I Loved You Before I Met You

2

I have my suitcase packed and I'm sitting in the living room of my Aunt Mary's house in Pensacola, Florida. I'm sitting here at 7 a.m. waiting till time to leave for the airport. Or should I say dreading going to the airport. Aunt Mary is my mom's sister and I have been living with her for a little over a month after my mom passed away. She is the only other family I have on my mother's side that's still alive. She automatically took me in after the accident.

My mom and I were in a car wreck at the beginning of February. We were on our way home from our weekend at Pensacola Beach. We lived in Pensacola and spent every weekend at the beach. That was our favorite place and thing to do together.

My mom was driving and I was in the front passenger seat. We were listening to Fleetwood Mac and we were both singing along. We liked most of the same music so there was never an argument over a radio station in the car. My mom was just a cool and awesome person.

A drunk driver ran the stop sign at a four way stop about a mile from our house and slammed into the driver side of our car. The impact was so hard it caused our car to flip four times before finally landing upside down. It was like everything happened in slow motion upon impact. I remember the impact, the sounds of metal grinding against metal then the sounds of our car slamming against the asphalt and glass shattering everywhere and flip after flip after flip after flip. I remember screaming for my mom and never getting a response and I remember seeing blood everywhere before everything went black.

I woke up in the hospital with cuts and bruises on my arms, legs and a few on my face. My left arm was in a cast and I had a huge bandage around my right thigh because a 5" piece of glass had gone into my thigh during the accident. My mom on the other hand wasn't so lucky. She died during the accident and the drunk driver that hit us only had minor injuries. It's not fair that someone like that could walk away from an accident they caused with minor injuries and someone as pure as my mom had to loose her life over a stupid decision. At least the police were waiting on him to be released and they were taking him into custody and he was being charged with DUI and manslaughter.

I am so lost in my thoughts and memories from the accident that I wasn't paying attention to Aunt Mary calling my name until she is snapping her fingers in front of my face. "Ok Kyler it's time to go," she says. My flight is at 10:20 a.m. and I am flying into San Antonio, TX. I am not excited about this one bit and wish I could just live with Aunt Mary. However, since my... sperm donor is still alive and my other legal guardian I'm off to Texas to live with him.

Trust me this isn't my choice but he wasn't having it any other way apparently. I will not turn 18 until March 22. Even if I was 18, it's not like I can afford my own place plus Aunt Mary says it is best for me to go live with Mike, my so called dad and try to mend our relationship. She loves me and treats me like a daughter and wants what is best for me. It's a little hard to consider him my 'dad' when he hasn't been in my life and I honestly can't bring myself to call him that. I know she thinks living with him is best but I have to disagree. Plus I only have two months of school left before graduating so I think this move is stupid. Aunt Mary said we will talk and visit as much as possible. As of this moment my life sucks and I don't see how it can get any worse than this. There is definitely nothing to look forward to with this change.

My mom had me when she was 17 and Mike was 20. After mom graduated high school and he was already in college, they got married. He cheated on mom once when I was four, then when I was eight, she found out he had been cheating on her for the past two years. She kicked him out and filed for divorce and I haven't seen him since I was eight years old. He would call me on my birthday sometimes but not often. I guess for him I was more of an out of sight out of mind daughter. He paid child support so that helped my mom out a lot I guess, I mean we never struggled so it must have. At least he did something right after all. I guess he wasn't a complete deadbeat.

He hurt my mom so bad. He was my mom's first love and they say it's always harder to get over your first love. I guess that's why everything with him affected her so much. Everyday I watched her being depressed and heard her cry herself to sleep. Even though I was young, I knew she was in pain emotionally and heartbroken. She always tried to put on a brave face for me and act like she was fine. I knew better and there was nothing I could do to mend her broken heart after what he did to her.

I loved her and she loved me and she always said that was all she needed. As I got older she actually got better and wasn't depressed anymore but she never dated again. She always said she was happy on her own. I think she was scared of having a broken heart again.

My sperm donor is a CPA and worked a lot and tried to use that excuse as to why he cheated. Of course that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. After the divorce he moved to San Antonio for a senior CPA job he was offered at some big national company. I could never understand why he cheated on my mom and ruined our family.

Now I have to go live with a man I don't really know and his wife that I didn't even know existed until two weeks ago. See, this is my sperm donor's third marriage. After my parents divorce, he married the woman he cheated with. They were married for one year before they got a divorce. From my understanding his second marriage ended from him cheating on her. And now he is married for a third time. I don't know how long this marriage has been for him but my guess is probably not very long. Well, as they say, third times the charm. Let's just see if that's true for him.