mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa #5

Everyone probably has someone they wish they could apologize to about…something. I like to think that I’ve been a pretty kind person overall, but I know I’ve had my moments of awfulness. I might be smarter than a lot of people, and funnier than a lot of people, but I’m definitely not one bit nicer than I’ve had to be.

Today, I would like to apologize for the following sin.

11th grade. Or was it the end of 10th grade? I don’t know when it was, exactly. I broke someone’s heart. He was a bit of a bad boy, or at least he had a bad boy reputation, but he was always sweet to me, and a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for. He loved the Supremes. How bad can you be if you like the Supremes?

I liked him well enough, but pretended to care about him more than I really did. When I broke up with him, it resulted in some pretty ugly stuff that I was  not equipped to handle. I wasn’t as callous about it as I acted, but I was scared that he was going to hurt himself or me. There was a knife involved, and a friend and a relative were  in the next room egging him on with Queen’s song “Don’t Try Suicide” instead of coming into the kitchen and helping me get him out of the house before he hurt someone. No one ever said teenagers are smart. Scared teenagers are even less smart.

Of course it never occurred to me to call an adult or the police for help. You just didn’t do that back then.

I’ve always felt guilty around the edges that I wasn’t kinder to him, because he was always kind to me.  He’d had a pretty rough life up until that point, and I don’t think I made it any easier in the end. Hopefully he remembers the parts that were fun, and not the part where I was a heartless bitch.

If Google is accurate, he has definitely not had an easy life since I last saw him. Not that it’s my fault..he was already pretty broken before I knew him.

Still, it would have been nice to find out he was doing well.

 

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