Back Into Your Arms

The Story of Kristina

Kristina walked into my life when I was 24. Beautiful brunette, pretty girl with a taste for adventure.
I never meant to ask her out on the day I met her at a bar in Los Angeles, it simply happened.

She was attractive and it appears she thought the same about me because she kept on eyeing me from the other side of the bar, I thought she was pretty and I was enjoying her attention so I too stole glances at her, it was a fun game, I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.

She made her way over to me and flirted her way into convincing me to buy her a drink.
Three drinks in and we were out the door.

I had forgotten what it felt like to have someone’s attention, to have someone’s devotion, so naturally I adored the way she made me feel.

She explained to me that she was an aspiring actress and model but that her career was tough on her, everyone wanted her to look and be a certain way. I related to that strongly, so for a second that made me believe we had something in common, that perhaps we truly were compatible.
I spent about a week in Los Angeles with her, I was ready to part ways with her, but she wasn’t.
She wanted something serious with me.

Her perseverance was endearing, so I decided to give her a chance. We started dating and at first, everything was perfect.

She would take me out to parties with her LA friends, we would drink and drink. The alcohol made us feel that we had a better relationship than we really did.

My friends pointed out that I was changing but I simply didn’t notice it. I was “in love” and blind, I avoided seeing her flaws.

Sure, she hated my taste in music, but we enjoyed watching movies together.
Sure, she hated dogs, but she hardly spent time at my house.
Sure, she didn’t quite get along with the rest of the guy’s girlfriends but I figured that wasn’t something important.
Sure, she smoked way more than me, but at least she smoked.
Sure, she hung out with the rich kids of LA, but I hardly saw them so it didn’t matter.

The truth was that she was spoiled, she was rude, she was sassy, she had money on her mind, and she wanted fame but I never saw that during the first months of our relationship.

She started to change even more when she landed her first modeling job in LA.

“I got a job baby!” she came in one day, kissing me, super happy.

I was happy for her, she had been working so hard to get any kind of job.

“Where at?” I asked as I sat down on the couch and she sat on my lap.

“Modeling agency from LA, it’s going to be great, they are paying me a lot!”

“Wait, when do you start?”

“Next Monday, why?”

“We leave for our tour on Saturday, we won’t be seeing each other for a long while”

“That’s true, I’m going to miss you baby, but I’ll finally be busy while you are busy too, so maybe time will go faster”

“That’s very true”

“Let’s go grab dinner to celebrate, yes?”

“Sure, let’s do it”

We were on tour for a long four months and when I came back, she had dyed her hair blonde.

“What happened to your hair?”

“Dyed it blonde, you don’t like it?”

“I liked your natural brown hair”

“Natural?” she laughed.

“Was it not?”

She laughed even more and shook her head.

“My natural hair color is dark brown, I can’t believe you thought that was my hair color”

“Oh, well, I mean I think you’d look good in any hair color”

“Thanks baby!”

I thought that would be enough change for a month, but I was wrong.
She started drinking more, she started to lose more weight.
She blamed it on the stress, but the stress was turning her into a nasty monster. She was mad all the time, she found blame in everything I did. Her speech was violent.

She also began to complain to me about not making our relationship public, she hadn’t cared at all about it when we met, but suddenly it was important for her.

“Are you ashamed of me, is that why you don’t want to make our relationship public? I really don’t get it John, everyone else shows off their girlfriend, why can’t you?”

“Look, I like to keep my personal life private, why can’t you just respect that? This didn’t concern you at all before, why now?”

“People think I’m making it up that I’m dating you”

“You don’t need to justify our relationship to anyone, the relationship is between you and me”

“Shut up John, you’re always talking crap”

The worse part came when I fell into a deep depression.
She wasn’t making me happy and I wasn’t making her happy either, but we simply wouldn’t break up.

“Get over yourself” she would tell me.

“You’re a freaking psycho” she would yell at me.

“Love me” she would beg me.

I then fell into the habit of drinking and she did too, so our fights only got worse and worse.
I began to be mean to her back, I began to feel anything but love for her.

“Why are you still with her?” Tim asked me one day. I remember only shrugging but I knew exactly why were still together. We were afraid of being alone.

We both had two different things on our minds, hers was fame and mine was music, so naturally our relationship began to collapse and I honestly did not want to do it anymore.

So, one day I just told her straight up.

“I can’t do this anymore Kris” I told her as I sat up from bed, still hungover from the night before.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I mean, this, this is a lie we are living”

“A lie? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Kristina, I don’t love you, let’s just end this now, as a matter of fact, I’m leaving”

I remember standing up and her reaching out for me trying to stop me but I couldn’t let her convince me again.

“You have someone else, don’t you?”

“I don’t”

“Then why are you doing this to me?”

“Kristina, you don’t love me and I don’t love you, we are only hurting ourselves by staying in this relationship”

“You think I don’t love you?” she scoffed, she was getting mad.

“If this is love, I rather not love at all”

“You’re really breaking up with me?”

“Look, I saw your text messages, that guy, he will offer you everything you want, go with him”

She looked horrified, she really thought she had done a good job at hiding the secret.

“How-how? I promise you I haven’t slept with him, I just-it was careless of me to flirt, I don’t know what I was thinking”

“I’m serious, it’s not even hurting me, I say you go with him, he has money, has a nice car, lives in LA, he’s perfect for you” I told her as I slipped a shirt on.

“John, you’re really hurting me right now”

“I’m sorry Kris, I just don’t want this anymore”

“You’re never going to find someone else that will be able to put up with all your crap like I did” were her last words. Her words had hurt me too.

I remember that as soon as I walked out of her apartment, I felt both sad and liberated.

My friends fully supported my decision to leave her, they knew how toxic she had been for me, and as the days went on, I was finally realizing all the damage that had been done.

I hadn’t talked to my family in months, I had lost weight, my smoking habits had gotten worse, I couldn’t make it through the day without some alcohol in my body, I got mad at every little thing, my house was a mess, my friends could barely stand me. My depression only worsened, which led to the suicide thoughts, but thankfully, I was able to turn my life around.

I remember checking up on her a couple of months after we broke up, I had looked at some photos of her through a friend that still followed her on Instagram.

She had completely changed.

She was blonder than before, she was now wearing designer clothing, and she had clearly gotten a nose job and other plastic surgeries for that matter.

She also had a new man, that to my surprise, had not been the guy she was texting.

There were photos of her in Vegas, in Paris, in New York with her new man. She was at all the parties with all the celebrities.

She had finally gotten the life she wanted, I had been the one holding her back.

As soon as I got home that night, I hurried and looked for a photo of her from back when we had first started dating.

We were at the Santa Monica Pier, she had her hair tied up in a bun, she had no makeup on, she was beautiful, she looked normal, she looked real. Fame had changed her completely. She might have changed herself to look more attractive but no amount of surgeries, makeup or clothes could make up for her terrible personality. I liked her better when she simply wanted to model, when she swore she would never make changes for anyone, back when I simply didn’t know her.