Back in time
It was 2016 when I first met him. Unfortunately, it was the biggest mistake I had ever made in my life to have ever accepted his request to be his girlfriend. Who knew I'd receive my retribution soon enough for accepting his woos and persuasion into this one-sided relationship.
I was 14 years old then, getting ready to go to school at 7am in the morning, along with my sister and my mother. We were a normal family living in a city, living comfortably and happily. Swiftly putting my uniform on, I strode to the kitchen to get breakfast, just a simple bowl of cereals and milk, before doing my hair and getting ushered to leave the house. The journey to school was relatively short and I was able to meet my friends for another day in hell in less than an hour. Days went by, weeks went by and nothing much really occured, or changed, in my life. Until one day, in November, a boy I'd met once in my math class, messaged me.
I suppose when you're young, you get the butterflies as someone, or more exactly a boy, messages you out of the blue.
His name was Franklin and he was Filipino. He was a short boy, had darker skin, short jet black hair and had a rotten personality (although at my innocent age I didn't see it). Surprised, I opened his message with slightly sweaty palms on Snapchat, to see a rather random message.
"Will you go out with me?"
Well, in other terms, would you be my girlfriend. This was my first mistake. Falling for someone I had never met, never talked to and never knew. Trust me, now I completly regret my actions but back then, I found confidence and comfort to know that someone found me attractive enough to ask me to be their girlfriend. He begged and begged me saying that I was beautiful and worthy to be in a relationship, that he needed me and that he loved me again and again for a week, pestering and spamming my inboxes until I felt complied to accept.
Regretfully, I accepted. The relationship was toxic, to be frank, and all we ever did was argue. My friends told me so many times how manipulative and controlling he was although I refused to believe them, stuck in my own stupid bubble of happiness.
Not only did he take my first hug, he took my first kiss, my first holding hands, my first everything(not virginity though). I truly loved him, with my whole heart, because I believed that he was a kind man, attractive and intelligent. But I should've seen the red signs. He never messaged me, I was always the first one to talk. He always called me annoying and petty and got mad at me for "ignoring" him at school, yet I never bat an eye at his insults. My heart was well and truly taken.
Until I found out one day, by accident, that he cheated on me. That was when I realised that he was not the person I thought of him to be. Slowly but surely, more and more girls came to be expressing how he'd asked them out during our relationship, and even had an elicit relationship with one of my girlfriend's now, back then.
I can't say I wasn't hurt, because I was. He treated me like shit yet I treated him like a king, it was one-sided. It was toxic and it was boderline abusive. Why couldn't I see that when I was with him? Because you can't. Because those people manipulate you and make you believe them.
Even though our relationship only lasted a few months, he continuously messaged me over a period of 2 or 3 years, from which I slowly began to forgive him, but not fully enough to commit to a relationship with him again.
Yes, I may have lead him on once or twice but that was his karma, and his retribution for cheating on me and manipulating me into believing he was innocent and the other girls were lying. I thought we were good friends and we'd move past that stage of our relationship until what happened in 2018. This was when I completly broke ties with him at school. And this was when I truly realised what a monster this boy was.