On my eighteenth birthday, November 22, 2002, I left my house under the pretense of going out with some friends from work to celebrate the occasion. Only my grandmother knew that I had packed my car with most of my clothing and had a two week long road trip planned. First, it was my friend’s brother’s wedding in Illinois, then I was off to see a friend I had not seen since middle school, in New Jersey, then down to Florida to see an old friend from the Marine Corps, before coming back, and grinding like hell to move back to Illinois where I belonged. I stopped at Corey’s house before I left town, just to say goodbye. That goodbye took almost two hours, and we were both sweating by the end of it.

After I attended the wedding in Illinois, my car broke down, and my bank account randomly went into the negative for no apparent reason. I was stranded and broke. Who to call, who to call…no way in hell was I calling my mother, she was furious with me, and I was not about to grovel. My grandparents lived in the same house, so that cut them out too…shit the only other person who might have money was Corey. So, I called him, and sure enough, he wired me $200 the next day via Western Union. My opinion on him started to change. Unfortunately, my plans for my trip also changed, due to the fact that the mechanic that I paid $200 to fix my car told me that he had no idea what was wrong with it, that he had managed to get it started, and I should drive it home without shutting it off.  I got there, and Corey met me in Murray, Kentucky, where I had a friend that would work on my car the next day.  I spent the night at Corey’s parents house, and he took me out the next day to look at a duplex that he had heard about. 

He borrowed money from his parents and put down the deposit and we moved in on December first. It was a quaint little space, a two bedroom duplex with a small bathroom but a big living room/dining room/kitchen combined area. It was small, but it was cheap, and it was home.

Those first few months were happy for me. We were both working, I was working two jobs, and we had money to burn. Our house was the party pad. Sports events, movies, no reason at all, we had a house full. Alcohol, drugs, whatever you wanted, we had it, or we knew someone who did, and everything was up for sale or trade. I spent probably a good six months blazed out of my mind, sobering up long enough to go to work, and sometimes, not even then.

Sometime in January, Corey and I were laying in bed, recovering from one of our infamous marathons, when he just HAD to get up, which I strenuously objected to.  But, he got up none the less, saying he needed a snack and a drink.  I heard the bread wrapper rustle from the kitchen, and I called out to him to bring me a drink while he was up.  He came back a few minutes later, handing me my bottle as he crawled into bed.  I cuddled up next to him and threw my arm back over his chest.  “Give me your hand,” he said.  My right arm was already flung over him, so I flopped my right hand onto his chest.  “No, no, the other one,” he said.  Groaning, I rolled over enough to rotate my left arm out from under my body and flopped both hands onto his chest.  He took my left hand in his, and I felt him playing with my fingers.  I felt something being slid onto the ring finger of my left hand as he said, “I know its not what you want, but I know what you want, and I swear I’ll get it for you, if you’ll just say you’ll marry me.”  I looked down at my hand.  By the slatted moonlight coming through the blinds, I could see that he had twisted the twist tie from the loaf of bread into a ring shape.  What do you say to something like that?  I hugged him tightly, said yes, and we were off for another of our marathons.

About six months later, I discovered that my landlord was entering my home against my wishes, without my knowledge, and going through everything I owned, even my underwear drawer, so we moved.  Leaving that apartment seems to be the beginning of the end, in my mind.  Over the course of the next three and a half years, I would move six times.  Each time we moved, our living situation and ultimately our relationship, got worse than it had been before.  We could barely speak without biting each others’ heads off.  Everyone told us that we were a mismatch made in hell and we would never make it.  But, I had it set in my stubborn skull that everyone was wrong and that I was going to prove it.  I had told this guy I would marry him, and I am a woman of my word, so I was going to marry him, and we were going to have a house and a car and a cat and a dog and 2.5 kids and the white picket fence and we were going to live happily ever after, AMEN!!!

Six months before our wedding, we set the date.  We wanted to be married on our 2.5 year anniversary, which made it March 23^rd (the 24^th didn’t work out for some reason with holidays and paperwork and what not) 2007.  That night we got into a screaming match over something stupid, and I threw a box of cheez-its around the corner in his general direction.  I guess I have really good aim, because I managed to hit him in the head with it.  He retaliated by slamming me up against a wall and raising his closed fist above my face.  I saw red.  He’s six foot three.  I’m five foot five.  He hits me, especially on that angle, and I’m knocked out, if not dead.  I started screaming and yelling and shoving on his chest as hard as I could, just trying to get him off me.  He backed up, looked at his hand as though it weren’t attached to him, slowly lowered it to his side, hung his head and slunk away.  He would raise his closed fist to me twice more before our wedding, once on our wedding day.