes here. I let all of my first instincts go about him. I disregarded all of his faults and saw his fluffy exterior. Someone my type was finally interested in me so I was eager to follow through with it.

I invited him to my friend Joe's party. By accident, Jen and I invited a lot of people. Dillon went into a rage of some sort (it resembles moshing and the ongoing joke is that he "opens the pit up") and hit our friend Patty. It was an accident, he was aiming for the same kid he hit last time, who was standing behind Patty. I, being an idiot, ran after him instead of hating him for hitting my close friend. Patty was fine, she didn't want any hard feelings between her and Dillon because she's dating his younger sister.

The night of that party, I'd been paying more attention to our new friends from a town over, Joey and Ryan. I met them at my birthday but, being beyond trashed, hadn't spent much time with them. Jen and I were sharing a hotel room with them a few weekends later for Bamboozle, with a mutual friend. We were all spending more time together, smoking and drinking and talking. Dillon, I guess, didn't like it and ended up throwing a fit, begging me to get in his car with him and then pushing me up against his car and kissing him. I don't like being forced to do things so I left, going back to Joey, Ryan, and Jen. The end of that night is actually a funny story in which the four of us ended up getting locked in a bathroom and sleeping in the same bed, which was too small.

Dillon claimed I "ditched" him, as if the party were a date. I go to a lot of parties and I always extend invites to people I think are cool. I hadn't asked him because I wanted to see him exclusively that night. I saw him as someone I was potentially interested in and nothing more. He threw a fit, screaming from downstairs while we were upstairs and later I found out, he spent the time talking shit in the kitchen to my closest friends from high school.

After that night, we were both pissed at each other. He at me for "ditching" him and me at him for talking shit and basically calling me a slut. He assumed that upstairs things were going on when actually, in reality, the only thing that had happened was me making out with Ryan. Not really my proudest moment but as I am still a virgin I think it's funny that Dillon spread around that I was a slut and that stories ended up coming back to me that he said we'd had sex on the trampoline. We hadn't.

As usual, drama ensued. I was hearing stories from the kids that would come into my job that knew Dillon and even from older coworkers. Dillon had supposedly cried about the night I "ditched" him to this woman Jenn that I work with. I felt bad, but didn't see what I'd done wrong. I saw him at Bamboozle briefly but we didn't speak to each other or even acknowledge that we knew each other.

The next month was pretty uneventful. He would come into my job and sometimes he'd say hi, sometimes he wouldn't. From Bamboozle, I had gained a pretty wide range of friends, all of whom party on a regular basis. These friends are mutually friends with Dillon. It became more common for me to see him. Eventually at a party together, I asked if we could talk privately and I brought up the rumor that we'd had sex on the trampoline. He told me rumors he'd heard that I'd been saying and together we deduced that my older coworker Jenn had been twisting our words and repeating them back differently. We made up.

At this point, I was at the height of my obsession with him. At the time I'd thought it was an intense like but it was really just a meaningless obsession. He had no job, no phone, and a drug problem. My friends and I began noticing that his "crazy" reputation wasn't necessarily good. I mean, when people tell me that Jen and I are crazy, I say thank you because usually they mean fun. It didn't take long for us to see that Dillon wasn't normal or healthy at all. I found out that he'd been addicted to cocaine in high school and that he was now addicted to painkillers.

If nothing else, I have a good sense of self-preservation. I realized that I couldn't continue "liking" someone who was so unhealthy and in turn, that my "liking" wasn't healthy either. I quickly became over it and started talking to someone else. The problem now was that I was in too deep. I cared now. He was my friend and I hated to see him destroy himself. He'd come into my job fucked up beyond belief. It was disturbing.

Now I had conflicting feelings. Dillon was an ass and now that my obsession was over, all of the first things I'd realized about him were coming back full force. Of course, he chose this time to get a phone and now I was able to be in constant contact with him. I tried to be friendly but I came across as a bitch. Again drunk at a party, I acted territorial over him and sent him mixed signals. Sober I could act like he was nothing but a friend but drunk, I couldn't ignore my feelings. It was an obvious issue. That night I also watched him crush up a pill and snort it through a rolled up dollar. I cried later.

When I went to Warped Tour with my friends, I found out he was going. I dreaded seeing him. Unfortunately, I ran into him accidentally there and spent a few hours with him. Fortunately, the day wasn't ruined for me and I ended up going again anyway. That day however, reinforced my belief that I couldn't be around him anymore.

He made me sad. I hadn't been depressed for a long time, exactly a year. My old feelings were coming back and I was angsty, withdrawn, and snappy. People started noticing me. I was on a destructive path. Then, realization dawned on me and I made a quick 360, steeling myself against him. I didn't see him for a long time and when I did, I was admittedly a bitch. I thought I was over him and so I was able to see him with more frequency without feeling anything.

About two weeks ago, I found out he was talking to this girl. She's my best friend Brittany's friend from high school. The girl, Kayla, is a senior in high school who always kind of annoyed me. She's obnoxious and immature, and she always tried to be like me. I tolerated her though and sometimes could enjoy her company. He admitted to me that he liked her and I flew off the wall with anger and sadness. I realized I was definitely not over him.

I stopped speaking to him for two days. During that time I tried my best to keep busy and keep my mind off him. Her tweets were all directly about him though and I tortured myself over it. Eventually he found out I was angry and, without ever telling him I liked him, revealed that I was angry over Kayla. He dropped her faster than a hot potato, which is unfair to her but gave me satisfaction. Brittany believed he'd only spoke to her to make me jealous because he'd been starting to show me explicitly a lot more attention. This, was a mistake too.

By doing this, I'd let on that I liked him. Again I led him on. Now, I spend my days completely conflicted. He always tells me how sad he is, how he misses and loves me, how we never hang out like we used to, etc. The thing is, Dillon and I never really hung out. We went to parties a lot, not together, just...we were at the same parties at the same time. I never know what he's talking about. I'm always frosty and distant. I make up excuses not to hang out with him.

He told me he wasn't on drugs anymore but he is. I know that if I ever was in a relationship with him that it wouldn't be healthy or safe and that it would break me. I pride myself on being strong but I know that he could single-handedly destroy every part of me. I don't think he realizes how big a part he plays in my life. It's a problem.

The only solution I can think of is to stay away from him for a month or three and have no contact with him. This is, of course, impossible on a few levels. We have too many mutual friends now. If he finds out I'm going somewhere, he ends up there. It's insane. It makes me feel like I'm a piece of shit. I never know what to do. No one really supports me on this. I'm standing alone here.

Someone help me figure out what I should do. I know I should talk to him but how do you say, "I can't date you because you're a bad person with a drug habit" nicely?