Teenagers in Love

TW: Verbal Abuse

Originally published at https://www.splicetoday.com.

I met my high school girlfriend Darlene through Mark, the boy I had a crush on. It was the first day of senior year. Mark and I sat next to each other during senior orientation and talked about our summers. Sitting next to us was a girl that Mark knew but I’d never seen before; she had spent the previous three years attending a special school because of a learning disability. She kept her eyes on me the whole time, but I didn’t think anything of it.

I hung out with Mark, Darlene, and a few other kids every morning before class. She liked cuddling with me, but I still thought of her as just a friend. A mutual friend of ours eventually told me that Darlene had a crush on me. I was trying to hook up with another girl at the time, but that wasn’t going anywhere, so I started dating Darlene. She was the first girl who liked me. I thought she was cool, but it wasn’t until the night she led me to Christ during an emotional breakdown that I loved her.

Our relationship was fairly stable. We made out every morning before class, kissed whenever we’d pass each other in the hall, and talked on the phone after school every night. We talked about faith, music, our crappy jobs, and our absentee fathers. Friends kept asking us if we had had sex yet, but that wasn’t going to happen…