“I think I love you.”
I took a chance and replaced the usual “bye, see you soon and be safe” with a risk.
“I think I love you too” he replied with the biggest grin I had ever seen, causing my stomach to tighten up with glee and butterflies. Little did I know, a year and two months later, he would break my heart- and my nose.

Abusive relationships never show themselves as abusive on day one, that realization lurks in the shadows, in the back of your mind being pushed back as far as it can go, until you can’t ignore it anymore. I never thought I would be one of those girls in one of those relationships, but then again, a lot of things had happened to me that I never thought would.

I had never been in love, my past relationships wore out their welcome and ended right when I was getting bored. I had cried over boys since the sixth grade, I had thought I had been broken, I had thought I had experienced heartbreak, but I was so wrong. Being physically and mentally broken could hurt in ways that I thought would never be able to heal.

I’d like to blame this boy for my alcoholism, my almost year long ******* addition, my constant mood swings and breakdowns. Now I’m just not sure who did this to me. Was it my brain from birth? Was it him? Was it my mom leaving me and dropping in just often enough to cause enough emotional abuse to make me think she cared? What the **** could it possibly be? This boy had become the entirety of my life and I wanted to blame him for everything. But the truth was, I had absolutely no idea why I was the way I was. Why I had ruined my life and sabotaged almost every good thing I had ever stumbled onto.