Go Ahead and Marinade on This One

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I didn't start out as the other woman - it was never my intention.

I met the boy shortly after returning to my hometown after college. We became fast friends, and for the first time ever a boy was more interested in me that I was in him. Catching me completely off guard. I wasn't used to the attention, and I was getting plenty of it.

I was "the new girl" in a very tight group of guy friends and more than one of them had shown interest in me. I can't help it, when I'm on, I'm on - you could call me a charmer. But no matter how many boys showed their advances the only one that had me from hello was THE boy.

Things kept moving quickly, we were never officially boyfriend/girlfriend but we spent almost every day and night together (picking up what I'm throwing down?). Here I was completely infatuated and happy with this boy, and what do I do? Tell him I don't want a relationship.

Kick me now.

The boy was hurt and I quickly distract myself with the next man I can bat my eyelashes at. But I couldn't get him out of my head, because while we had stopped hooking up we were still spending plenty of time with each other, this time with just more sexual tension.

We played it off as being "best friends" but it was so much more than that. Random nights we would still hook-up causing the emotions to never really die. It was a vicious circle - until he met a new girl.

I played it off that this new girl didn't matter and I liked her - a lot. She was very much like me, dark hair and eyes, loud and outgoing. Guess he had a type. For a little under a year the boy and I didn't hook up because he had become exclusive with the girl. And I actually became pretty good friends with her, but she wasn't happy in the town we were living in, she wanted more - so she up and moved 3,000 miles away. The boy didn't go with her.

While they did the long distance thing, I kind of took on the pseudo-girlfriend role like I had been in the past. We were "friends". Lots of dinners and movies, going out with all of our friends. When mass amounts of alcohol were involved things tended to get out of control. One night he kissed me outside of the bar. I immediately freaked out playing the holier than thou card. "You have a girlfriend!", I shouted.

Meanwhile, I was completely and utterly in love with him and pulling away from him was the hardest thing in the world to do. I didn't want this to become a pattern but next weekend we found ourselves in the same situation, but this time I didn't stop him.

I woke up the next morning crying, I had never felt so sick to my stomach. Coming from a family where my father's cheating broke up my parents marriage I never ever thought I would be in this situation. But here I was making bad decisions, thinking he was going to break up with her, she was so many miles away and he was here with me. I had it all rationalized out in my head.

On my 25th birthday of that year the pattern remained the same, the boy and I drank our faces off and then hooked-up.

Six weeks later I realized I was pregnant.

The weird thing was that I never even thought about keeping it. I wasn't ready to have a baby, I was too young, I wasn't married, this wasn't supposed to happen this way. I felt numb but I knew what I had to do. I had an abortion and carried on with my life.

Thanksgiving of that year I found myself face to face with the boy's girlfriend. I couldn't make eye contact with her, she knew something was up. I confessed almost everything to her, being slightly vague. That night I wish I had a filter but I didn't - I'm terrible at lying to someone's face. To say the least, she was upset.

Things happened very quickly from that point. The girl threatened to break up with him if he didn't move to the city she was residing in. I was a mess, completely heart broken and angry at myself for what I did. I couldn't handle being around him anymore - it was over.

We both picked up and moved to new separate cities the same week of each other. The first few months it was really hard. It was for the best, it's almost like we needed to be found out so that we could get out of the unethical rut we were both in and grow from it. The weird thing is we still talk, we have a lot of friends in common so it is pretty inevitable. But we have individually come to peace with the past.

At this point I just hope that the bad karma I got from that situation has worn away. It took a lot of time for me to realize that the blame was not completely on me - it wasn't all my fault. He had a lot to do with it too, probably taking advantage of all the love in my eyes.

Oh yeah, and the boy married the girl this past summer. Just not this girl. Me, I'm still looking, but this time with a lot more wisdom.