Allison

As I sit here my mind drifts back to Allison. My first girlfriend. I can’t help but to think of the night we started our relationship. She was fourteen and I seventeen. I know it was wrong but she had something I have never encountered in another person. She had the ability to make it seem as if we were the only people in the world. When I was with her I felt like I was the only thing that mattered to her. That night she was bursting at the seams for the world to know I was her girlfriend. She thought she was the luckiest girl in the world to be with me. She held my hand all night, it was as if she let go it would all be over like a wonderful dream. She treaded delicately like she was walking on clouds and one wrong step and she was crashing back to earth only she didn’t realize, I would be there to break her fall.
We danced the night away in that quiet little town. During slow dances she held me tight and whispered declarations of her undying love in my ear. After the dancing she walked me to my car. At the time I was driving a beat up LeBaron. She thought it was the most awesome car ever just because I was driving it. She thought I was awesome. She kissed me good night and I was off to my town some fifty miles away. I never knew my car would break down that night and lead to the demise of my relationship. I had no other car and no way to fix the one I had. Allison understood this. We no longer saw each other but we talked on the phone quite frequently.
The long distance relationship proved to be harder than I imagined. I fell into the wrong crowd in my town. I was drinking every night and ended up being addicted to pain pills. It was the darkest point of my life and Allison was the light at the end of the tunnel. Although I loved Allison very much I was still lonely. On more than one occasion I got wasted and cheated on her. Four times to be exact. Even after I recounted the tale to Allison she still wanted to be with me. She loved me. Eventually the physical distance between us became distance in our relationship. I was the one who broke it off. I know it was selfish and she was the one that got hurt but at that point that was the person I was. It wasn’t because I didn’t love her. I was a drug addict and a high school drop out. She didn’t need that in her life. She deserved more.
Months later I would reencounter Allison at a low income apartment complex in the town in which she lived. I was there to try to score some pills. It turned out that was the same reason she was there. It seems after I left she had also fallen from grace. We sat in my car and did some pills and smoked a joint. We aired a lot of feelings that night and she made it clear she still loved me even after all this time. She was seeing a striking redhead that adored her but she said it wasn‘t the same. The chemistry just wasn’t there. I knew I couldn’t start this again and told her so. I didn’t want to ruin her life like I once did. I knew all I would do was hurt her again.
Her girlfriend called to say she was on her way over. In a town so small that didn’t give us much more time together. She didn’t care about the time. She never cared about such things. She stated in so many words that she needed closure. She would risk anything for one last kiss. In the middle on the apartment parking lot we shared one of the most meaningful kisses of my life. It was filled with memories and the sense we would never again share that feeling. She was never ashamed of me. She didn’t care who saw our exchange that night. I never made love to her and I’m glad I didn’t. It would have tainted her innocence. She got to experience love in it’s purest form. She experienced it while she was still naïve. That is the only thing I’ll never regret. That second time I said goodbye wasn’t selfish, in fact it was selfless. I set her free to find the happiness I couldn’t give her. I sincerely hope she finds it one day. After all I put her through she deserves it.