INCONVENIENTLY 17

CHAPTER ONE(1)

It all started with an i********: story, a bit cliche, but like I said, my life is a

never-ending romantic comedy, so there are a lot of cliches.

I met Leon in my senior year of high school.

Well, technically, that’s a lie. I met Leon in my freshman year, and it was love at

first sight for me, but Leon met me in our senior year.

I know that it sounds creepy, and it kind of is, but my intentions were pure.

I stalked Leon for three years.

Not actual stalking stalking, just checking up on him on social media, you get

what I mean.

I followed him on i********:, I saw him at every student council meeting, and

at lunch and at school dances.

He didn't see me, but I saw him.

Even though we ran in the same circle for three years, Leon Blake did not know

who I was, not until I sent that text.

Sometimes, I wish I had left him alone. We would have graduated and gone off

to college, and my crush would have died with the distance, but sometimes I'm

glad I didn’t, because it was one of the best times of my life.

A couple of months before graduation, on what had to be the millionth time I

was stalking Leon’s i********:, I grew some balls and replied to his Instagram

story.

I did not expect him to reply, I was just giving it a shot.

You have to understand, Leon was a quiet kid who kept to himself, even on

social media. He only followed a handful of people, I did not expect him to reply

to some girl he did not know, but he did.

Romance novels and Disney fairytales had raised my standards so very high

that at some point, I was convinced that I would die alone.

I had built a mental image of my prince charming, and it was that or nothing for

me.

I was 17 when I met Leon, and let's just say he ticked all the boxes.

Realistically, he didn’t, but he swept me off my feet, and for a lovestruck 17-year

old, it was everything.

He was tall, dark, handsome, super smart, and did not care what anyone

thought about him.

I thought it was cool, him not caring about what people thought or said about

him, I had no idea that it was going to be the thing that would ruin me.

When I say Leon was smart, I mean he was mathlete level smart, valedictorian

level smart.

He had scholarships lined up for Ivy League colleges, the kind of boyfriend

material mothers loved.

And then there was me, I was smart, but not Leon Blake level smart.

I was smart enough to get a full ride scholarship to Columbia Universtity to

study psychology.

But it doesn’t change the fact that we were polar opposites;

He was the forgotten middle child, and I was the only child with a complicated

daddy issues, he loved science, I loved literature, he played basketball, and

swam, and the only physical activity I liked was the occasional jumproping

session, he liked sci-fi, I was obsessed with murder mysteries, he read anime

and mange, and I read crime and romance.

I think you get the picture, complete opposites.

But I convinced myself that we would do just fine.

After all, opposites attract, right?

To be completely honest, falling in love with Leon was never at any point in time

part of the plan for me.

He was one of those people whom I was fascinated with for a period of time and

would have eventually moved on from.

I would have moved on from him if he hadn’t pushed back so hard.

The first few months of our relationship were spent trying to teach Leon to love

me, and warn him away from me at the same time. I had seen what love had

done to my mother, and I wanted no part of it.

But the more I pushed, the harder he pushed back until I gave up and let him

love me.

And I do believe that when we were 17 and stupid, Leon truly loved me.

He gave up Harvard, Yale, and Stanford to go to Columbia with me, and with

someone as career driven as Leon Blake, it was the ultimate sacrifice.

In the months before we left for college, we were almost always together if I

wasn’t at his house. He was at mine. Every minute we weren’t together, we spent on the phone. And so by the time we were leaving for Columbia, we were joined

at the hip.

He studied something science related( I never got around to asking), and I

majored in psychology. It's different but not completely opposite.

The first couple of months in college, we were still in the honeymoon phase.

We ate dinner together as many times as we could, spent the weekend at each

other’s dorms, and he cuddled me to sleep every time I had a panic attack, which

was much more often than I would have liked.

I felt so bad for draining him like that, I knew how much it pained him to see me

like that, but I couldn't do anything about it.

All the time that Leon and I were together, I tried to get him to leave me. My

reasoning was simple and valid; my mental health was spiralling faster than I

could keep up with that, and nobody deserved to be burdened with that, no matter

how much they loved me.

I had fallen so deeply in love with him that I knew that if he broke my heart, I

would never come back from it.

He dismissed my fears and told me that we would be just fine. He said he could

handle my baggage.

I wish now that I hadn’t believed him.

For the first time in my life, it was safe to conclude that I was truly happy. I had

found a guy who loved me, didn't mind that my mental headspace was a

warzone, and just like Derek and Garcia in criminal minds, called me his baby

girl.

I was convinced that I had found my person.

Nothing could go wrong.

But then everything started to go wrong.

Leon broke up with me on the day after Valentine's Day, and I never got an

answer as to why.

I was so confused and shocked that I convinced myself that it wasn’t real. I

didn't ask, and he didn't speak about it again, and for a month and a half, we

lived in blissful ignorance.

But then the overthinking part of my brain won over, and I asked him again, and

apparently, I'm the only one who hadn’t gotten the memo that we were still

broken up and not back together.I was so hurt and betrayed by him that I left and gave him radio silence for a

week.

He came to my dorm room next Sunday, and we worked things out.

I thought we were fine, I believed we were fine until my 18th birthday came by

a month later.

Something pushed me to ask him what exactly we were doing, sure his answer

did not change anything( I was stupid like that), but I'm glad I asked.

Leon told me that what we had was casual, just fun.

Something inside of me broke that day, I didn’t let him see, but that was the

first time he broke my heart.

Everybody has their red flags. Mine was that I loved to the point of

self-destruction. Once I admitted to myself that I love this person, that was it

for me.

There was nothing they could do that would change that fact. They could rip my

heart out, and I'd apologize for making them tire themselves out and offer to

pay for damages.

I was self-destructive in the way I loved, and it cost me everything.

A PCOS diagnosis and one crazy rollercoaster of a semester later, we were back

in college for the rest of the school year.

If I had known how bad that year was going to be for me, I swear I would have

done things differently.

A month into our second semester, they found a tumour in my mother’s brain.

I had to fly back home for about a month.

I have no idea what happened in the weeks that I was at home, but when I

came back to Columbia, and things between Leon and I changed.

He avoided my calls and texts for weeks before succumbing to my begging and

coming to see me.

When I asked him if I had done anything wrong, he said no, when I asked

again, he said no.

Finally, I asked if he was tired of me, and he said yes.

That answer did not surprise me, I had expected it, and it is the reason behind it that

shocked me.

Leonard said I was too selfish. He said I was selfish in my suffering. I don't

know if it makes sense, but I know that it was true.He said I made everything about myself, and so what if I was suffering? There

were people worse off than me, in his words,’suck it up and let go’.

He said I was selfish in the way I did not desire to exist, and if I was going to kill

myself, he would rather not stick around for it, and I did not blame him, I was

asking too many people, him especially.

He was right, I was selfish.

I started to question everything I knew. What if I was exaggerating my trauma?

What if I wasn’t as broken as I thought? What if I had made it all up?

I was losing touch with reality, I had no idea of what was real and what wasn’t

anymore.

The next morning, I went to the counselling centre on campus, and a couple of

weeks later, I started therapy.

It had taken me 18 years to fall apart because professional help had never

really worked for me, and I didn’t think this time would be any different, but I

had to try before dismissing it, if not for me, for my mother.

The week I started therapy, Leon kind of went MIA. No calls or texts, nothing.

Complete radio silence. It stayed like that for three weeks, and in those three

weeks, I felt like everything was falling into place.

Therapy was going great. Things were starting to get better, and I was starting

to move on from Leon.

That was until he texted. It completely ruined all the progress that I had made,

and somehow, I sunk even deeper.

Therapy started to nosedive, I lied to the shrink so that our sessions would at

At least be more bearable, he became convinced that I was getting better, and I

preferred it that way.

Every time I texted Leon or he did, we argued. Every single time, we argued.

More than half of the time, it was my fault, I had a problem with letting things go.

He had no idea of what was going on in my life, and I didn’t know what was

going on in his, but I hoped that if it came down to it, he would be there for me,

after all, he had promised.

The first time I overdosed, I did not tell anyone about it, 59 pills in 24 hours, and

I told nobody. I wanted to die, and I did not want that to change.

I was convinced that God was playing a very sick prank on me because I did

not understand why I was still alive. I just knew that I was.I didn’t know why, but I knew that I did not want to be.

He didn't text back or call, and neither did I.

I left him well alone for 10 weeks, and then one random Thursday evening, I

called.

To my surprise, he answered, and we talked for an hour, sort of like we had just

hit the continue button. It was almost like the old times.

Only, this time, he told me he was moving to Europe.

That night, I asked him, I asked him if I had not called, and he would have told me

he was going to Europe, he said no.

He seemed so uninterested in the conversation that I became so ashamed of

myself for reaching out.

It felt like I was begging to be loved. Begging to be loved by a boy who had

repeatedly broken my heart.

I continued the pathetic begging for a week even though the only responses I

got emoticons.

On the last day of our freshman year, and a few days before he left for Europe, I

sent my last text to him.

I told him that I was done. I had spent 11 weeks trying to earn his forgiveness

for a crime I didn't even know, and I was tired.

As much as I still loved him, I loved me more, and even if it killed me, I was

going to choose myself.

I was just going to do my thing, let him do his and let the universe do hers,

because I was exhausted.

I guess that is the thing about firsts. They might drag you through the fires of

hell, but no matter how much they decide to hurt you, you will never be able to

I love anyone like that.

I do feel the need to point out that I am not a very good storyteller, so before

you assume that Leon Blake is the villain of my story. There are some things that

you need to learn about me first.