Always & Forever, Forever & Always

FIRST COMES LOVE

Jacob asked me out on our first date. We went out for a meal and he immediately drove back to my house to drop me off like a real gentleman. I had a few minutes to spare before I had to go in, and I was already home so I decided to stay in the car with him for a little longer. I still remember his eyes, so pretty looking. We always laughed about how he was so pretty, he even came onto this earth with eyeliner around his eyes. The dark lines around his eyelid made his eyes that brighter and so enticing. When he laughed, his eyes were my favorite thing to look at. But his laugh was my favorite thing to listen to every day. When I was with him in that Toyota March 2000, I didn’t want or even think of being anywhere else. Nothing or no one could have ever compared. Nothing.

God knows I didn’t want to leave him. We sat in that car from 7pm that day to 4am the next. We spoke, and I mean we really spoke. We opened up so easily, we shared music and had so many songs in common. We rapped and sang along to every thing from Chipmunk to The Script. We even had a moment where we cried. I had never experienced such love and vulnerability from a human being, let alone a man. I told him my deepest secrets and he told me his. We both shared that we had experienced abuse and loss (different forms). We shared that we battled with depression and anxiety, as much as that should have been enough for us to both run the other way, it brought us closer together. He promised to take care of me and I promised to take care of him. From what he had shared with me, Jacob had seen and experienced it all. And even then, even after he saw me for who I was, he still thought I was the most beautiful girl in the world. I believe that even as I write this story in 2023. It was in that car, that night, we fell madly in love with each other.

We stayed up all night a lot of the time just listening to each other’s pain. I don’t believe either of us had that prior to meeting each other, a space for you to say whatever comes to mind or heart. Comfort to be whoever it is you feel you are that day.

I was still in high school, and every day I’d get back from school, he’d come see me and we’d go for walks around my neighborhood. He kept me fit, that’s for sure. I was one of the fittest in my P,E. class, I guess now we know why.

For the longest time, we didn’t put a title to what we were, we let it play it out. Sometimes we’d talk for days on end, other times we’d talk to other individuals more than each other. But we knew. Something always brought us back. We always bumped into each other without planning it. As we got closer, Jacob's pain became mine, my pain became his. We began to see ourselves for what we truly were, for all that we had endured and for all the mental turmoil we both went through on daily basis, especially after midnight. We trauma bonded, hard.

Eventually, on May 17th 2014, we couldn’t resist not spending our lives together and becoming one, we made it official.

I lied to my mom, told her I was going to a classmate’s house, who was my best friend at the time. Instead, I went to Jacob’s. It was our first properly planned sleepover. So excited, I even made us a playlist.

I met all his close friends and even met his baby sister. I loved them all, Jacob's friends were all years older than me so of course I was nervous and anxious. Overall, his loved ones were mine. It was an "I love you, and yours", type of love. We went to bed earlier than everyone else because we never took spending time together for granted. I was significantly younger than him and not everyone was for the idea of us being together so we mostly spent time alone, just us. I would be laid up in his arms for days on end. His index and middle finger stroking the back of my arm all the way to my back.

Jacob consumed me. My whole being. And don’t get me wrong, it felt so good being with someone who showed up when I needed them, even when I felt like I didn’t, he made me feel like I did because he was always there. He listened to my every word. Ya'll know how important that is for a girl with a stutter. He took me seriously, he made me feel like my opinion mattered. Sometimes, he made me feel like ONLY my opinion mattered. As a girl who didn’t have the gift of being comfortable and loved like that prior to him, I gave him everything. And when I say everything, I mean my cooch too. All of it. Yup, you heard here folks, he took my virginity. Or I gave it to him. I don’t know. s*x really confuses me, even till this day. I've always had a love/hate relationship with it, women will understand why. Some men too.