6 Years

Six years ago I met a guy who set my entire being on fire. I’m a preacher’s kid, so up until college I had never really experienced much other than drunken theatre party kissing, and I was too self-conscious and inexperienced to do anything about my raging sexual desires (it's always the quiet ones I’m telling you). I’d had crushes, child-like obsessions, but never had I experienced a mental and physical awakening than I did when I met him. Something in the way he looked at me, spoke to me, hell, the sheer fact that he wanted me made me both excited and terrified. Most of all, it made me addicted to him. I wanted him, I wanted his brain, I wanted his conversations, I wanted his laugh, I wanted his smile, I wanted his love. The sad part about it was, he was broken. Recently shattered and shut down to anything other than sexual desires, things that I was too nervous and not at all versed or confident in. I wanted time, he wanted action. He also wanted my friend, newly met as well, also recently broken, well versed in her sexual desires. They clicked at a speed that I could not keep up, nor was I at all happy about. It became a silent battle between me and her, frenemies to the tenth power. Passive-aggressive conversations, silent glaring, a battle of wills as we fought over his attention. Secret nights in the study room, slowly opening myself up to him mentally and physically in the hopes that he would choose me, that he was patient enough to work with me on my fears and my nervousness. Hope that he would take care of my body like he said he would via text, or the late nights when it was just us. It wasn’t enough. He chose her and I found out via Snapchat from a party that I wasn’t even invited to (we had the same friend group mind you). I was shattered. I had fallen for him in the time I was fighting for him, and seeing him hold her, kiss her the way I wanted him to hold me, it hurt more than anything I can remember. The very guy who told me he didn’t want a relationship, the very guy who took my virginity, asked her to be his girlfriend just days later.

I distanced myself from the group. I couldn’t watch them build what I wanted together. In retaliation, I began to explore my health and fitness as well as my sexual desires. I would show him what he was missing, that he chose the wrong one, and that I could find someone who lit me up as he did. Spoiler alert: I did not. Believe you me, I tried, but what I received were multiple disappointing sexual encounters, one of which ended in a “deuces I guess”. Painful. Within those years, however, the girl and I kept in touch. He left the following semester and she and I became close. So close in fact, that the following year they asked me for a threesome. They told me out of everyone they knew I was the only person they both thought of that they trusted not to overstep. All I heard was a chance for him to touch me again, so you know I said yes.

When I tell you what followed, I encourage you not to judge me, but to look at it from the perspective of someone who fell hard for a guy and has only one chance for him to touch her with the other woman’s permission. I wanted this to happen no matter what. So we mistakenly rushed it. It was summer break and none of our later dates were matching up, so we settled on me taking a bus to another state and meeting them THE DAY AFTER they see each other after being apart for 6 months. We got a hotel room and had talked a big game leading up to this trip. Sending pics of positions, saying what we liked and didn’t like, setting boundaries. Ladies and gentlemen, I was glad I brought my toy with me because that was practically the only thing to touch me on that entire trip. They were cuddled up the whole time, understandably so since most of their relationship was long distance. Still sucked. I didn’t get what I wanted and I was pissed. We discussed it, we all agreed it was rushed, they moved on. I did not, I was still pissed. So pissed that as soon as I got back home I set up another threesome with another couple. They took care of me, they gave me what I wanted, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t light up because it still wasn’t him. And no matter what I told myself, no matter who I went to, I always wanted him.

After that encounter she and I still kept in touch, still hung out. She called me her best friend, so I did all the best friend duties, including listening to all her boyfriend's troubles. My reward? I still had permission to “drive the car” if you will. They still trusted me and he still wanted me sexually, so I still took every chance I got to interact with him, all with her permission. There were boundaries and limits of course, and I respected every single one of them. But I still wanted him.

Now, this is called confession corner, so its time for my confession. I’ve known them for 6 years, the entirety of their relationship. I’ve been there through so many ups and downs, and they for me. I’ve accepted the fact that they are together, that they got a place after we graduated, that they are talking about marriage, kids, and how I’m the maid of honor and auntie in their future. I am happy for them because I believe people deserve happiness. But the truth that I have never said out loud, that I only recently have come to accept is that while I love her to an extent, I hate her more than I love her, and I love him more than I hate him.

I have been in pain for 6 years straight. I have gone to God, I have gone to friends, I have gone to counseling, I have laid on a roof in the rain and screamed, and yet that statement is still true after all this time. If I look back on it I can only honestly say I stood with her to be close to him. Every time we engaged in sexual acts I wished she wasn’t there, I rejoiced internally when he wanted to do things and she was sleeping or at work. Every argument we endured, everything we’ve been through was because she was my only connection to him, and my heart and soul scream for him.

I’m proud to say I recently cut it off. We no longer engage in sexual acts or conversations, I no longer go to their place and have not been with them in the same space in almost a year. Then he cut me off. I realized he never had my number, it was always communication through Snapchat, then he blocked me on there. I have no way to communicate with him other than through her, but now that I actively choose not to see him, I have no desire to be near her. I don’t want to hang out, I don’t want to talk, I honestly want nothing to do with her. The reality is she has hurt me this entire time, and while her happiness needs to come first for her, I put her happiness in the way of my own by not sitting her down and telling her how I feel no matter how many times she tries to talk over me. I did not stand up for myself or my pain and I am in a 6-year friendship that I don’t want to be in and I hate her for it. I hate her for making me stand beside her while she built the relationship that I wanted, I hate that she would come to me crying about him knowing how we met in the first place. I hate myself for still wanting him, thinking about him, loving him even though he only wanted my body and nothing else, not even my friends. I know the answer, to tell the truth, and cut it off, but what halts me is that she truly doesn’t have anyone else in this state besides me and him. I know her family, her mom calls me her other daughter, I’m her person, but she is not mine. I don’t want to hurt her, no matter what we’ve been through I don’t want to hurt her, but I’m in love with her boyfriend and out of love with her. That is my confession.