“You’re avoiding answering my question.”

“You keep dropping bombs on me. Asking me to marry you, telling me you’re falling for me.”

“Hold up,” Alex says, tilting to the side so he can look at me. “I never asked you to marry me. I said I wanted to get you to marry me. Big difference.” He wrinkles up his nose in this playful way that tells me he’s just giving me shit.

“Oh my god, Alex, you’re impossible,” I quip, giving him a shove.

“But you love me,” he replies and again he catches me off guard. I do think I love him. I think I’m completely and totally falling head over heels in love with him.

I swallow hard, not sure how to respond to what he just said. I’m not ready to tell him I love him. Giving my heart away so quickly feels like I’m just setting myself up to have it broken again.

I struggle with telling Alex about my ex in Vermont too. I don’t want him to think I’m looking for sympathy or that I expect him to pick up the pieces that someone else shattered. I think it’s why I’ve sort of kept it to myself all this time. I don’t want to be looked at as the girl who cries about her shitty ex.

“I met him my first week at school,” I start, letting Alex’s comment go, but it will always be there in the back of my mind. I can’t help but wonder if he was hoping I’d tell him I love him. “Looking back now, I was the perfect target. A stupid girl away from home for the first time.”

“You aren’t stupid. You made a mistake by letting him in,” Alex says, and as much as it’s supposed to make me feel better, I know I put myself into a situation where I fell too fast.

“He was the guy all the girls wanted, and I felt special that he wanted me. A freshman on the ski team when he was a junior; it was kinda a big deal.” I roll my eyes, letting out a laugh that shows just how uncomfortable I am sharing this, but also how ridiculous it is that I got conned by this jerk. “He was charming and handsome and an amazing snowboarder.”

Looking back now, there were warning signs that I ignored. Probably because I didn’t want to admit to myself that I had been played for a fool, and there was also a small part of me that wanted to be the girl who made him change his ways.

Lesson learned. Guys don’t change. The love of a good woman is a myth perpetuated by rom com movies and fictional book boyfriends. It’s why Zoey loves herself some smut. It’s a wonderful escape from the real world where guys are generally douchebags.

“It felt like things were good, but there was always this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something wasn’t right. He was almost too perfect. He’d show up at my dorm with flowers or he’d bring me dinner, and then a week would go by, and I wouldn’t hear from him.”

“Let me guess, this made you want him more,” Alex says and it’s hard not to laugh at how he can pretty much predict what is happening.

“Been there, huh?” I ask, wondering if Alex played this game with the girls he’s hooked up with. We were honest with each other about only wanting a hook-up from the start, so I never ran into this problem with him.

“Something like that,” he says, not elaborating.

“He made me feel like I was going crazy. He’d be all over me, making out in front of the ski team, showing up at my dorm and stupidly I’d have sex with him, and again he’d vanish.” I throw my hands up, shrugging my shoulders.

“When I’d ask him what was going on, he’d accuse me of being controlling, telling me he needed his space. And then of course, I’d see him out at the bar or at practice all over some other girl.”

I swallow hard, forcing back the tears that threaten when I think about how fucked up it all was. Alex’s arms hold me closer, pulling me against his chest, and I sink back, finding comfort in the closeness of his body.

“He’d watch me, making sure I could see what was happening, even if I tried to ignore him, I couldn’t. I’d leave the bar or make some excuse as to why I needed to leave practice early, but he’d follow me. He’d beg me to take him back and I would.”

I stop talking, because even if it isn’t that dramatic, I was young and it really fucked me up. This was my first real relationship, one that was outside of the comfort of home with all the people I had known most of my life.

I had boyfriends in high school, I lost my virginity at sixteen, but whenever a relationship ended, it just sort of fizzled out on its own. It was never tumultuous or over the top. It just ended and we generally remained friendly since we all ran in the same circles during high school.

Vermont wasn’t like this. It was almost like he sought me out, wanted me to see what the real world was like, and it wasn’t kind.

“Why would you take him back?” Alex now asks, and I wish I had a good answer for this. An answer that doesn’t make me sound like a desperate loser.

“He was popular and I thought that mattered.” Again I’m shrugging, not sure how to explain that I made some really shitty choices. “He was toxic as fuck and I missed all the signs. It wasn’t until winter break that things finally ended for good.”

“What happened at winter break?”

“I caught him cheating on me. Literally walked in on him fucking another girl. And you know what that dick said?” I don’t wait for Alex to answer, I just blurt it out because to this day it still infuriates me. “He asked if I wanted to join them.”

Alex takes in a hard breath, letting it out slowly and when I turn to look at him, I can see his jaw is clenched tightly.

“I wish I could say it ended there, but nope. This is where it gets really fucked up. He then decided to spread a bunch of fucking rumors about me, all while still begging me to take him back. He’d tell me he was going to kill himself if I didn’t take him back. My life just slowly started to fall apart. I couldn’t concentrate on anything because every day there was a new rumor about me. I had girls threatening to beat me up, claiming I gave him an STD or that I was pregnant and trying to ruin his snowboarding career by keeping the baby.”

I let out a humorless laugh, thinking back to how I let one person take me down. I let this one guy, this one stupid asshole of a guy cause me to flunk out of school and lose my scholarship. Could I have been stronger? Probably. Could I have transferred schools? Sure. Could I have started seeing a therapist or told my coaches? Yes, but I was young, I still am young, and it was all far more overwhelming, feeling like I didn’t have anyone who would understand.