Uncensored

Part 1

The first time I fell in love, I fell hard. I was young and naïve, but more than anything did I wanted to feel loved. I had never been loved by somebody who was not biologically predisposed to do so. So when he made me compliments, when he started flirting with me, when we chatted and chatted online for longer and longer, it was the greatest feeling I had ever felt.

The first boy I loved didn't even exist. You don't know how that's possible, you call it stupid?
I may have been stupid then, but I'm brave now, brave enough to admit to myself what happened.

And this is what happened..
I believed what he told me. So much did I believe in love, so much did I need to hold on to the feeling of being important to someone, that I didn't question the first inconsistencies that arose. My whole bubble would have popped much sooner if only I hadn't been so young and thus not allowed to travel by myself, not to a different country, not to Zurich, and certainly not to meet a boy I had never met.

It could be a sex offender, a crazy person, there was no way- that is what my parents would have said if I had even dared to ask. So I did not ask. And they were almost right.

He had a sister, who it turns out was most likely the one impersonating the boy that didn't exist, the boy I loved. We were in touch every day, for hours, we shared every laughter, ever tear. I missed him with every fiber of my being, I wanted him, and he wanted me. I knew the names of his friends, I kept his letters, I still have the necklace he gave me and I just cannot throw it away. I knew where he went on vacation, where he played soccer, where he lived, I knew when he was sick, and when he went out to party. We grew up together. The more time went by, the scarier the thought was to go to Zurich- I was so afraid of rejection that I was paralyzed. I couldn't go. Or maybe I knew the truth somehow.

The most unsettling time in a young person's life are those teenage years, when we're so impressionable, so bold, and oh so sure of ourselves. I could have asked why our calls failed. I could have asked why my letters only had the first letter of his name- his sisters- and not his full name. But then I would have maybe know that I had been lied to and it would have broken me. After five years it would have destroyed me, so I didn't ask the questions I should have asked, because I couldn't let go. I never can. After all, it broke me anyways. I was betrayed in the worst possible way you can betray somebody and I'm still haunted by him today.

But don't you dare say it wasn't real. Because if anything, it was.

It was not true, but it was real.

I want at shout at anybody who dares to say it was not real-

There is no way you can fake love for five years. Why would anybody invest that much time and energy and love into somebody if it wasn't real. What started as a game between two young people became reality. I guess you could fake the interest and fabricate an entire life, if you were an adult and a psychopath and had no life, you don't fake 5 years of love when you're a teenager. I refuse to believe that. And I did my homework, did my research, and I know now which parts were and weren't true. I know exactly, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

Knowing the truth was no relief. It would have been so much easier to stay blind. But there is no unknowing  of  what you know. I know that everything I felt was real. Every heartache, every tear I cried, and every smile I smiled. My first cut was certainly real, and maybe that was the beginning of the end.

It was love to me, it was my first love, and it will always be.

Sometimes I still think back and I miss him. Can you miss somebody who didn't exist? I still want to go to Zurich, I still want to knock on his door.
But most likely I just want to get back what he took from me, the first piece of myself lost to love.