Too Young Too Dumb to Realize

The wrong relationships teach you how to recognize the right one when it arrives.

-Anonymous

When I was a sophomore in high school, I fell in love with my best friend. I thought I was happy but I wasn’t, I just didn’t realize it. I thought that this person was who I was meant to be with for forever, but all he did was prove that he wasn’t and I didn’t see it. I fell in love with the old you. The one who supported me in everything I did. If I had opened my eyes more, would I have seen the red flags; the things people kept telling me to leave him for. Two and a half years I spent my time with him, loving him, treating him with a kindness that he never got at home. I spent that time planning things that I don’t have to plan for a long time. He told me every day that he loved me, that he respected me. In some ways he did, but that soon stopped. He had this control over me that I couldn’t see. Every time I wanted to call it off he thought of a way to sweet-talk me back into your embrace.

I wish I could’ve told you something after we broke up. I deserve better than you. I don’t know why you thought it was okay to treat me the way you did. You treated me like trash. You threw me away when you felt you didn’t need me. Then when you did need me, you say sorry and do anything to get me hooked on you. Hooked like I’m on a drug and I can’t get off of it. No one deserves the false hope and disappointment that I got from you over and over again. I will never understand when and why we went downhill. I thought you genuinely cared for me. I thought I could trust you. Now I know the truth; now I know why I fell back into your arms. But what’s really confusing is why I let myself get hooked when I know I’ll just get hurt in the end.