I began the semester in Colorado, and he returned to New York.  In what seemed like no time at all, he got a girlfriend.  He told our friends how great she was, and how much we would immediately approve.  The guys from our group of friends were happy for him.  However, the girls expressed their feelings of disdain with their delayed responses of, “oooh, that’s cool. I guess” and “wow Charlie. Wow”.  The girls were jealous, but Charlie didn’t let it bother him.

Yet again, I didn’t follow this façade of his.  Charlie was still same cheating and manipulative guy we knew him to be. I no longer wanted to hold back.  I wanted to somehow prove to everyone that his relationship status was irrelevant to the moral choices he made.  I waited for summer break to come around to gauge how much effort I’d have to put into this plan.  He seemed distant from me for a while, and just when I was about to call it a lost cause, he caved.  This happened, of course, under the influence of alcohol.  I had thrown a somewhat large party at my house, so it was easy for him to slip away, unnoticed, walk up to my room, and leave me a note on my bed.  Hours later after he had left, I came across the blue post-it.  It read three, very simple, yet very Charlie-like words: “I want you”.  At this instant, I knew I didn’t have much work cut out for me.

We spent every single day of summer together.  We would find random things to do around San Antonio and just waste the day being with each other.  He became best friends with my parents, and to this day, they still prod me to marry him.  Unfortunately, almost daily, we would share a low moment.  Actually, we would just share my low moment.  His girlfriend would call from California to check on him, or start a fight to test his willingness to be with her.  I found it impolite that he would have these conversations in front of me.  Even though she was his girlfriend for the time being, it seemed that I had some sort of claim on him.  He respected my wishes to leave the room when he spoke to her on the phone, as well as refrain from making any reference to her while I was around.

One night, after a party, Charlie drove me to my house.  He stopped in front, put the car in park, and leaned over to kiss me.  Our lips met, but I gave him nothing.  This was what I had wanted my whole summer.  I wasn’t paralyzed by the intensity of the moment, nor was it the surprise of what happened.  It felt right, but the annoying reminder that he was not truly, 100% mine, was painful.  I sat in the passenger sea speechless, and as he gave me his predictable speech of how I’m “not like other girls” and there was just “something about me” and that he was “drawn to me for some reason”, tears welled up in my eyes.  This was all a lie.  I expected to feel some sense of accomplishment.  Instead, I could only bring myself to do one thing.  I left.  I got out of the car, walked to my front door, and never looked back.  I erased him from my life, refused to answer his phone calls and text messages, refused to see him face to face.  The most humiliating part of it all wasn’t that I cried when he kissed me, but the realization that I was no different than all the other girls in his past.