I used to think that Austin was all I needed to be happy. He would tell me that he was all I needed to be happy. And for a while, I believed him. Austin was perfect. He was handsome, smart, funny, my parents loved him, and most of all – he was into me. So it must have been my fault that it didn’t work out – at least that’s what I thought. He would get mad at me if I chose to be with my friends instead of him, but I guess he had the right – I should have wanted to spend all my time with him. Austin got especially upset if I wore an outfit that was too revealing – but he wasn’t wrong, I mean, I was practically asking for other guys to pay attention to me and that meant that I wasn’t satisfied with him. It all made sense – that’s how high school relationships are. The guy is protective of his girl and wants her all to himself. It was nice to feel loved and that jealousy just meant that he would hate to lose me. I thought I deserved his abuse, because I shouldn’t have been doing those things that upset him in the first place. I should have been more modest and spent more time with him. I thought he was just worried that I had lost interest and that was endearing. So when he hit me…I thought it was because he loved me. He would apologize and we’d ignore the incident. His “love” left marks that were too obvious to be hidden by some makeup so I had to tell my parents that I was sick and had to stay home from school. Junior year, I had a total of 37 absences. I should have known that something was wrong with this situation, but no one else did. My parents didn’t seem to notice. My friends didn’t notice. Sometimes I would walk around the house with the bruises showing just hoping that the mother would notice the one in the shape of a hand on my wrist, but she didn’t.
I dated Austin for 15 months before I had the courage to break up with him. Needless to say, he was not happy. I drove to his house on the Sunday night after the homecoming dance. We were elected King and Queen but I couldn’t be happy in my long-sleeved dress because I knew what was under the pale blue organza. We sat on his porch and I told him why we couldn’t be together. He wasn’t sad like a boyfriend of over a year should have been. He was angry. He yelled. “You can’t dump me! You’re not allowed to! You see, I dump you! That’s how it works! So shut up and kiss me Zoe, ‘cause this is NOT over.”
He raised his hand back, but I grabbed it before he could strike me face. “No.”, I said forcefully. “You don’t get to touch me anymore.” I got up and walked away. And I didn’t look back.
To this day, Austin and I have not spoken. I went back to my old friends and they accepted me saying that they couldn’t understand why I broke up with such a great guy, but they were glad to have me back. I never did tell anyone why I ended it with him and sometimes I regret not ruining his reputation, but I have been able to grow from this experience. It still hurts to think that I believed that I didn't see that he wasn't good enough for me, but I have learned to be me without a boyfriend – I don’t need a guy to love me to love myself.