Sorry, I guess I'm on a roll.
Richie had been a member of BC for...I'll say three years. And even though I knew who he was, I can't say that I had ever talked to him much. He drove the church bus and he occasionally picked up my brother and other young teenagers to hang out at his house and lift weights from time to time. I did think he was cute though, and I would sometimes go out of my way to get him to notice me when he would swing by to get my brother.
On the day he helped us move, my mom bought everyone pizza. So I sat and talked with Richie and everyone else while we took a break. Richie and his friend "C", another member of BC, kept cracking jokes and making me laugh. I wanted to get to know him more. So on Sunday at church, I went out of my way to talk to him. And it must have paid off, because he asked me and a friend of mine from church "T", to hang out with him and C and play mini golf the following weekend. Of course we agreed! Now Richie was almost five years older than me. I was 16. Making him 21. But my mom trusted him because he was a solid member of our church. And we were both taking friends. So no worries.
But what ended up happening was that Richie and C called me a few days before we planned to go out and wanted to cancel our plans. And I didn't really know why. So I kept talking to them, trying to figure out what exactly the problem was. And the three of us kept talking. And talking. And finally, we were off the subject of mini golf and onto other things. And it was just me and Richie talking now, because C had gotten tired of listening to the two of us and hung up. And we talked about life and things we wanted and our goals and things we liked to do. It was amazing. No guy had ever talked to me this way before. No boy had ever sat down and cared enough to listen to what I thought. We talked for 8 hours that night. 7 hours the following night. 6 hours the next. Richie decided that he really did want to go mini golfing on Saturday, and the four of us had a great time hanging out together. I was so happy! Richie and I kept talking and hanging out for a while after that. We moved into our new home around the beginning of July, and on August 15th, he more or less asked if I would be his girlfriend. And of course I said yes!
After that we were pretty much inseparable. Lots of people, including my Pastor, advised against us seeing each other, but my mom trusted him, so that was that. He would come to see me all the time. He would visit me after work and come pick me up after school. We would go to see movies and go out to eat and hang out with friends. I was loving every minute of it. Here was this nice guy, a CHRISTIAN guy, that wanted to be with me and talk to me and hang out with me. It was almost unbelievable. Too good to be true. I looked forward to his phone calls every night. I couldn't wait for him to come pick me up. I was falling for this guy fast and furiously. And I really thought he was Heaven sent. I thought God had sent him to me so that I could lean on Richie and become a great Christian. But that was the problem right there. I wanted to lean on Richie, when I needed to lean on God.
And things started out slow...we would hold hands as he was driving. We would hug before I went in the house. But after a while I wanted more. Because I was confused, and thought love meant kissing. And love meant touching. Because that was the only love that made sense to me. Oh I believed in the kind of love that left sexual intimacy for marriage, but deep down I never thought that would happen for me. I didn't think I would be able to find it. So I started taking chances. I would give Richie a quick peck on the lips or touch the outside of his leg. And we would get into arguments over it, because we both knew that it could lead to more. And that wasn't what we wanted. Or at least that's what we told each other. But it seemed like every time we would set boundaries, we would go out of our way to break them. We both feared the Lord, but neither one of us feared Him enough.
And as all this was going on, I began to realize that Richie wasn't exactly the strong Christian that I thought he was. He definitely loved God and desired to walk with Him, but we were both immature Christians struggling to get things right. We played a good part in church, but if you looked hard enough, you could see our cracks. We were young, we were stupid, and we were full of pride and arrogance. We were a dangerous combination. And we had freedom to pretty much do whatever we liked. So, so dangerous.
And on October 15th, just two months after we had first started "going out," Richie told me he loved me. And I told him I loved him too. And I did. In my own way. It wasn't the kind of love God intended. It wasn't the type of love that I would be capable of in the future, but it was the only love I could give him. And I did give it too him. I gave myself to him. On that night, Richie and I had sex for the first time. And all the while I was thinking how lucky I was, how wonderful everything was going to be...and I ignored the coldness I felt within my heart and the part of me that wanted to sit in a corner and cry.
After that, there was no stopping us. It was the first thing we did when we got together. It was the last thing we did before he took me home. Sometimes I would get friends of mine to tell my mom I was sleeping over their houses when I would be sleeping at Richie's. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. And I was loving it. I felt so special and so beautiful and so..complete. I thought this was all I needed. I thought this was what love was supposed to be. I even convinced myself that God would be ok with it once Richie and I got married. Then it would all be forgotten. We were still going to church, I was still going to my Pastor's house, I still loved his family (which had now grown to six), but none of it held the same luster as before. My life with Richie took precedence. That was all that mattered to me now.
At one point, my mom found a journal I had been keeping and read about some of the things I had been doing with Richie. She put an end to it right then and there. This was around the beginning of January. I was devastated. I felt like I couldn't breathe. But Richie and I vowed we would still see each other, so he gave me a cell phone so we could stay in contact with one another. He came to visit me while my mom was still at work. I still had friends telling my mom I was sleeping over their houses, when I would really be with him. We saw each other in church and had to pretend that we hadn't seen each other the night before. I was fighting with my mom a lot more. I was hurting because I wanted to be able to see him without being sneaky. I was so afraid of getting caught. But I couldn't stop myself. I wanted to see him more than anything. I felt like no one or nothing could stop me. I even called my dad in the midst of this and made up with him in an effort to win him over to Richie's side. I wanted him to be supportive. I wanted him to tell me that my mom was wrong and I was right.
My life was in shambles, my walk with God further than it had ever been, and that was the last thing on my mind. Richie consumed my every thought and every action. I was trying to play the part in church, mend my relationship with my father, rebel against my mothers decisions, sneak around and see Richie, go to school, deal with the guilt from all that I was doing...was it any wonder things came crashing to the ground?
And come crashing did it ever, because in April, I found out I was pregnant.
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