I lost you.

And we finally got to the point in the story where my villain's arc starts. At least that's what I feel the narrative is.

But before that, I have to say the first month of us living together was beautiful. We celebrated his birthday with all his close friends, whom I was nervous to meet. They were all so welcoming and accepting of our relationship. It all felt so right, like I'd finally found my person after looking for so long. Even his mother, whom he called to tell her about us, was so excited that her son was in love. She even invited us to have dinner so she could meet me. At first, she was really trying to figure out, but by the time our night was over, she hugged me and said she was glad Ryan was finally with someone nice.

Our opposite schedules worked pretty well for us, too. We got alone time during the day in the apartment and eventually reunited at night for dinner, discussed our days, had some intimate time, and slept holding each other. Sometimes he´d cook dinner, sometimes we'd just order something. On the weekends, we'd go out, meet his friends, and stay out late, then we´d wake up the next morning in each other's arms, get some breakfast burritos, and watch South Park all morning. It was like an endless sleepover with my best friend. 

It was just a matter of time until those longs nights and opposite schedules would do us dirty. Ryan loves a good party, but more than that he loved an afterparty going into early hours of the morning. And dont get me wrong, I love a good night out too but I already had my party monster era, I don't find drinking and messing up my septum entertaining anymore. To each their own, but not when we're already living together. Him wanting to go out on a Monday night to do all that while I have work at 8 am the next day was becoming an issue. One I didn't know how to handle, and he didn't know what the problem was. See? I'm blind when it comes to red flags.

One of Ryan's friends, Shawn, was having a birthday party on a Thursday. I'd previously talked to him about it since we'd always end up chatting on my nights out with Ryan. Closer to the date I get a text from Ryan about it.

Hey, it's Shawn's birthday tonight, I'll probably stop by to shower and then go.

It sounded to me like it was a solo mission for him, so I asked if I was still invited. He gave me a very unenthusiastic "if you want." that felt like a little needle going through my stomach. I had to ask

Do you want me there?

And then i got it. The text message that send me into somewhat of a spiral.

Don't be mad, but I want to go by myself and just spend time with my boys. 

I wasn't mad, I was just a bit hurt. I know it's ok for him to have his alone time with friends, at least now I know. But I wasn't properly medicated back then, and I still had the memory of Becky lingering, especially knowing she was still around. I was silent for the rest of the day. I did have to meet him at the bar he was at for a minute to get the keys to my place. Our interaction was cold and with some resentment. It said a lot that while I was waiting for my ride home, his friend waited with me instead of him. 

After that night, we had a talk about giving each other space, which I agreed with. But what I didn't like was him drinking so much on weekdays, or in general, staying out until late, just to then come back, wake me up in the middle of the night, smelling like a basement afterparty. It felt like a way to cope, a very unhealthy one. But of course, when I said it, he took it as me being controlling. I can admit I can be a little bit controlling, but that was never my intention. Guess now he´ll never know that.

Shit really hit the fan for us after two months of living together. We each had plans on a Saturday night, so we were going to keep each other posted throughout the night, so we could get home at the same time. We had our location on too, since the party I was going to was in a part of town I'd never been before. Around 3 a.m., I stopped getting texts back from him, but I saw his location, so he was still at his friend's house. By 4:30 am, I was already in bed and still no text back.  Sunday afternoon came, and I was hoping he'd just fallen asleep and then had to rush to work, but no. Sunday night is when I started feeling the weight of what was going on. Between calls to friends to see if they'd heard from him and my mom to cry my eyes out, trying to figure out what to do, I finally reached out to his mother. 

She returned my call Monday morning, while I was on my way to work. She apologized to me, which was surprising. I was the one who was sorry I'd lost her son, like some guilty baby sitter. She said he tends to do things like that and then said something that will stay with me forever

He's just hard to love sometimes.

I knew then that nothing good was coming out of this. Ryan eventually called me back that Monday morning, saying he was coming home that afternoon. That didn't go very well. Something was going on that didn't know about.