Chris and I had been dating on and off for about a year or so, and we had a lot of problems. He always had anger problems though; his whole family did now that I come to think of it. They all had some type of way to deal with them; too they didn’t help them deal at al. You see my Chris, he came from a long line of them, and every one of them had a hitting problem. Hitting things, breaking things and sometimes hitting people. He would drink and get angry because of his life. He said his life was horrible, and then go on to say that I was his life. I want you to know that I did everything for Christopher; I really and truly tried my hardest to make him happy; so much so, that I ended up making myself sick.

It was Christmas 2009, and I was supposed to be spending the night as his house. I spent so much time with him and his family after they moved from up from Florida. We met on a cruise and we really hit it off. Love at first sight, he called it. We always joked that we would get married, and that I would be his Mrs. He got me a promise ring a few months before Christmas and I accepted, he got himself one too it was really cute. We engraved the date that we met on them and Christopher and Carla forever. I wore it in on a chain around my neck because I’m not really a ring person. But tonight was our second Christmas together. He said “ Carla Domenica, I am in love with you and will always be. Will you marry me?” and it hit me like a brick. The way Chris was I didn’t want to marry him. Not that I wanted him to change, But I couldn’t be married to a Jekyll and Hyde, whether I loved him or not.

Saying no to him was honestly the hardest thing I ever had to do actually, the second hardest. The first was something I still picture. After the proposal, I for obvious reasons didn’t think that it would be a good idea to stay the night. So I drove myself home. Which was really horrible, I remember crying all the way home, walking into my door at ten, then crying some more; my family had no idea what happened yet. I really had no desire to talk about it. Once I got over crying, I went to bed. Chris called me around two that night, ill never forget what he said.
“Carla, ill always love you. Okay?” and he just hung up.
I was out of it completely and had no idea what just happened, so I just went back to sleep.
The phone rang again around 12, I was still sleeping then but it was a different ring tone. Chris’s mother was calling me, and she knew what happened last night because she heard Chris calling after me. I didn’t really want to talk to her but I out of respect, answered anyway. She had called to tell me, that the boy that I was in love with was dead. I won’t tell you the exact words she said because thinking about them still breaks my heart every time. He had taken his own life, something that I had been afraid of for him for a long time.

I can’t tell you very much about what I did after I hung up the phone that day, not because I don’t want to, but because I blocked it from my memory forever. But I do know that I drove over there to read something that he had left me. I didn’t really believe that he would do this, so I had to travel to see this for myself. When I got there, there were cops everywhere. I guess that his mom told the officer at the door to let me in because he moved out of the way when I got there, no questions asked. It was a mad house when I got in. Christopher’s niece ran to me when I saw her, she kept asking me why he was sleeping standing up.
When I saw Nancy, Christopher’s mother, she handed me a letter, written on the envelope in Christopher’s handwriting was my name. That was the most awful letter that I’ve ever read. He basically said that his death was my fault. He blamed me for every problem that he’s ever had. He always used me as a scapegoat. Every little thing I did always made him angry.
The day of his funeral was honestly the worst day of my life. I hadn’t really taken in the fact that I was burying the guy that I loved. It was horrible, and it was only getting worse. After the funeral my phone started to ring. Chris had a dog, named Spark. He was the cutest little thing in the world, but he loved climbing. I guess that no one really thought to find Chris’s phone and shut it off. I guess spark must have climbed on the desk and sat on it, or moved it on the floor, because it called me. I couldn’t believe it. I closed my eyes and prayed this wasn’t a joke.