All Grown Up

He was young my science teacher. It was love or so I thought. He taught me how to be passionate and how to stick out when you aren't very confident. Now he's on a list of adults not to trust. I don't know why knew him that much. I don't actually remember anything I was supposed to learn in science during those years. But loves a pretty fickle creature that's the lesson I was taught. I pretended I adjusted, as the silence ate away. I told someone I thought I trusted, but she didn't even wait a day. This was not supposed to happen not today and not to me. Now it's little lies and Big decisions, Who to tell and where to go. Follow someone else's vision or trust my own cause I don't know. it's bittersweet to think about the damage that we'd do. Cause I was going down but I was doing it with him. Was I stupid to love him? Reckless to want to help? was it obvious to everyone else? He was never on my side. There's things I want to tell everyone but I'll just let it be.

Years later and he swears he never meant to hurt me. " It's just something that he does. I guess it's not a good enough excuse" I think that I will always hate him no matter what he says. He used to tell me that one day when I'm older i'll understand. I don't think it crossed his mind that If I was young enough for him to talk down to me and young enough to be his student. He was perhaps too old to be dating me. It definitely feels like he ruined everything good in my life. He was always misunderstood so that must have actually meant something.The day I turned 25 was the day I finally realized how much of a creep he is. He was 25 when we met. Dealing with the aftermath of it now feels like the world is ending. I'm finally the age he was when we met and a sixteen year old would never cross my mind. The last thing that he said to me was that someday I would understand and that he would hate to think that he was still that same man. When we were told he wasn't coming back to teacher, everyone around me looked so sad. I ran to the girls bathroom and cried.To everyone else he was just a really good teacher. It was different for me. The other kids liked him because he talked to us like adults. We were not just teenagers to him. The other kids thought he was the best thing that ever happened to that school.

I don't think that I will ever understand him. I tried so hard, and I came so far. I met a man, and he broke my heart. I blame myself because it's easier. But I still look for him in other people.It's strange to know that when I remember myself a 16, I'll always remember him. For a long time I really thought that I was remembering details wrong. I was calling myself a liar.If I could go back, I do not think that I will do the same. It makes me sick to my stomach if I think about it too much. I left the city I grew up in the moment I could. I've only been back for weddings and funerals. I can't see myself being back in that city. I never thought that one person could make me hate a whole city.