Under The Bridge(Chresanto August)

I Know I've Been Gone a Long Time

I've been gone a while, I know. I've been dealing with a lot. Things are finally much better for me. I didn't mean to leave you guys hanging, but truthfully, I lost all motivation to do pretty much everything. Work, school, life, it all got really overwhelming and writing lost all joy for me.

I guess I should start by explaining this story. I lost sight of where I wanted this book to go. I had so many other ideas and I'm honestly not, by any means, happy with how Melanie and Chres' story turned out. I outgrew Santo and Mindless Behavior long ago but wasn't creative enough to come up with my own characters fully, I needed somewhere familiar to start. Still, I had plans for the book that never happened. Plot twists? Check. But in my opinion I didn't do a great job at making them make sense. I've grown a lot since starting this book. Started college, stopped doing college, had some fun, found a husband and had a baby. I don't want it to sound like women have to have a family to be complete, but for me, it's what I needed.

I thought I fell in love with my best friend since I was eleven, but it was a toxic mess. That's about when I stopped writing. After having my heart shattered into a million pieces by someone I thought would never hurt me, I focused harder on work and school. Mainly I threw myself into work because that was the one place I kind of had any friends. School sucked. I was in advanced classes with snobby kids, and I could never keep up, so I gave up on trying. I did the one thing I felt good at, work.

A few months after my first mess of a real relationship, I met another guy at work. Quickly I fell, thinking he was the one. Do I even have to tell you how that turned out? He was in the army, so we moved pretty quickly. Though I quickly realized it was mostly lies. I stuck it out for a year and a half in unhappiness. We had are good moments sure but, I wanted a family, he didn't. I wanted to stay close to home, he wanted to move as far as possible. He was from the upper class, I was not. Comments like "you need a real house/car" quickly got me thinking. I didn't want to live in a gated community with my neighbors half a foot from me. I liked living in the country. I liked go-carts, four-wheelers, and dirt bikes. My car didn't need to be the newest model for me to like it. We were very different but I tried to ignore it. I drew the line when he told me if we ever did have kids, his parents and siblings would always be priority over our kids. Because he "knew them longer."

But let me tell you about the best friend I met before I continue. I met him at work, and he was the best friend any one could ask for. We were genuinely just friends, regardless of what our coworkers thought. I met him about five or six months after meeting the second boyfriend I had. He was a great friend, who wanted to be my friend and didn't expect anything from me. When things started falling apart between my boyfriend and I, he was really there for me and helped me through it. I don't know where I would be without him, honestly. When things started getting bad, he was there to help me through it and I greatly appreciated that. I was always there for him through his relationship troubles, so he appreciated me just as much.

About a month after the second boyfriend and I broke up, my best friend and I realized we loved each other in more than a friendly way. The night we kissed for the first time, he still had a girlfriend so I told him that and it didn't go any further than that. I thought that was going to be the end of our friendship. But instead he came clean to his girlfriend, with his feelings and all and after two years of their toxic relationship and ups and downs, it ended.

I finally thought that after three years of struggling with myself, things were finally looking up. The only problem was, my parents did not like him, whatsoever at first. He was older, it was very known that he cheated on his ex-girlfriend pretty often, though they didn't know that she had cheated on him, or how toxic the situation was in every way.

Slowly, after some drama I'm not ready to talk about and probably never will be, things slowly improved. And then, I got pregnant. I had my precious baby in August, and everything has been pretty much magical. Yes we have our hard days as all new parents do, but everyone definitely gets along now. We have a great support system and for that I am grateful.

I'm in the process of rewriting this how I wanted it to be, and even coming up with new ideas. I'm sorry for the wait, and I thank every one of you for reading and sticking with me. It means the world.