I was in for yet more disappointment – and frankly, outright trauma.
Amber’s “family issue” was her getting back together with childhood sweetheart and future husband. I was really disappointed, but I thoroughly understood when she told me.
Her getting back with him would be like Maddie and I finding each other and finally getting together. He was the Maddie in her story. I understood, and was happy for her – and there was no way I would ever be able to compete with that anyway.
As I said last time, they are still together all these years later and have two beautiful daughters together. She and I are still good friends, and talk on Facebook from time to time. Amber is special to me because out of all the women who have passed through my heart, she is the only one other than Maddie who has respected my feelings, and done the right thing by me.
I hold Amber in very high regard.
The next woman to grab my attention was April, who I first met online. We just vibed with each other from the very beginning, and she was overtly flirty and even mildly sexual when we talked. Before long we got to talking on the phone, and meeting up for coffee one lunch time.
Instant attraction.
I wouldn’t say I was ever in love with her, but she was one of the kindest people who had ever touched my heart. She sent me flowers at work for my birthday. She would leave cheeky voicemails on my work phone during the night so I had a nice surprise when I got to my desk in the morning.
We talked about spending more time together – although she was studying and working, and finding time was difficult. Even so, it was a wonderfully exciting time.
Then one day, nothing. No messages online, no voicemails, no emails.
Nothing.
I asked a mutual online friend where she was.
“Oh, she got married, didn’t she tell you?”
No, no she didn’t.
I had to let those feelings slide away. She did finally one day pop up to apologise, an apology I accepted but made sure she knew she had really hurt me. She accepted she had done the wrong thing.
At least she was honest with me, albeit far later than she should have been.
Next came the most traumatic relationship of my life. So traumatic that in real life I do not speak her name, and I won’t even give her a fake name in this story. She doesn’t deserve one.
I was just getting over the shock of Amber when this new woman came into my life at a party I had been invited to by a friend. She was a strong personality who knew how to manipulate people into her circle of influence. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was to be her next victim.
She was a con-artist who I would later discover had a criminal history of duping men into relationships, bleeding them dry, fucking with their heads to the point of mental breakdown, and then throwing them aside when they were broke and no longer any use to her.
We were even engaged, and mere weeks away from the wedding when I finally found the courage to break away from her. She had taken just about everything I owned, and milked my finances before I even knew what was going on. Completely blindsided.
She pushed me to breaking point through mental, emotional and physical abuse. She even tried to stab me with a six-inch kitchen knife, and though I managed to disarm her in the midst of her psychotic rage, there are still several small scars on my hands from where the blade caught me during the struggle.
I came in with everything, but left with nothing – except my life and a psychological hole that took me a very long time and a lot of help from a psychologist to climb out of.
My friends and family banded around me, but I had a long journey ahead. Ironically, one of my best supports through this was April.
I moved back in with my parents while I got back on my feet, and about a year later I moved into a small unit in a quiet little suburb, tucked away in the corner of a new development where nobody could find me.
Very few people had the address.
I was tired and broken, and I needed time to heal – a lot of time. I had lived and loved so much in my life and had nothing to show for it.
But what I needed more, more than anything, was Maddie.
She would know how to fix me.