The Guy With The Mustang

This is one of the hardest subjects in my life. When you're in high school you do dumb things. Its like a rule that you know but you feel you're above the statistics. We meet people in our lives that we either change them or they change ourselves. Very people in my life have made such an imprint on my life to change me and the one that cause the most damage would be the guy with the Mustang.

I remember sitting in English class my Junior year when the whispers of a new kid in school with a cool car. Why having a cool car, like a 1964 1/2 Mustang, made this person instantly cool and attractive I regret being intrigued. In high school I was a different person, very trusting, forgiving, and pretty dang naive. I was excited that this new kid became interested in me. I felt like there were far more exciting people in my school that he could have be interested in. We started dating and it was cool to not ride the bus all the time and to get to feel just a little bit of freedom from the strict home I grew up in. I skipped an hour of school with him once, boy was I in trouble for that one hour. The attendance clerk was the mom to a friend of mine and she didn't care for the guy with the mustang. One call home to tell my parents I skipped made me miss a week of practice, the biggest race of the year and lunch detention. I was angry but didn't make me wise up about who I was hanging out with.

Lust is blinding. Later in life I asked my friends about how come they didn't warn me about him, as if they knew everything about him. I had shut it out I heard what I wanted to hear. Drugs was a deal breaker for me. When he said he wan't to date me I told him that. He told me he had, I knew that his grandparents smoked and he would often refer cigarettes as cancer sticks. It was in the past he assured me. So when they told me he did drugs I told them I knew. Thinking it was in the past not that one of them had gotten high with him. Honestly, I probably still wouldn't have believed them, mostly because I couldn't at the time picture my friends doing drugs.

Warning sign after warning sign and I still chose to be with him. The Second was the time I caught him smoking a cigarette when I went to surprise him at his work. I was so angry, and sad that he could have lied to me and I started to end it. Some how the losers in your life seem to find a way to reel you back in. He swore it would never happen again. Few weeks later I moved about 3 hours away to live with my sisters. Still dating with him promising to visit as often as he could. We would text often but him visiting was almost always empty promises. I'm certain during one of those times I broke up with him and shortly started dating again, a lot of teenage drama we can save that for a different day.

That first summer away I was eligible to attend a Math College Course program for the second year in a row. Eight weeks long is my terrible memory serves me right, and it ending my birthday week when he would be picking me up. About half way through I received a phone call from him. My heart sank he was calling from jail. of course they claim it wasn't their fault and blah blah blah. But I stayed with him we wrote letters and during that time he had told me that he had struggled with harder drugs and that he was sorry. Like a sap for broken people and wanting to help them I stuck with him. At some point down the road I tried to so visit him and was unable see him. That same day after asking for favors to get around town I would meet up at his mom's house and wait for him to call. While I was there my brother called me. He said come live with me, I'll pay for you to go to school a place to live food to eat. I hadn't had a stable place to live and didn't have a job and my boy friend was in jail. I didn't have much to lose. I was given the out I needed, I took it

Would have been nice if the story ended there. Me going to school, got a car from my dad, place to stay a job to pay for what I wanted. My brother and cousins had a social life that I tagged a lot with. I had fun always a new adventure. There were boys good looking ones really sweet one, and some that made me think twice about the decisions I made. One in particular that I enjoyed spending my time with. He was the ideal man, not to hold him on any pedestal but he made me want to better myself made me want to be worthy. Worthy on a christian level. I tried harder and harder to pray more and read my scriptures and attend church more focused on being forgiven for my past mistakes.

I took one weekend after weeks of spending time with him, to go home and see my mom. When I returned it was as I didn't exist. She had caught his eye far greater than I had ever did. I was devastated at the effort I had made that felt useless and wasted. Did he not see what I was doing for me to be with him. Obviously not, since he married her has a few kids and even greater best friends with my brother! A little bitter at times but I slowly get over it, for the most part.

Anger grew in my heart soon after my very twitterpated brother would be engaged and married soon and I didn't want to stick around and be around happy people, yuck. I was alone and what felt like the foreseeable future. That lonely kicked in that I didn't the worse thing I could have ever done and called him, The Guy with The Mustang.

Only now this mustang was a different mustang painted in a lovely shade of primer gray and 4 flat tires parked in front of his moms house. I packed up and moved to where his mom lived most the time we stayed at his moms and some nights we would go stay the night at his buddy's house, who was on house arrest. Red Flags again, why was I so dumb. This guy is on house arrest and smoking meth I was assured that I couldn't get second hand high and that it was only the buddy and his girl friend doing it. Naive me believed him, but started to ask more questions about him. Upon questioning him about the harder drugs he had said that he had done he said that he had a problem with me and that he was trying to be better. I must have been so eager to not be alone or determined I could have fixed him to continue.

A few weeks later I started working, we got an apartment together and the next bit felt like it was months had gone by but we moved in the beginning of February 2006 and I had all my things packed up and out before the end of March 2006. Recalling this time frame feels impossible for just so much to have happened. With in the first week some strange coworker of his moved in. He brought a couch and a dog with him. As sweet as the dog was I was not happy having a roommate and a dog. We lived in a small one bedroom apartment on the third floor, we had a table two chairs and a twin mattress on the floor. I often came home to this poor dog that had crapped all over the carpet floor and couldn't stand to leave it.

About the second week my phone and car were no longer at my disposal to get to and from work I relied on the boyfriend to get me. Often I would hang out with coworkers at Applebees a few stores down til he would finally show up a time or two I would get a ride from someone. Brad one of the coworkers crushed on me so hard. He was sweet and felt like I needed to dumb the boyfriend and get my phone back and my car. I deserved better he would always tell me.

About a week later I no longer had a phone. A quarrel between him and his dealer I found myself in the middle of ended with my phone smashed against the pavement behind a Walgreens, a pistol point at me and then stuck in a house while they figured out how to make things right. It ended up with the dealer holding on the title of the mustang, the one that didn't run, and we went about our day. More red flags but we didn't talk about it. One day my car stopped showing up a white car was what I was being driven around in. His dealer was borrowing mine and this car was given to him from a friend. The red flags piled on. The white car had been stolen. More and more people had been showing up at my appartment that Id didn't know I was late to work all the time. I had been cheated on. My bank had been over drafted. I was about to go on a leave of absence to get my life together. There was this night where about 6 people with shot guns and base ball bats showed up, the group that was responsible for the stolen cars, they were there to hang low. They all got so high on meth that it was thicker than fog in there. I couldn't believe the mess I had to fix.

The day that I was suppose to be my last day at work was the worst of it. I was ready super early. Ironing my shirt getting ready to leave when the deal comes in. I left the room to get ready and when I returned he asked me for the title of my car. In fear for what might happen I went and found it. I went with him to a near by bank had the signature notarized and expected to go back home. But I didn't go back to the apartment he took me to his house he said I didn't need to be with such a dirt bag. A drug dealer told me that I didn't need to be with a dirt bag, ha that right there is the ultimate red flag right! He let me call my family but I didn't say much which gave them worry, rightfully so. They showed up hours later and took me away with them. I didn't want to go as angry as I was I didn't want to leave. They called my dad and he made a 4 hour drive through the night. I had racked up some traffic ticket fees and he agreed to pay them if I went to Alaska. I convinced him to let me go back up my things, when I arived the place was empty. After asking around I found out that hours after I had left the apartment had been raided. Thankful that my family was there for me when I was to blind to see what should have been so clear. I were evicted and sued all because of him. I lost my car my phone.

Before my flight out I made one phone call to Brad, I thanked him for the one phone call he had let me make to my family weeks earlier that lead them to be concerned enough to come get me.

I am trying not to hate him. I often wonder what I would say to him if I ran into him. Ive also wondered if I'd hit him with my car if I saw him on the street. While he is my biggest regret and my least favorite part of my life, the effects have trickled to the life I have now. I've learned and grown and become the person I was meant to be. #madeinmayhem #highschoolmemory #mypastmakesme #bloggingismyselfcare