Page 4 of Pretend I’m Yours
It was bad enough that I lived in an apartment owned by my parents, and that my unlimited credit card bill went to their address. Of course, I never used the damn thing. I viewed it as something for emergencies only, and I didn’t want it to indulge in the shallow lifestyle they were very much part of. It would only be a way for them to control me anyway.
I was stubborn, I knew that for a fact, but I also didn’t care about that either. Perhaps it was the stubbornness that made me not care, but whatever it was, I knew what I wanted in my life, and I wasn’t going to let anyone pay my way for me or stand in my way of achieving my dream.
And that included my now ex-boyfriend, Brandon Carr.
I’d met Brandon at one of my family’s galas. Since they felt they paid what they owed the world by giving large donations to the police and fire departments every year, it had become common for them to throw lavish parties to celebrate, well, themselves mostly.
I didn’t particularly care for the galas, but I’d been going to them ever since I was a little girl, and I continued even as an adult. It was far easier to show up and endure the relentless questions from my extended family than to have them blowing up my phone with text messages wondering why I wasn’t there.
Or, even worse yet, speculating as to what I was really doing.
Brandon was charming at first. To my young mind, he had it all. He was on the police force, which I found to be an instant turn on. After all, even though my parents liked to throw their money around and act like they cared for the community by donating to the police, I genuinely believed someone on the force would have an actual care for the people in the city.
And, it was no secret that the police were a steady presence in the lives of many of the young boys and girls I wanted to help. Sad as it was, their broken families would often call the cops – or have the cops called on them – for one thing or another, so these boys and girls were often used to seeing men and women in uniform in or around their homes.
I’d hoped when I met Brandon that we might be able to work together in some way. Perhaps he’d be able to come with me when I volunteered at shelters and youth outreach centers and talk to the kids. Maybe he’d have some advice for me when it came to working with these young people, too.
Any way I could reach them and keep them out of trouble and off drugs and out of gangs, I’d take. I didn’t care how far I had to go or how much time I had to invest to make it happen. I wanted to see a change in the community, and I would enlist the service of anyone I knew was willing to help make that change happen.
Our relationship was magical. At least, at first. He seemed to be everything that I wanted in a man. He was there for me when I was stressed, he was independent enough that I could devote much of my time and energy to my school and not have to worry he felt neglected, and he was good looking.
He served the community and would often support me in my stance against my family.
But the longer we were together, the more things started to change with him. He became greedy, pushing me to give in to my parents’ demands and take their money. He wanted to use it for himself more often than not and didn’t understand why I wouldn’t just take it.
He pushed to move into my apartment with me soon after we started dating. And, not wanting to have any conflict with him so early in our relationship, I let him. I thought that it would be a good thing in the long run, so why wait?
Slowly but surely, however, his true colors started to show. He would lay around the place, acting like it had been built solely for his pleasure. He didn’t bother to help with any of the household chores, and he would often complain that I let the dishes pile up in the sink, or that the floors were in need of sweeping.
Of course, I didn’t have time to do all the chores as often as I would have liked. Not between volunteering at outreaches and trying to keep up with my schooling. I was working part time at a local animal shelter as well, doing my best to keep up with tuition and never touching my trust fund.
As the months turned into years, I began to resent him. He didn’t support my dream, often telling me as time passed that the kids were all doomed to end up in jail anyway. He firmly believed if that is how they were raised by their parents, then it was just a matter of time until they followed in their parents’ footsteps and entered the system themselves.
