Ashes To Dust--My Heart's Dead

Let me tell you a story of two people who are so different and yet very much alike in so many ways.

Four years or more ago, I dated a guy who went to UNCC college for a while. He had a small circle of friends that he associated himself with a lot at school. Brandon Hall, Brandon Curry and Chris Wright. Once we started dating, I became friends with all of them and flirted heavily with two of them. I never did with Chris; however, he was dating a girl at the time named Brittany and I rarely ever saw one without the other. But even then, I thought he was pretty cool and very, very attractive.
The guy that I was dating and I lasted only but for a little while and then he was out of my life, but I never lost contact with Brandon Hall, the redneck of the group. And about a year later or so, he called me up and told me Chris and Brittany had broken up and Brandon was tired of being the shoulder to cry on and felt uncomfortable doing it anyway. He asked me to get in touch with Chris and talk to him and maybe try to help him sort out his emotional breakup. I told him I would try but it really surprised me that he called me, of all people, to do this. Later on, I thought about thanking him for pointing me in that direction. And someday I may yet.

Anyway, Chris and I began to hang out more and more and one day at his house we were playing video games and he reached over and started tickling me. I started laughing and trying to escape. I caught the look he shot me, and I melted. I couldn’t describe it then and even now I have difficulty trying to put it into words, but I will try. It was a rush, a rush of adrenaline, liquid fire and a longing in my heart that was aching from inside out. In that very moment I knew, he was perfect for me.
From then on, we were together just about all the time, hanging out, talking about cars, working on them too. I fell in love so fast it was like I was skydiving into life not caring about anything else but him and my car.

The only downside to this whole scenario was I was engaged to a man that I’d been with for two years and we were supposed to get married soon. I knew I was doing wrong, but somewhere in my childish heart I didn’t care. His name was Josh and he’d been out of state for a while trying to take care of financial issues and we were already getting tore apart because he was nagging me all the time about something he didn’t like whatever it may have been.

Granted Chris and I had never done anything with each other; holding hands was about as far as it ever went, a few weeks before Josh moved back down, Chris and I had gone out to eat at Steak and Shake and were sitting in the parking lot. We were talking and I wish I could remember what we were discussing so intensely. I can still remember the feelings and the heat in the car between us. He looked at me with those chocolate brown eyes and I couldn’t resist. His lips were so soft and I found myself becoming lost in the kiss. I was floating on air by the time we stopped and when we did part lips, it almost hurt.
Needless to say, Josh and I broke up and it was because I knew what I wanted I just didn’t know how to admit it at the time.

Chris and I became an official couple that summer of 2006 and I was so upset from disappointing Josh and everyone else and myself and then falling in love with another man, that we only lasted for a little while. My guilt separated us the first of many times and we tried to stay friends. But that was almost impossible. Somehow, though, we struggled through, and dated again.

We made it through Christmas of 2006 and went on my first ski trip for New Year’s to Winter-place with Greg and Sarah, two of his close friends. I was on fire that whole weekend; it was so much fun and I was losing myself to him in so many ways. I remember so clearly the night we were riding the chairlift up to the top of the beginners slope and we had just pulled away from the loading dock, his hands were shaking as he handed me a small box. The snow was falling softly around us and it was a clear night with the full moon beaming down on us. It was so perfect I almost started crying. I am now as I write this… The promise ring was a trinity knot in tiny diamonds. Something we’d both picked out a few months back and I almost fell out of my chairlift with excitement and love for the one person I knew was my knight. We kissed and I showed off my prize to Sarah and Greg when we got to the top. That was the best weekend I’ve ever had in my life and I will never, never forget it.


For both of us, we were very emotional with each other during the times we dated. And I say time because we broke up and got back together quite a few times. More than we ever should have. We had an issue of communication with each other, I could talk about it; he could not. He would wait and text me about it later on and I would be so upset that he couldn’t just tell me to my face. But he didn’t have the right words and later on I understood what he meant and why he had such a problem with it. I do the same thing and I think I probably will until the day I die. We had so many screaming fights though and a few really bad breakups. But somehow the magnetic love pulled us both back together each and every time and we would always forgive each other and love just as hard the next go-round.

But I messed up when I started dating his best friend behind his back when we were just friends. I was so delusional in thinking I could do better and not have to have a relationship where he and I screamed all the time. I broke his heart completely when I did that and in turn shattered my own. I was too stupid to see it at the time though.


Now it’s the summer of 2008. I don’t have him anymore. He removed me from his life and has moved on to some other girl who strangely enough resembles me in a few ways. I understand that he wants peace and a piece of mind and no more lies and hurt and pain. I thought  I could be okay with that. But now I see I’m not. I was there for him when he tried to hurt himself, three times. I was there for him when his parents wanted him to get rid of his car after so many problems with it. I told him to fight for what he wanted and decide for himself what he needed to do. I told him to buy the Camaro he owns now; it had his name all over it. I was there in the beginning when Brittany left him in pain…I was there whenever he needed me to be or so I think. I might have not been on a few occasions but those were rare. He always told me he’d be there for me, he’d always worry, and he’d always love me. But I took that all for granted like a fool. Just a big dumb fool.
Pain? That’s nothing compared to what I feel right now, what I’ve been feeling for a week now. He told me I made him ancy, he felt like something bad was going to happen whenever I was around and he just didn’t think we needed to be friends anymore for a while. But he told Alysia, one of my good friends…it would be forever.

After everything, I never realized how much I loved him, even through all the crap we’ve been through, until he walked away. I’m not angry anymore. I’m hurt. I feel as if the inside of my heart is slowly being ripped out of my body through a tiny hole. Something so big that it won’t all fit at once. So pressure is building up behind it all and I’m in pain from it all. I can’t eat,  I can’t sleep, and all I’ve done is work and try not to think about it. But there are hours through the day that I am being eaten up from my toes to my fingers with guilt and sorrow and terror of losing him. I don’t know how to breathe anymore and honestly there are times I don’t care about it anymore. No, I won’t kill myself like that….but dying of a broken heart, is very possible. I’m not being dramatic. I’ve barely said anything about it to anyone. They know some of the story, the very basics, but not how I feel about it. This story should give them somewhat of an indication. But I still can’t put into appropriate words how I just don’t feel like I’m here anymore. I just feel like a shell walking around this world with nothing left now. Because I know, not only did I lose him, his friendship and his beautiful face; I lost his love too. That alone singes my soul to ashes and each day that passes a little of those ashes turn to dust.

If  I ever am even remotely lucky enough to get another chance, I’m not doing the same things I did last time. I will be open, honest, up-front and I will give him everything I have left in me to give.

But somehow, I doubt, very highly doubt, that’s ever going to happen. The last thing I remember of him, is the look he gave me when I got out of the Camaro last Sunday. It said, “Good-bye”