Shitty Love Story

Chapter One: Remember

One minute everything between us was great. We were in love; inseparable. But of course, he had to be his usual asshole self and ruin everything. I may have been the one to break it off, but he was the one who pushed for it. With his endless nagging and harsh rules; I was under the dictatorship of Keith. I was supposed to be his partner, not his pet. I think he may have gotten the two confused at one point. That's probably why all hell broke loose.

I can still remember when we met in person for the first time after talking online for about a month. I didn't really even want to see him. Plus, he looked like he had just crawled out of a fucking dumpster, for Christ's sake. Of course, though, that's why I fell in love with his stupidly long hair and his ever crooked smile. I was so young, so stupid, so many things I'm not anymore, so many things I wish I never was.

"Which prize do you want, babe?" Keith asked as he kissed my neck. It caused to me let slip a sappy grin. That grin seeps out like poison when I think about him now... "Can I have the big panda?" The vendor handed it to me and we walked away hand in hand, me holding the panda that was far too large and way over stuffed in a choke hold. The day was perfectly hot and sticky sweet like it always was in August. Definitely hot enough to burn his memory into my brain forever.

Looking to my left, I can see this demented looking panda over my shoulder. I could never think of what to do with the damn thing when Keith and I split. He loved that he won it for me. It was like a token of his manliness that he handed off to me for the price of two dollars and a minute of concentration. It makes me nauseous now. The panda, his sweatshirt in my closet, the everything he ever left me. It all kills me to see and touch every day; makes me want to peel off layers of my skin. Every single thought about Keith makes the neurons in my brain trigger signals to scream that I need to take a shower hot enough to burn every last remnant of his touch away and fog out every thought of him I've ever had.

The thing about Keith is that he never hit me. The abuse he cause was never physical, though it may have left much less of an imprint on me had it been, it was always words that would cut through the sickly thick blood of mine and poison it so that it made my brain collapse and my body shut down.

"You're a psychotic bitch, Harper. Go fuck yourself."

When I left for the first time, he fucked her. I know he did. Because after he did, he kissed me differently, stopped holding me like he used to. Everything was different after he crawled into bed with her one night. All I could ever picture after he reeled me back in was him and her. The way he must have held her changed the way he tried to hold me. That's when I became more ad more secluded.

I have to leave now or else I'll never get out of this. I had tears in my eyes as I shakily sent Keith a message telling him I couldn't handle it anymore. I knew Keith would get the text while he was with his friends. I knew he would open it and tell them. I could feel the insults coming upon me. On the other hand, I also knew he would beg me to stay. I knew he'd plead for me over text - that's why I should have called him - in all reality he's have zero emotion set on his face. I hit send.

"Harper, please... I know you don't want to go. You don't want to do this." - "Fuck it. You're insane. You hurt yourself and beg for my sympathy. Go starve some more." - "Harper you're fucked in the head. You really are." - "I don't see why you couldn't just go along with things and let them be perfect like I wanted." - "I tried."

That was that on that cold February day. It was over. Until three months later when depression kicked in stronger than ever and I was more alone than ever before. I felt my bones aching for his touch. Too bad I hadn't found out that he had already done the damage and fucked her. That was his first time too. I was supposed to take it from him. God only knows how he had that cocky personality and was still a virgin at seventeen. But he definitely managed to keep it in his pants, until she came around. She's besides the point though. I was too stupid to realize to stay the hell away from him. I always came back to Keith.