Fix Me

chapter forty five

3 months later

It's scary how fast the school year went by.

Even scarier how much changed in that short amount of time.

The same amount of time it took for me to fall deeply and utterly in love with Mason four years ago. For him to fall in love with me, changing our lives forever.

No one could have seen it coming. Not him, certainly not me.

It's probably naive of me to say that I'll never love someone to the depths that I love him. But when you love someone that much, so much that it consumes the very air you breathe, you just kind of know. You know that there is only room for that kind of love to be had once in a lifetime. You don't get another one.

And me? I could never even want another one. If I can't have him, I don't want anyone else to replace him. No one ever could.

I'm no longer sixteen, the age I was when I met him. Not seventeen, when I fed my addiction with him. Not eighteen when I mourned him, not nineteen or twenty when I tried to forget him. I'm twenty one and I can't possibly imagine loving anyone else but him. I can't imagine being loved by anyone else but him.

I know our story isn't a traditional one. Hell, not even a good one. In fact it's twisted, and dark, and disastrous. Our story is as toxic as toxic can get. To on lookers our relationship isn't healthy, it's damaged and broken. Everything a relationship shouldn't be. I shouldn't be proud to be a part of this story.

But I am.

And if someone asked me if I would rewrite it if I had the chance? If I could grow up in a loving family, not have been plagued with addiction, never have been abused? Maybe I would, if you asked me when I was younger. But now? No, I wouldn't change it for the world.

I love our story. I love it because it's so unapologetically us.

It's raw, and complicated, and so imperfect it could be deemed ugly. But it's us. We're raw, and complicated, and imperfect. I wouldn't change that.

And maybe people don't understand. Maybe they don't understand why I was able to forgive Mason so quickly. Why I was able to look past his flaws and give him another chance.

But the answer is simple really.

What would have become of me if Amy and John hadn't looked past my flaws and didn't give me a chance? What would I have done then? I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be happy.

And isn't that what life is? Finding your happiness and holding onto it?

I found my happiness in a person, in people. Multiple people. I would never turn my back on them because they never turned their back on me.

Yes Mason hit me. He did a lot of things. He was an abusive boyfriend, and I know that now.

But that's never changed the way I felt about him.

I feel like after all this time, I need to explain myself. Lay it all out there.

Mason was the first person that I looked at past the surface. Past what was presented to the rest of the world. He was the first person that I ever saw an ounce of good in. I saw good in other people, but he was the only person whose good was wrapped up in sandpaper, hidden under a rock, and shielded by barbwire. It wasn't easy to get to his good, you had to really claw at it.

Going to school with him that first year made that really clear. He was guarded, angry, and he didn't let people in. He held them at a distance, never letting them get too close.

Except for me.

He was conflicted at first, and that showed in the first month or so. But he did let me in, he let me see his good and I fell in love with it.