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[[Continued from Part 1]]

When I first met Taz, things were magical. This was my first serious relationship...and even if I now despise the woman and hate her for the s**t she put me through, I do have to give her credit for being a very important chapter in my life.

It was through her that I started to really discover myself...my likes and dislikes. I matured through her, and realized what it was like to physically be with a person. I hate it when people say that sex does not change people...because it does. When all my friends started having sex in high school, they became snarky. They had this random confidence boost that suddenly placed them above everyone else. So when it finally happened to me in college...I became the same way. I suddenly felt "grown" even though I was nowhere near such a thing.

It was during this time that people started reaching out...and I brushed them off. My old best friend was one of them. Ginger and I had a falling out when she learned that I was gay. She said it was disgusting and she was always giving me flack whenever I was texting Shinigami. Now in college...she tried apologizing to me, and wanted to be friends again. But I felt like I was better than her...I kept rubbing it in her face how she was so naive to the world, as if I wasn't as well. I did the same to Shinigami when she came back into my life.

Shinigami tried to reach out...and all I felt was anger. I still felt the pangs of abandonment. I still felt that sadness and deep despair. I can not say what her motive was that first time she reached out to me, I never even tried to ask. But I took it (at the time) as her trying to be with me again and make us work. And like with Ginger, I told her that I met someone, that we were physical and that I was happy. I wanted to throw it in her face that I had found someone who truly loved me. It was wrong of me...it was cruel. It was very out of character but I just felt so broken. And with that, Shinigami disappeared again. I felt like I had earned myself a victory.

But...victories never last.
Taz was a horrid person. She dumped me like clockwork and then like clockwork she wanted to get back together. She would sleep with someone after breaking up with me, realize they did not want her for a serious partner, and then com running back. I fell for it...every single time. Even after she cheated on me (the first time), I still took her back. I just couldn't let her go...I felt like no one would want me if it never worked out with her. But then there was several months (nearly a year) where she was seeing a guy she worked with...and that's when things got bad with Amai.

I think the worst thing is that I barely remembered what happened with Amai. When I logged back on this site, I was checking what my friends had been up to. I saw she posted a journal entry, but when I clicked it, I was told it was private. Odd. So I went to see her profile...but she wasn't on my friendslist. I thought nothing of it until later I was going through my saved mail...and there she was. Another girl who thought I was something I wasn't...another terrible remnant of being "Dustin".

With Amai, the situation was not as long or as complicated with Shinigami. To keep it simple, she was an RP partner. Again, that's why my gender did not seem to matter. When I role-played, I could be anyone. But, like with Shinigami...things started to go beyond role-play.

When I was in-between with Taz...that was when I was the most lonely. I was in a dark place, and Amai let me open up to her. I don't think I ever gave her crazy details or anything like that but, she let me vent...she gave me attention and affection. She gave me what I craved. It was never my intention to lead her on...but I did. And unlike with Shinigami...I never felt like I had a good reason to lie to her...I just did it because I was selfish and I was being greedy.
So, looking back at it all...I don't blame her for blocking me, I don't blame her for hating me. I just wish I could apologize and explain the dark place I was in.

The person I loved was going out every night and sleeping with a guy...and then they would come back home and tell me they loved me. When they weren't doing this, they were screaming at me until I was crying. They were threatening me and belittling me...and I felt like nothing. But Amai made me feel "Something". At the time I could say she was really the only thing that still made me feel like a person...and she was important. But feeling like something more than a husk was not any reason to lie to her...and if I could take it all back, I would. She was an amazingly sweet girl...pretty and talented. She only ever deserved the best, and I should have been a better friend. I only hope she has found happiness since then and has continued to flourish with her art and her other things...because she deserves it.
And I'm sorry...
I'm sorry I was a selfish p***k. I am sorry I lied. I am sorry I used you.

---

That loss hurt me more than I thought it would. Now my inboxes were empty and getting in Gaia made me sick to my stomach. I had lost my first love through here, and I had lost someone I had considered a best friend on here too. I thought that it was over...that now this place could die and all the bad memories with it. But then, Shinigami came back...

No details are needed: it was a skype call from a stranger than ended up being the first person to ever steal my heart. She spoke of ashes still smoldering and the possibilities of it becoming a flame again, but I shut off my mind to all that. I wasn't going to set my heart up for failure...at least, that's what I told myself. I was still hurting.

But the more we spoke, the more I remembered all the time we had spent together. The more we spoke, the more memories came flooding back to me. We would skype nearly every night while Taz went out with that guy. We were texting during the day...and it might as well have been like old times. I liked this new friendship, it flled a void in me. No matter the hints that came up of an attraction...I pushed them away as we caught up with each other.

But then one night she texted me, sad and vulnerable...I only complimented her, I wanted to cheer her up. I poured my heart out telling her how amazing she was, and then came those toxic words in her reply: "I love you" and I replied with those same words back. But they were not a lie...they had never been a lie even when I was pretending to be someone else. They were not a lie...but I don't think she was old enough or mature enough to handle my meaning of the word.

Taz had me broken...she slowly had me despising the word "monogamy" as it seemed to be something that was no longer applying in the world of adults and sex. As someone that had only ever been with one other person...and as someone who was currently having her heart broken by the person she loved every night...I wasn't ready for a relationship.
If only I had been able to communicate those words back then...if only I had sat down and told Shinigami how I felt, maybe I might still have my friend? Or maybe she might have cut ties with me a lot sooner.

I was still seeing Taz when she wanted to have me...and I did this because I loved her, but, I was also seeing Avalon. Avalon was closer to my age, we had more in common, and it just seemed right at the time. But, I was also talking and having online relations with Shinigami...
And while my heart wanted me to just ditch everyone and go back to Shinigami...how could I? Yes, it's petty...but I was still hurt. I still felt like she had abandoned me back then. I still felt like if I gave up everything else and chose her that I would end up with nothing. I was dipping my toes in the water...because I knew myself, I knew I was a lesbian, but, what was Shinigami?

It seemed like every day she was changing her mind: Was she bi? Gay? Straight? A-sexual? A potato? She never seemed to know. So I just could not see myself giving everything back to her if she was so uncertain. I needed something solid...something stable. And I needed something PHYSICAL! I needed hugs, kisses, cuddles...and yes, I needed sex. I just could not see myself going back to just looking at a computer screen or phone and being content with just that. I wanted to feel skin, hear breath on my ear.

Shinigami hated Taz...and with good reason. She was there every time I cried as Taz left. She was there when I was venting. She heard Taz yelling at me...she knew I was being abused and she told me to leave. But I was in a tough spot.
I only had so many options...and one option was going back to live with my Mom. But that meant going back to a dead-end town with no opportunities...with a judgemental parent wanting to shove me back into college. Even now I would rather be homeless than move back home. My other option was living with Taz...

At least with Taz I had and knew the routine. Even if it was abusive, it had become my new 'normal'. It wasn't smart...I knew it wasn't smart...
But at the time, I was in love. I was lonely...I was desperate. I had committed myself to making something work because I don't do well with failure...and I didn't want this new relationship to end like mine and Shinigami's did.

But, in the end she gave me a choice: "It's Taz or me."
She said that if I went with Taz she would never speak to me again. But, this was Shinigami. She was a hot-head and she made rash decisions but mostly she was all bark and no bite. I didn't take her seriously because...because she was my friend. She abandoned me once, and I guess I thought that when she told me that she loved me it meant that she was never going to do it again.

I chose Taz...because she was there in the now. She was an immediate future and she was something I knew the pattern of. Shinigami was a random factor in a equation I could not solve. She was the 'unknown' and it scared me. She was the cards that could mean either winning the jackpot or losing it all with no in-between...and it was terrifying.
So I called her bluff, and I went back with Taz.

But it turns out she was serious.

I got the most hateful private message that I still keep to this day. It was mean, it was painful, and moreover it was confusing. It laid me out as someone I wasn't...she made me sound like this insane, suicidal freak...and I had never been that way.
She told me she was never Bi, that she never loved me, and that she had made up all that stuff because she felt sorry for me. But then at the end of it all she berated me for telling her that I loved her, but continuing to sleep with Taz.

It was...confusing...and to this day I will never know how I feel about it.

I know she wanted it to be a cut...maybe not a clean one, but a cut nonetheless. But it really left me with no closure. I needed her...I needed her and her friendship more than she would ever know. But she was mad, she obviously felt betrayed...and I wanted to explain and say sorry but she never even gave me a chance. I checked one of her journal entries that popped up and because I commented on something that was public, she called me a 'stalker'.

I do not think a single person has ever made me feel like more of a piece of s**t than she has...
And at first, I lashed out in angry. I called her a b***h, a c**t, and I laughed in her face. But now...years later, I just feel 'nothing'. I guess I feel sad that it ended this way because we always had an amazing friendship. We had a deep understanding of each other that no one could take from us, and we were there for each other when we both needed it the most. So, it sucks that I lost such a good friend when I would really need one later down the line.

If I could go back...I wouldn't change much. I would say things better, I would explain better, I would lay down thicker and more obvious lines...but I did what I did for reasons. I did what I needed to do at the time.
But I lost 2 very amazing people in the process...and they didn't deserve that. So, I'm sorry...and I hope both of you have found your happiness, wherever you are. heart

[[END]]