4/13/2026 - Bittersweet Love

This is definitely a change of pace from my last, political article. This is a story about my first real love and how it affected my life as a young adult, both positively and negatively. Get some popcorn, because this is going to get brutally personal.

First, let me set some context. It's the end of August, 2025. I'm a senior in highschool. I'm young, dumb, but most importantly, really damn lonely. I went to a private, all-boys highschool, so the last contact I had with a woman my age was in middle school. This being said, I was became interested in the theatre program because:
1 - all of my friends were apart of it and, well, FOMO
and 2 - there was this girl I found cute who worked with our school's theatre department. Let's call her "Cecilia" for privacy's sake.

So, maybe 2nd time I go to the theatre to practice my lines, lo and behold, Cecilia approached me and complemented my shoes. Caveman dopamine hit, as this was the first time I'd talked to a woman, let alone a woman talked TO ME since I hit puberty. Obviously I was stoked, so I kept talking to her and eventually got her SnapChat. To express how excited I was for this one chance at maybe having a female companion, when she found out that I draw, I drew her like 3 full pictures (which I almost never do for people). Anyway, that Friday there was a football game and she asked me I was coming, and I couldn't say no, so heck yeah I went.

I show up to the football game and I look around anxiously to see her and when she comes and sits down in the bleachers, I'm so awkward I don't even say hi. Instead, I wait for 5 minutes until she eventually looks around and sees me and waves for me to come sit with her. Anyways, I go over and sit down and try my damned hardest to listen to what she's saying and in retrospect, and from her own recounting she was 100% trying to flirt with me but it was a football game so I couldn't hear anything. I do the typical polite things like buy her a water and save her seat when she went to the bathroom and whatnot, but the game ends and I help the band guys (my friend was a drummer) carry their stuff back to band room. In the band room she starts talking about being nervous around cute guys and I was so incredibly oblivious that I didn't pick up on the fact maybe she was talking about me, and I actually thought that was her trying to say I wasn't her type or something (keep in mind i was a fool).

She texts me about how much of a great time she had, yada, yada, and then she invites me over to her house for a bonfire. Caveman brain activation again because I never got invited to parties. At the party, things really started to escalate and the chemistry started to build. I literally ignored all of my friends to try and get any chance to talk to her. At one point, she went over to the bonfire to talk to one of her friends about a crush she had and I tried my best to listen in to see who it was (newsflash, it was me, but I had no clue at the time because, again, first female contact in YEARS.) Near the end there was this moment where she was sitting in a chair across the room from me while I'm sitting on the couch and we start to trade eye contact, and that was when I was like "Oh shoot, I like her." The party ends and one of my friends comes up to me to give me a hug and he whispers in my ear: "Cecilia wants you, but don't date her." A mix of excitement and concern washed over me but I let the excitement win over. I hop in my friend's (let's call him C) car to get a ride home and my friend (I'll call him Red) comes along with us. C and Red simultaneously look over at me and tell me not to date Cecilia because she had a whole bunch of what they called "emotional baggage" attached to her. They were genuinely concerned for my well-being because they knew I was eager to be in a relationship and that my joyful personality might be crushed by dating someone like her.

Now let's just say that Cecilia had... issues. Lots of them. Her family was poor, she had depression, eating disorders, smoked weed, and was borderline suicidal. Now I was fully aware of these issues at the time, hearing her talk about herself at the party, but I thought that my Catholic powers of love could overcome these burdens and "fix" her, so to speak. We'll come back to this later.

Anyways, I completely ignore the advice of all of my good friends and ask her out to Homecoming the next day. She says yes and I end up falling in love over the course of the next 2 weeks, in hindsight, WAY too fast. The first time I invited her over to my house we watched 50 First Dates and I ordered pizza, which she ate like one small corner piece *think STL style pizza (hint, this becomes a big problem later). Later that night we sat outside on my patio and had our first kiss, which was my first kiss ever. She told me I was the best kisser she'd ever been with. I was a happy guy.

And then immediately after the kiss I said I loved her. She said she loved me too. Not 2 weeks since we started dating. This was the start of what I will call the "committal trap." A week later we made out, and at homecoming, which was at the end of september, things started to get a little sexual. She became comfortable with sitting on my lap, which I will admit in saying I enjoyed. After the dance itself was over, we had an intense make out session in the parking lot in the front seat of my car which resulted in me getting a little grabby, but not anything too freaky. From this point on, there is a common theme of very drastic escalation in relationship seriousness. I think not too long after this is when we started talking about marriage. (I know, right.) To put context behind how this incredibly serious topic came up out of the blue, I need to say that I was so incredibly in love with Cecilia that I spent nearly every waking hour either hanging out with her or texting her. We'd spend every single weekend together, we'd go to mass together, and we'd even sneak out sometimes on school nights to see each other. So, one morning on our (really mine, she never drove) 30 minute commute to the Church we liked out in the middle of nowhere, she suddenly said that she thought I was the one. I reciprocated. To be fair, she was the only girl I had experience with, and with the time I'd been having, there was no reason for me to say she wasn't the one. And with that, I became a little soft on the boundaries I set for myself as a Catholic, unmarried man.

A week after my school's homecoming, her school had hers which I attended along with C. Afterwards, she said she knew some "friends" were having an after-party in a random field next to the airport. Now, I knew that she was a drinker because I already babysitted her at a random party she asked me to go to, during which she got fall-over drunk off a single vodka because of how skinny she was. I was very uncomfortable with the idea of sneaking onto government property at night with people I didn't know, but her potentially getting drunk made it worse. We arrive at the address, (well, it was actually coordinates) her "friends" sent us, and lo and behold it's a completely abandoned neighborhood. A cop pulls up. Oh shit. Someone tells him that we were just taking photos. Cop leaves, and along with C, I take Cecilia and ditch real damn quick. We decide to go back to my house to watch The Shining on my patio TV, and then underneath a blanket we grinded. Right in front of C. Not my best moment.

At this point I stopped receiving the Eucharist at mass on sundays because I could feel something was wrong in my subconscience. Grinding and making out became a common occurance until one day I decide that nothing could go wrong if I lead her into my bedroom. Heaving grinding, and then we had a talk about sex. Now I don't regret this talk, as it's very important to set sexual boundaries, but I was so caught in the moment that I brushed aside my actual wishes. We show each other our bodies. She performs felatio on me, not 10 minutes after I said I wanted to wait until marriage to have sex. In my mind, this was okay because "well, no penetration!". I don't want to ensenuate that she raped me or anything, just that I went WAY too fast to the point where I abandoned my own morals just for the feeling.

And then we went out to CVS and bought condoms. "Just in case!" Well, the very next weekend it happens. She was very kind about this, she even made tripple sure I wanted to go back on my wish not to fornicate. Shamefully, I did. So that night, a month after I thought I'd remain chaste for at least the next 10 years, I lost my virginity. My last coverup was that I didn't reach climax, but the next night I do. And right as I ejaculate, the condom breaks. I'm pretty sure this was a sign from God. I just sit in silence for like 5 minutes freaking out because I just broke my last deniable promise of chastity and because I could be teen father very soon. I calm myself down and get plan B. It is very important to note that any form of contraception, including condoms, is strictly forbidden in Catholicism, so this was an extra punch in the face to Jesus.

And I just keep having sex. Sure, maybe the moment feels a little good at least physically, but the damage it took on my soul was very much palpible. It gets too much to take. Right before opening night of our show, in november, (forgot we were in theatre, did you?) I tell her that I want to become chaste. She nearly cries, despite my best effort of telling her that it's because of my religion (which keep in mind, she attends Mass with me every Sunday), and eventually she says she understands. We're in theatre. I'm looking for her to just talk because it's a scene I'm not in and I overhear her in the bathroom talking to another girl and spilling the deats on our entire sex life. And then she called me weird for wanting to obstain. This hurt me extremely bad. Not only did she go behind my back and betray my trust by sharing very private info to someone I don't know, she practically insults my faith. I'm devastated, but I keep go on and do my scene anyway. I was playing Bob in The Outsiders, so as I lay there dead (sorry, spoilers) images of breaking up with her and spending Christmas and New Years alone flash through my head. I get up, and since it's intermission, I go straight to her and tell her that I overheard what she said in the bathroom and that I wanted to talk. I just pour out my feelings, how she broke my trust and lied when she said she was fine with my decision. And then she talks me out of it. Trapped. I 100% should have broken up right then and there. She clearly wasn't on board with Jesus. She lied. She breached my trust.

Well, one week later I break my vow of chastity. Not to make this post too long, we'll skip to Christmas. I fall incredibly ill with a case of Mononucleosis that she gave me, to the point where I have a 103 degree fever for 2 consecutive weeks. During this time, she comes over on her own accord maybe 3 times and just sleeps in my bed while I lay there actually dying. To her credit, I was always completely fine with her napping at my house because she "couldn't sleep" at her own house, but I was sick and my family was either always busy or just unwilling to help me. Multiple times, with a fever, I had to drive 25 miles to her house and then 25 miles back to mine just to see her. I get her a heated blanket and a hot water bottle for Christmas specifically to remedy her cold room, but I still drove her over everyday just so she could nap.