1999 was a pretty eventful year for me. As a seventeen year old girl with a boyfriend, countless friends, a pretty active musical career beginning to shape up, and with her first car! I had a blast! Getting that 1996 Red Cavalier in March of that year was so exciting for me! I remember so well sitting in the office of Serra Chevrolet in Bartlett, TN talking to the salesman about the car, and then driving off the lot. The first song that came on the radio was "Scrubs" by TLC. I just chuckled. How fitting.
That year was the year my parents divorced. My mom had just gotten tired of her ho-hum life, and instead of taking the reigns and changing it for the better, she just let go. It's hard for me to believe that that was the right thing for her to do, but she was ready for a change I guess. She was 46 years old, had the body of a model, and was ready to do something different. My dad was devastated. I saw him crying a few times... I'll never forget it. My heart broke for him. Not really for my mother, because at 17 I understood what she was doing. But for my dad, who was married for almost 20 years, and then suddenly the other person made the decision to change everything.... how ultimately heartbreaking. Little did I know that I would go through that exact situation 15 years down the road.
My boyfriend Chris, and I had the best time that fall. In August of that year, after a year of dating, we finally became intimate with each other. It scared the crap out of me, and we did not do it very much, but I felt as though I could probably be in love with him. I think I was. But I had gotten close to David as a friend. Probably too close, but since I was a naive little girl who seems to always try to see the good in every person and in every situation, I was blinded to the truth that he was a very conniving and deceitful person. Chris hated that I was getting close to David, but I chalked it up to him just being jealous. David was driving a wedge between me and Chris.
David began telling me that he had feelings for me, that he had a crush on me. And again, I guess I've struggled with my self image my whole life, and when I hear those words from a male, its like I have an obligation to like him back just because he likes me... as screwed up as this is, its taken me until i'm almost 35 years old to be able to see it. One Friday night after a football game, i drove David home and he kissed me in my car. I remember the "oh shit, what have I done" feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was so long ago that I can't remember if I told Chris or not... but I think that I did, because I'm not the type of person to carry around burdens on myself. I have to share them to get them off of me.
It seems as if I did tell Chris, and we had it out about what happened between David and me. But I know there was one more incident that fall with David in my car. It might have been another Friday night football game... or just a night of riding around, but I know we ended up in a dark cove, parked in my car. We had a pretty steamy makeout session, David and me. In hindsight, I don't think he had a crush on me at all, or even liked me romantically, in fact I know he didn't, and so its still a mystery to me why he would bust up into my life and screw with my head like he did. Probably because I let him, and he knew I would let him, but I never saw it at the time. I wonder if there was something I did to him all those years ago, where he had made a decision to take revenge on me for a lifetime. Who knows?
Anyway, so Chris and I made up and in November of 1999 I went to Hawaii with him and his family. His father, the sweet and hilarious Dr. Luis Wong, God rest his soul, had a medical convention on the island of Kaui in Princeville. What a trip.... a trip of a lifetime. I can still see the images of the ocean in my mind. Who gets to see the ocean for the first time in HAWAII of all places?
By December David had driven an even deeper wedge between Chris and me, but this time I knew it, and I had just about stopped talking to him. I did not want anything to do with David. Chris and I just had a fabulous time in Hawaii, but David was still worrying me to death. I decided I needed to break up with Chris, just to clear my mind. It was a Sunday afternoon in December and I had gone up to the medical clinic his dad owned to have the talk. I had on a red Calvin Klein sweat shirt and we both cried like babies and kissed each other over and over. I had really hurt him and broken his heart... but David had clouded the waters SO BAD, that I just needed the time away from Chris, I guess. Chris even followed me out to my car, crying, begging me not to make that choice. He kissed me once more time, and I went home, heartbroken.
Later that same week, our high school choir gave the annual Christmas concert at First United Methodist Church in Ripley. I was the accompanist and my sweet friend and mentor Mr. Harley Patterson was our choir director. He is a man of 6'8" or something like that - huge man with a deep and powerful baritone voice. I loved him. They rolled the nine foot concert grand piano out in the middle of the worship platform and we gave the concert. I played as 300 students sang behind me. It was a very proud moment in my young musical life. Chris was in the audience. David was also in the audience. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.
It was a cold, nasty, rainy night and as I tried to gather my things and leave the concert, David followed me out. It was freezing. And raining. We stood underneath a portico and he put his hands on my shoulders telling me how much he liked me and how we would be so good together, how we'd have so much fun together and all the reasons why I didn't need to be with Chris anymore. It was a pretty dramatic moment - like something you'd see in a sappy romantic movie. Right about the time I hugged David (and fell into his evil trap), Chris drove around the corner in his big ol Dodge Ram extended cab truck. He flung it into park, rolled down the window, and yelled for me to come and get inside. But I didn't. I said no to Chris, and yes to David. Chris was again heartbroken, and I felt SO terrible for it, but David had made me believe him.
That next weekend, David and I went out on the first and only date we would ever go out on. He drove. He came and picked me up in his silver Jeep Cherokee and we drove to Jackson. I remember that we both dressed up for this date and even though I can't remember where we ate, I remember going to a bookstore with him. Every time I pass that particular bookstore in Jackson I think of that night in December of 1999 with David and how totally blind I was to all his deceit.
A few days later, maybe the following Saturday night, Chris and all his fraternity brothers were having a party at his house. My girlfriends wanted to go to have a good time at the party but I really wasn't up to it, since it was at Chris's house. We pulled into the driveway and I remember telling my friend Amanda, "oh i don't know.. i don't need to go in there." When I walked into the kitchen, all the lights were out and there were lots of people there. Of course Chris's parents were no where around, so all these high school fraternity boys had beers and they were drinking up a storm. At that point in my life, I had had only one alcoholic beverage, so I was sort of angered at Chris allowing these folks to do this in his house, but I didn't say anything. Chris was sitting on the countertop at the bar and I walked right up to him. He said he wanted to talk, so we ended up going outside and sitting in his truck. The song that was playing on the radio was "Back At One" by Brian McKnight. I'll never forget it. I can't remember if it was a CD playing that he had purposefully put in there or it just happened to be on the radio, but it made perfect sense right then at THAT moment that I should forget about David Sanders and all his craziness to try and "get me." Chris and I made up that night and we continued on with our relationship, although it sure didn't last much longer than that.
David had driven a pretty large wedge between Chris and me, and almost on purpose. The damage that he had caused was not going to be able to be repaired. When David got wind that we had reconciled he was furious. He wrote me a note that I held on to until the Christmas of 2014 that said "Merry Fucking Christmas! I hope you choke on your egg nog." It makes me cringe just thinking of how David messed things up for me then. I should have been through with him, but I wasn't. Even after all the drama, I still wanted to see the good in him. Too bad there was never any good there to ever find.
Chris and I broke up a couple of months later in February. Two weeks later, he had another girlfriend. I was heartbroken. David was no where to be seen.
Now that I've written all this, I can see so clearly the parallels between what happened with my high school boyfriend and what happened with my husband. I feel so dumb so falling for it not for the first time, but for the second time when it really mattered. I had a boyfriend who thought I hung the moon, and David came in and turned it into a mess. I had a husband who once upon a time thought I hung the moon. Too bad.
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