I moved around a lot growing up. Mostly between Dallas and Austin, Texas because my parents split and one lived in each city. Sometimes I’d be with my mom, sometimes I’d be with my dad. I have a very complicated relationship with the both of them, due in no small part to the sort of detached nature of our interactions through most of my formative years.
There was a house that I did call home from the ages of 12 to 17 though. It was, by far, the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. If you ask me to think of my childhood home or bedroom, this is where my mind immediately goes. It was a single story ranch style house, with a sloped front yard (that I fucking hated mowing, by the way) and a driveway up the left side. My sister’s room was next to mine, and it had a bay window. My room sat on the right-most edge of the front of the house, with a window facing the street. The house sat off of Green Oaks Boulevard in Arlington, Texas, just up the road from an entrance ramp to I-20. A kid I had mutual friends with named Cody would be killed there a few years later. An old woman couldn’t see him walking along the access road, and hit him at a low rate of speed, so he went under the car. Unfortunately, that was it.
I still remember moving into that house very well. It was 2005, right at the beginning of summer. I had a PS2 hooked up to the TV in my room, and I was playing a ton of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. My cousin and I would ride our bikes around the neighborhood there. We had a ton of extended family over for cookouts. It was exciting, and one of the few times I felt like things were normal. That feeling would quickly dissipate, but nice moments are still nice even when they are fleeting.
At the end of the summer, school started up. I was going into the 7th grade, and was a giant bag of hormones as all 7th grade boys are. Hair was growing in new places, my armpits started to smell, and then there was the boners. My dick was harder than a diamond 23 hours out of the day it seemed like. There’s a light switch in boys heads that puts the words “I want to fuck” at the forefront of their brains, and it comes on extremely strong.
Not long after school started, they had the annual 7th grade dance. There was the section for kids who wanted to dance and socialize, and there was the gym was open for shy kids like me who didn’t know how to talk to girls and were too afraid to try. I elected to play basketball and get sweaty. At some point, my closest friend Andy came to get me. Andy was an early ladies man kinda guy, he had self confidence that far outpaced his age. He practically dragged me into the other room to meet this friend of a girl he had started macking on. Her name was Ashley, and I immediately thought she was way out of my league. I talked to her though, and she told me she thought I was cute. I don’t remember what I said back, but I’m sure I stammered out something somewhat passable in return. We danced, the first time I’d ever danced with anyone, and I got her number by the end of the night. I finally had a girl’s phone number to put into my awesome new Cingular cell phone with FREE NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS AND 250 MONTHLY TEXTS. I went over that limit all the time and had to pay it off. If I had invested that money into the market, I’d be retired by now.
Anyway, I was riding my skateboard in front of my house the next day, practicing kickflips as I’d been doing for months. All of a sudden, I turn around and see Ashley and her friend that Andy had been talking to. I asked her what she was doing on my street, and she asked me the same question. Turns out, she lived three houses down from me. She wanted to know if I wanted to go on a walk, so ever the smooth operator, I practiced one more kickflip (unsuccessfully) and put my board away. The both of them kinda snickered at me. I could tell they thought I was kinda weird. This is the only game I have to this day.
We walked through the neighborhood and ended up at the pond that was between some houses and the rec center that backed up to our street. Eventually, Ashley’s friend wandered off and we got to holding hands and talking. I kept making awkward eye contact, but would find a way to look away. At some point, she decided she’d had enough of that, grabbed my face, turned it towards hers, and kissed me. My first kiss. A tingle went from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I felt electric.
Ashley came to every one of my football games that year. I wasn’t very good and didn’t play very much, but she showed up anyway and cheered me on. She always used to tell me I had beautiful eyes before a game. To this day, any time someone compliments my eyes I always relate it back to her. Nobody has ever talked about my eyes the way she did.
We continued to “date” as much as middle schoolers can. She became my first ever girlfriend. Her parents hated me. I’m not sure if it was because I liked skateboarding, was just scrawny and awkward enough to not be boyfriend material, or what the deal was. But I could tell they didn’t want me in their house, and made sure to keep away when they were there. We’d sneak out to see each other all of the time though. Sometimes she would just show up at my window, knock on it, and we’d go to the pond to spend time together.
I’ve loved exactly three women in my life. Dated and had relationships with plenty more, but there are only three I’ve ever truly loved. Ashley was my first, and I’ve ruined all three of these relationships in pretty much the same way.
Fast forward to the spring of that school year. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion had just come out, and I was deeply obsessed. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing that game when all was said and done. It consumed me in a way that only a few other games have managed to. It was late at night, and I was deep into a session of questing and drinking full-fat, unleaded green label Monster energy drinks. I got a call on my cell phone, it was Ashley.
“Come outside.” she said.
“Can’t right now, I’m busy.” I replied.
“Please come outside, there’s something you need to see.”
“No, I’m not coming out. It can wait until tomorrow.” I was absolutely locked in to what I was doing, and nothing and nobody could have stopped me from getting the full Daedric armor set.
“It can’t. Come outside please.”
“No!” I said sternly and then hung up the phone. She kept calling a few more times, and each time I let it go to voicemail. I have no idea why I didn’t just take a break and step outside. Maybe I didn’t want to risk getting caught sneaking out for once, though I did it all the time so I don’t know why that would have suddenly mattered. I was just being selfish. Whatever I had going on in my time was more important than my girlfriend, she’d still be there tomorrow and I’d just make it up to her then.
At about four in the morning, I hit a wall and finally went to bed. A few hours later, my sister came into my room and told me to get up. There was something I had needed to see. I remember wondering what the fuck everyone was on about. What could be so important in our boring suburban neighborhood that I just had to see it? I put on some shorts, walked out my front door, and got slapped in the face with what I saw next.
There, in the middle of the street in front of my house, was a huge message in pink chalk. The message read: “I LOVE YOU” in giant letters, and there was a massive pink heart around it.
I knew I’d fucked up immediately. I knew I was in deep, deep shit. I immediately went to go and try to call Ashley back. No answer. I tried a few more times, no answer. I kept calling, and eventually she started forwarding my calls. I put on my shoes and went over to knock on the door. No answer. I rang the doorbell a few times. Her mom answered the door, cup of coffee in hand, and told me Ashley didn’t want to see me. I begged her to let me in, but she just told me to go away and never come back. We were done, and I knew it then.
I was crushed. I had lost my first love over literally nothing but my own stupid selfishness. We eventually became friends again when we got a little older and into high school. She’d come over after school, we’d hug, talk, smoke a cigarette. But it was never the same.
After some bad home stuff went down in my junior year of high school, I moved back in with my dad in Austin, about three hours away. It all happened extremely quickly, and I never got to say goodbye to Ashley. We kept in touch here and there though. She had started to drift into some unsavory circles, hanging out with older guys with dubious at-best intentions, and eventually we lost touch altogether.
Then, in my freshman year of college, I went on a snowboarding trip with some friends during winter break. I had just enough money to pay for half a room at a Red Roof Inn and rent a board. It was one of the most fun trips of my life, and as luck would have it, Ashley got back in touch. I spent the whole trip texting with her, but could tell something was very off. She seemed very down, would often misspell things, and just wasn’t the same person I knew from my childhood. She told me she was struggling, and that she wanted to get away from Arlington. I offered her a place to stay in my dorm room, and she said she’d think about it, but that it sounded like a good idea. That was the last thing we talked about.
A few weeks later, I got on Facebook and saw a link to Ashley’s obituary. I was stunned. My mouth hung open, and my ears rang. My heart was beating both a million miles an hour and not at all. All I could do was question what happened. I got on the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s website and looked up her death certificate. Mixed drug intoxication due to incautious consumption of drugs. She died in her bedroom. The same bedroom I’d gone and knocked on the window of so many times. Whatever she was going through, she took it too far and ended up dead. I did, and still do, feel so incredibly sad for her. She was only 19. She never got the chance to lead a full life.
I sit here, about to turn 32, and 6 months ago I repeated the same mistake. My health was failing, I was 40 pounds overweight, I’d let a terrible woman take all of my self esteem away, I’d let the stresses of a rising career take their toll on me. But, in late 2023 I met an amazing woman. We had an incredible 8 months together, and I let my own insecurities, doubts, and obsession with getting better physically ruin our relationship. She asked if we were going to move in together. If we were going to get married one day. I told her those were things I couldn’t promise her, and that I needed time to work on myself, which I most surely did.
The thing is, she would have stuck by me. Whatever changes I needed to make, she would have gone along with them. She was my rock, and I was too much of a coward to give her the same level of respect that she gave me. This is what I’ve had on my mind since we broke up about 5 months ago. I’m 20 pounds lighter, and feel amazing physically, but it cost me the third love of my life and the woman I wanted to marry. She wants nothing to do with me now, just as Ashley wanted nothing to do with me all of those years ago.
This is the last time I will repeat this cycle. If I do it again, it’ll be me that ends up drinking and drugging himself to death. I can’t do it again. I can’t let myself be this selfish anymore.
Rest in peace Ashley. I still miss you.