The Lies You Tell Yourself

I attempted to go to bed at 11:00 that night. I wanted to give myself more time in the morning to attend to my caffeine addiction. I wiggled under my comforter and grabbed my phone so I could text my boyfriend, Justin, goodnight.

Hey baby, I love you. Goodnight :*

I sat my phone down and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. I checked for a response every couple of minutes, but after half an hour I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be getting a timely response. I scooted out of bed and grabbed my computer and a throw blanket before quietly leaving my room, trying not to disturb my sleeping roommate. I walked down the hall to the common room where I planned to stay until I received some sort of response from my boyfriend. I took my usual couch in the corner, covered myself with my blanket, and set my laptop between my legs.

***

Justin was every kind of wrong for me. I was a do-good, straight A, always follow the law, nice girl. He was everything I was not. He was reckless; he had been arrested and barely passed high school. He was attending classes at the local community college to make his parents believe he was doing something productive with his life and had already failed more classes than he passed. It was only a matter of time before the school would kick him out and he would succumb to a lifestyle of smoking marijuana and playing video games all day every day. I warned him so many times what he was doing to himself, but he either did not want to listen to me or truly did not care.

I started dating Justin right after I graduated high school. At the time I was looking for a rebound since the guy I had been sleeping with for six months decided he was finally ready for a serious relationship, just not with me. Justin was a year older than me and we met at a mutual friend's graduation party. My former friend with benefits was there, with his girlfriend wrapped around him every second. Watching them made me sick and angry. And after everything I knew about his ability to manipulate I felt sorry for the younger girl, who was only 16. I stared at them, deliberately making it obvious in hopes of making him uncomfortable. He made eye contact with me, smirked, and winked. My friend must have noticed because he brought over Justin and introduced the two of us.

"Hey sweetie, how ya doin'?" He asked sympathetically. "Sorry that asshole showed up. I told him not to."

"S'fine," I mumbled, even though it was definitely not fine.

"Riiiight...." he replied. "Anyway this is Justin. We were just over there talking and he said he thought you looked really pretty so I thought you should meet him."

My gaze shot away from the asshole who was now nibbling on his tiny girlfriend's neck and I looked at Justin. He was incredibly average, except for the pair of hypnotically blue eyes that were looking straight back at me. "Really?" I was shocked.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I might have said something like that."

I turned around so that my entire body was now oriented towards him and I fought to not keep my eye on the couple across the room. "That's the sweetest thing I've heard in a long time. I'm Kyle." I put my hand out and he gently shook it.

"Whoever that is," he threw his head in the direction of the guy who now appeared to be feeling up his girlfriend. "He is a scumbag. He should also learn that," he caught me off guard by raising his voice and turning his head, "NO ONE WANTS TO WATCH HIM FUCK HIS GIRLFRIEND IN THE MIDDLE OF A PARTY." Everyone fell silent and stared in our direction. The girl looked horrified, but my ex was ready as always.

"Then I'll go fuck her in the car," he stated simply, and he pulled her out of the room by her wrist. The dramatic entrance seemed to catch the interest if some people because a small entourage followed them out. Teenagers disgusted me, even though I was one.

I turned back to Justin and lost myself in his blue eyes. "That was really cool," I said. "You want my number?"

"Sure," he beamed and our friend smirked.

On our second date we took a walk together through town. He picked flowers off of every bush we passed, and I tucked them into my braided hair. He never let go of my hand for the two hours we were together. He must have called me beautiful a hundred times that day. When we reached my car, I realized that I never wanted to leave. He made me feel like a princess.

"Well, here we are.." I sighed with disappointment as I broke away from him and stepped towards my driver's side door. He grabbed my hand and spun me back towards him. Before I could think about what was happening, his lips were pressed against my own. My heart jumped and I felt light headed, as if I was spinning in circles. He released me and squeezed my hand.

"So," he said.

"So?" I questioned. My heart was fluttering and I was paralyzed as he looked into my eyes.

"We got dinner last week, we walked around holding hands all day, I gave you flowers," he gently placed his hand under my chin, "And I kissed you. Are you my girlfriend yet?"

I smiled. "If you want me, I'm yours."

"Yes!" he pulled me into a tight hug and swung me up off the ground. That was the start of the most romantic relationship I had ever been in.

Two weeks after we started dating he was arrested for criminal mischief. He and his friends had hopped the fence of someone's vacation home while they were not there. They did not damage anything, but the security camera recording everything and the cops came for him a few weeks later when the couple reviewed the footage. I told myself it was a one time thing. I told myself now that he had me this kind of stuff would not happen anymore. I told myself a lot of stupid lies. When he came to pick me up from work with glazed over eyes reeking of marijuana I would ask him what he had been doing and he would say sleeping. And I believed him. I did not just pretend that nothing was wrong while hiding a gut feeling that something was off. I genuinely believed every word he said and shrugged it off, saying his friends were probably smoking around him and he just woke up so his eyes looked groggy.

I told myself since he treated me right, nothing else really mattered. He bragged about me to his friends and often referred to me as his "gorgeous woman" when he talked to other people about me. When we were together he always held tight onto my hand or rested his hand on the small of my back. He made sure that everyone always knew that I belonged to him. His kisses were like a drug, each one left me as disoriented as our first. And then one day, the name calling started.

"Hey fatty, come here," he called to me while I was making us lunch at his parents' house.

"Excuse me?" I was in shock. I looked down at my stomach. Was I gaining weight? I took a deep breath. This was not okay. "Don't call me that. That's not nice."

"Oh come on, it doesn't mean anything. It's a term of endearment."

"Mhmm," I put my stirring spoon down and followed his voice upstairs. I told myself I would let this go once, but next time I would stand up for myself. This was just another lie. Two and a half years later he still called me fatty, dumbo, and even bitch, and I silently cringed every time. I did not want to make this into a problem between us. This was just how he showed his affection.

The first time we had sex was mildly horrifying. It was the towards the end of the summer and we had been together for nearly three months. His parents and little sister were out of town for the weekend and he considered this our golden opportunity. He had been begging me for hours to come over that day so we could finally, in his words, "do it." I was exhausted from three days straight of double shifts, but he did not seem to care. I had sex before with two of my high school boyfriends but this would be his first time. I had told him I was ready to "do it" whenever he was. He took that to mean on his command. I tried telling him that I was too tired and too sore but he kept texting me frowny faces and saying "But you don't have to do anything, just lay there I'll do all the work!" So I caved and I drove over to his house. It meant a lot more to him that we had sex than it meant to me to not have sex. I did not have to make it into a frustrating ordeal and it did not have to be complicated.

It was like having sex with a robot. He went through the motions until he finished, content with himself. "Oh that was amazing babe. It was everything I had hoped it would be." He did not even ask how it was for me, but this was his first time so I decided to be nice, while silently vowing to make him better.

"Great honey," I kissed his temple. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."