Looking Forward

Maine to Florida and back again

It all started innocently enough. A friend told me “he’s all into you”. I laughed, “right” I replied. Later that week I went to a party where he confessed his ‘All into me-ness’. I found it odd, but flattering. He was a smart guy, funny, lots of friends…this might not be so bad. He was a sophomore in college, I’d been a freshman until I dropped out.

Things moved quickly. Very quickly. We started dating in April of 1996 and were living together by June of 1996. We were asked to drive a friend of his fathers car from maine to florida for them. So we did, and were going to stay with his father while we were there. There was no definite return date, it felt all very spontaneous and fun.

On the trip down, as it started getting dark, the car broke down in Alabama, POURING rain like I’d never seen before, thunder, lightening…We coasted into a gas station. I got out of the car and walked across the parking lot. Lightening hit the hill next to the parking lot I was walking across, a super bright flash and the immediate crash of thunder made me scream and jump….then i started crying. I was scared. Away from home, exhusted, not knowing where we were, no money…He walked up next to me. I was sobbing, “I want to go home.” Rather than giving me a hug and saying things would be ok, he started hollering at me. “IF YOU WANT TO GO HOME, FINE! GO! IM NOT KEEPING YOU HERE!” He was glaring at me, expecting me to…I dont know…apologize? But instead i just stood there crying in the pouring rain and he walked away. I got back into the car and wondered how the hell I’d ended up here.

Once we made it to Florida, the reality of the unpreparedness became glaringly apparent. The trailer his father lived in did not have room for us. so we slept in the back of his fathers station wagon in the driveway. Which was fine by me because the trailer was disgusting. It was dirty, the floor was falling in in the living room, the water never got cold or hot, always room tempature. The bathroom was COVERED in mold. The mail order bride and her two children were unhappy at the idea of guests.

After us being there for a few days his father built a “room” onto the outside of the trailer with green sheets of hard plastic, like for a temporary roof. We stayed in there for almost a month. In Florida. In August. I was desperate for some kind of relief from the heat, but with no car, we were trapped. He would go out and work with his father, painting or sheet rocking new homes – making money supposedly, though I never saw any of it.

He would ‘joke around’ about sex, always saying if i loved him I’d do this or that. he knew I was excited at the prospect of being married, so he’d say if I wanted an engagement ring, I needed to do certiain things… Despite me crying in the middle of it, he didnt seem to mind – as I would later learn, nothing was about me, it was ALWAYS about him.

Whenever I’d ask about leaving, I missed my family and friends, he’d get mad and tell me I could leave whenever I wanted. I didn’t realize this wasnt a trip for US, but me tagging along with him. I was 19, I’d never really traveled before…I didn’t know what to do. So I stayed. He had school starting in September. We had to go back eventually.

At the end of August, he’d managed to save enough for two bus tickets home, and we left Florida.  Once we got back to Maine, we had no place to live, so he asked me to ask my parents if we could live with them temporarily. Clearly my parents were NOT happy about it, but they agreed, but only for 6 months, and we had to pay rent.