[tracilicious]

I only have a sort of "one that got away" story. I was probably fifteen or early sixteen and a total dork. Todd went to my church. He was a year older and had an older brother and two little siblings that all lived with his dad. I was soooo swoony over Todd.

Todd was an alcoholic (along with the rest of his family) who had a very rough life, wasn't in school, and was in trouble all the time. I was pretty vulnerable. My parents had divorced a few years back, my mom worked or was in school all the time, and I had ridiculously low self esteem. Todd briefly semi-returned my affections, but I did dumb things like call all the time, apologize for everthing, and just be a total dork basically. So Todd moved on to another girl in our church (there were a lot of bad kids in that church) who was a lot more his speed. Smoked, drank, etc.

I would have done anything for Todd. Drank, done drugs, had sex, anything. I was so head over heels blindly in love with him. I'm SO glad to this day that Todd didn't like me like I liked him. That would have been very dangerous. Todd and other church girl snuck around for a while, got in big trouble for having sex, parents kept them apart, Todd grew up and continued his destructive life, and a few years back committed suicide.

I spent a few months in teenage heartbreak, got involved in dance and other school activities that gave me a sense of self, got over the heartbreak and fell in love with Michael (who I'd been friends with for a few years already) graduated, got married, had one and a half wonderful kids and am pretty much living my dream life (minus having lots of money). I shudder to think what my life would be like now if my heart hadn't been broken.