100 Miles and Running

Grav

Not much happened in the next year, at least nothing life changing between Colson and I. So we fast forward to March, year 19.

I was going through a wild phase. Hookups with strange men left and right. Until I met Alex. Alex was average looking at best, but he was in a punk band and had more tattoos than any guy I had been with. I fell for him quickly, mistake number 1. It was March 14th, but I wish I didn't have that date seared into my mind. He lived over 200 miles away, so we hadn't met in person yet. Our phone call began around 10 pm. The hours flew by, so wrapped up in conversation we didn't even notice. Somewhere around 3 am I remember him stopping mid sentence.

"I can't say it. It's too soon."

My stomach twisted, "what are you talking about? Say what?"

He hesitated, "I almost said the L word, but it's just so soon to be throwing that out there." I wasn't sure what to say, but before anything came to me, he continued, "you know what, fuck it! I love you."

I said it back without a second thought, mistake number 2. Our call didn't end until 7 am, when he fell asleep, phone in hand.

My story isn't about Alex, but part of my story with Colson stems from my time with him.

The first time Alex came to visit me he stayed the weekend in a local hotel. We were at the skate park on his last day, just before he was getting ready to leave town.

"I don't want you to go."

"Then come with me."

I thought about it for maybe 10 seconds. I didn't have a job holding me back. I had nothing in this town to stay for. So I said yes, mistake number 3. We went back to my house, well my parents house, and I threw everything I could grab into a few bags. A goodbye note on the kitchen counter, a goodbye note in my best friends mailbox, I turned my phone off and we drove west into the sunset. I would discover a few months later that this was a manic episode of a mental illness I didn't know I had.

Alex and I would only last for a month after this day, but it was the most intense month of my 19 years so far.

I broke my mother's heart by leaving, and I cried about it often. When we got there I didn't know we wouldn't have a place to live. The first night I slept in an abandoned gas station, where Alex's mother was living (if you could call that living). The lights stayed on all night. His mother, step father, a few people that I wasn't sure their relation, and Alex, were sitting around smoking meth for a while before I passed out from exhaustion. I didn't know he was into anything harder than marijuana, so it was highly upsetting to watch him smoke for the first time. But I let it slide, mistake number 4. Every time he did it after that, I would go outside and cry. I didn't have a way to get back home, to escape the life that I had mindlessly walked into. Without an actual home, we slept on the floors of his friends apartments. We barely ate, and lived on weed and 40s. It triggered something in me, the illness I hadn't been fully aware of. Every night I cried, unsure of a definitive reason, but knowing I felt a deep pain. Alex just got mad every time. He didn't understand me, hell I didn't understand me, but he wasn't comforting in my time of need.

That's where Colson comes in. When Alex would go to sleep, I would look for an escape through my phone. Some nights I would message him, desperate for the friend I knew he would be. But other nights, I felt a deep guilt. I shouldn't be talking to him. What if Alex found out? I would realize in year 23, that I had feelings for Colson in those days with Alex. I had so much guilt because I was committed to Alex, while I longed to be with someone else. It felt like cheating, so I pushed Colson away in an attempt to salvage my relationship.

Alex and I broke up on May 3rd. I came back home with my family, he went to jail, and I spiraled into a deep depression that would soon reveal a dark truth about my life and my future.