If this sounds familiar, run!

I recently came in contact with someone who I spent years trying to forget.

My first boyfriend.

I was young and naive. I was sweet. I was cute. I didn't cuss. I didn't drink.

He was the complete opposite.

We dated for almost a year before things ended. But during those months, I learned a lot. And I was a really shitty friend.

I had never been in love before so everything was completely new to me. The kisses. The roses. The talking on the phone all night. The jewelry. It was like being in heaven. I didn't know at the time that it wasn't really true love. It was infatuation. I wasn't mature enough to know what true love really was all about.

I wanted to spend every single waking moment with him. Even if it was driving to the grocery store and stopping by his house for a quick kiss.

And I grew distant from my friends. I stopped calling them because I was always calling him. I cancelled plans with them if I found out he was free. And one awful time I was with him--just hanging out at his place--when a close friend called, crying about a break-up. I felt bad but told her I was busy and would call her back later that night. Because I was with him. I still haven't forgiven myself for that betrayal to this day.

But my loyalty to him was not reciprocated.

Little did I know at the time that while I was in bed sleeping, he was out partying with girls he used to date. He was even writing lame emo poetry about them. And he opened my eyes to religious hypocrisy. He would talk about his religion constantly and condemn people in his faith when they did something sinful. But at the same time he was ignoring every moral in the book. He claimed to live his life for God. But it was just a claim.

He also had an older sister who he adored. I tried so hard to be friends with her but she brushed me off every time. Six months into our relationship, she started talking shit about me to her friends. I had just received a college scholarship that she applied for at the same time. She told her friends I was a bitch who didn't deserve it and I was never going to achieve my dream of becoming a professional journalist. When her friends told her brother, he didn't believe them. After all, how could his sweet, loving sister, who he adored so much, say such awful things? She later tripped me down the staircase of their house and laughed about it. He didn't believe me when I told him. It was sad.

What makes it even worse is that my friends (and even my mom) kept telling me what an asshole he was. They tried to do it tactfully at first. And then it got to the point where they were blatantly telling me I needed to break up with him.

But I didn't listen.

And then that month in spring when the blossoms sparkled and my closet became bountiful with blinding white sundresses, it happened. He broke up with me for a random reason. My entire summer was filled with darkness.

But it's okay, he was a douchebag.

And what did I find out this week?

He still is.