My 21st Birthday

I left Chris right before I turned 21. I came home from work one night, and we sat in the living room of our apartment together and I told him that I just didn't love him anymore. We had broken up and gotten back together several times before, but this time, he could tell it was different. I explained to him that there was nothing he could do to make me stay; I had dealt with this not working crap for too long and it was killing me. I was done. We sat there and cried together for what seemed like hours. I was not heartless about it. It hurt me to leave him. After all, we had spent 2 years together. He was the first man I ever lived with, and he knew me better than anyone. That was a hard thing to do, regardless of the fact that I had been cheating on him.

I told him that he could stay at the apartment for a little while until he could find another place to live, and I started making plans to move out. Until that time, however, we lived together. I banished him to the couch, but every morning when I woke up, he was in the bed next to me, so I decided that he could have the bedroom and I would take the couch. That way, I wouldn't be sleeping in the same bed with him, because I was still dating Derik, and now that I had broken it off with Chris, I didn't want to have to lie about where I was sleeping anymore. Our mutual friend Mike moved in to help keep the peace and yeah, it was a little awkward. At this time, Chris didn't know about Derik.

When I told Derik that I left Chris, his reaction was not at all what I thought it was going to be. I thought he would be happy, and when I told him, he was very nonchalant about it. Almost like he didn't care. It really made me mad, because that was a huge deal for me! I struggled with that decision for months, and then when I actually did it, Derik blew it off like it was nothing. I was confused, but I knew that he would come around. I stayed at my friend's apartment for about a week after the breakup and he would come over there to see me, so I knew it was going to be okay. During that week, though, Chris called me and asked me if there was someone else. I lied at first and promised that there was no one, but he knew I was lying.

"Why does it matter?" I asked. "It's not going to change anything."
And he told me, "If there is someone else, I need to know, so I can move on. If there is any chance that you and I will get back together, I won't be able to."

I knew then that I had to tell him.

"Yes, there is someone else."

Long pause.....

"Is it Derik?" he asked.
"Yes."

He asked me how long I had been seeing him and I told him the truth. It had been months. He asked if I had been sleeping with both of them and again, the answer was yes. Then, he cussed me out like I have never been cussed before. He called me every name in the book. I was a whore, a slut, an adulterous bitch..... you name it. It hurt, but he had every right to tear into me like that, so I sat there on the phone and cried as I took my punishment. After he was done, he hung up on me, and proceeded to text me hateful messages for the rest of the day. I was supposed to go to work that night, but my heart hurt so much that I wasn't able to.

He called me a couple days later and apologized for the way he talked to me, which, in my opinion, was very big of him. He had a right to be so angry and I didn't expect an apology. But, he was living in the apartment that I paid for, so he had two choices: move out, or swallow his pride.

He chose to swallow his pride. It must have been really hard for him to see me come home, hang out with me all day, take me to work at night, and know that sometimes, I wouldn't come home, because I would be spending the night with Derik. But he dealt with it the best he could, and our friend Mike being there helped a lot. During this time, he tried to bring other girls over to the apartment, but it never worked out for some reason. I don't know how I would have reacted anyway.

So, my 21st birthday rolls around, and this is the first one in a couple of years that I won't be spending with Chris. He and Mike took me to work that night and I remember thinking that it would be great! My new boyfriend was going to come see me, and any time one of the dancers had a birthday, they would bring her onstage and all the other girls would dance for her, and customers would usually throw a lot of money on stage, which the birthday girl got to keep, so I was pretty excited about the whole thing.

On the way to the club that night.

But when I got there, I tried to call Derik several times and he never answered the phone. I was pretty upset over that, so I started drinking. And I just kept on drinking. I got so drunk that night, and called Derik over and over and over, but he would not answer his phone for me. So on my BIRTHDAY, the day that is supposed to be all about me, I ended up drunk in the back dressing room, crying for the rest of the night. Derik never came to see me that night, and didn't even called to say Happy Birthday to me, and this was my first birthday as his girlfriend.

When Chris came to pick me up that night, he noticed that I was super upset and asked why. I told him and he looked at me with such sympathy, which I didn't deserve, especially from him, and he told me "He doesn't deserve you. He didn't even wish you a Happy Birthday. And this is the man you want?"

How hard it must have been for him to watch the woman he still wanted to be with cry over what another man had done to her.

I didn't have anything to say to that. That should have been my first indication that this relationship was not going to go well, but like any stupid girl that gets caught up, I made excuses for him.

As it turned out, Derik was mad at me because he thought I had made other plans that didn't involve him on my birthday, and instead of being a grown up, and calling to ask me about it, he completely blew me off and ruined my birthday. He made it up to me by taking me on a walk by a lake in Dallas, and sadly, that was enough for me.