Chapter 2
The Beginning of the End Part 2

To this day, I still regret it. I can pin point the exact moment I let my life turn into a living hell. I should have said something to him; I should have done something, anything when it started, but instead I kept it bottled up which cost me the love of my life.

I received the first cryptic letter about a week before classes started. Its only contents "Don't believe him," printed on the middle of the page. I looked at the envelope but there was no return address. I thought someone was merely playing a prank so I threw it away. However, things didn't stop there. I continued to receive letter after letter after letter. Each letter contained messages such as "Don't believe him,""He's lying,"and so on. I was confused, not knowing who or what the letters were pertaining to. I quite frankly wasn't that concerned until three weeks after I got the first letter.

At the time, I figured it would be like all the others but this one, this one was different. "He's cheating on you." Suddenly all the other letters made sense. But I still didn't believe them. That was until the pictures started coming.

At first it only showed Charles out with a couple other guys and a few girls. None of that was particularly incriminating, but it still hurt. With my trust in him shaken, I told him to stay out of my head. He looked hurt and confused at first but seemed to accept it nonetheless. When he withdrew from my head without a single complaint, I became suspicious but didn't bring it up.

Two months went by and no more letters came so I let the issue drop. The first weekend during the third month had Charles leaving for Westchester and returning in a huff. I couldn't quite make out what he was ranting about since I was busy trying to kill the other players in Call of Duty. From the bits and pieces I did pick up, I told him that he didn't need those assholes he called his family. This seemed to appease him. Another week passed by before everything fell apart.

I left to meet our group of friends at Sue's Country Kitchen for dinner. It wasn't too far so I decided to walk, stopping to check the mail on my way out. There was only one envelope; it was big with no return address, tipping me off right away. Figuring it was like all the others, but curious as to why this one happened to be bigger, I opened it. There were two prints of the same picture but what I saw on them made my heart stop. I tried to tell myself not to believe it; there was no way it could be true. But how could I not believe it with the evidence staring me straight in the face. Of course, as I'm prone to do, I reacted with anger.

When I got to the quaint little restaurant Raven, Hank, Alex, and Sean were already waiting outside. I was so angry and upset that when Raven asked what was wrong I didn't hesitate to show all of them the picture. They couldn't believe it at first either, but with the evidence right there they couldn't deny it. Hank was the only skeptic but in our mutual rage we all shut him down before he could even formulate a theory.

Charles was late which gave my anger time to simmer down. His lateness allowed me to come to the conclusion that I'd let him explain himself. However, that all changed when Charles actually showed up; my rage reigniting within seconds of seeing his form.

Raven was the first to explode, followed closely by Alex and Sean, but it was when he went to deny the affair that my anger spiked. In my rage of anger, I threw one of the pictures of him kissing some girl at his chest. I yelled at him, said we were through, and left. The others followed behind except for Hank, which Raven -god, did she have him on a short leash- immediately remedied.

Charles tried calling and texting, but I refused to answer. Two years. We had been together for two whole years. I was gonna ask him to move in with me. I was even beginning to imagine a future of just him and I. At the time, I was glad I hadn't. Now, though, thanks to the power of hindsight, I regret not asking when I had the chance.

Eventually Charles stopped for the night, but resumed again in the morning. I hadn't slept a wink so I decided to read the first text. He mentioned something about being evicted. I didn't care and I didn't answer.

I spent Thanksgiving at my apartment, with Raven and the others coming over for dinner. Mother called, I told her what had happened. She couldn't believe what had happened. She tried defending him, telling me that Charles wasn't that kind of person. I all but refused to listen, leaving the conversation with a simple "Please… Just drop it."

Finals came and went. I received a text from Charles for the first time in weeks claiming he was pregnant. To say I was livid would be an understatement. That night was not a good one for the metal in my apartment; I went on a massacre. I phoned him back, calling him out on how much of a pathetic little whore he was. I'm pretty sure it was made clear that I never wanted to hear from his lying ass ever again. There was no more contact after that.

Raven had confiscated Hank's phone so he couldn't talk to the "traitor." It confused me when one day Hank asked me for all the photos I had gotten in those letters. I wondered why but didn't ask, just handed them over.

A week later, two days before Christmas, Hank got everyone together. What he revealed horrified me. I don't remember much, but apparently I ran to the bathroom and threw up. One second I was staring at Hank's computer listening to him talk about how much time, work, and effort it had taken to find a person in the exact pose necessary who was also just the right height and the next second I was sitting on the bathroom floor while Raven wiped my face with a wash cloth. I would have taken the cloth from her had I not felt so shell-shocked.

I just… I couldn't believe it. The pictures… they were fakes. Every pose came from Facebook pictures of Charles and I. Hell, Hank said Charles and the girl were literally just Photo-shopped onto a picture of the Cambridge University library, making it look like they were kissing in front of the steps. The girl wasn't even in the US! Her profile said she was currently studying abroad and had been for two years. What hurt the most was that the position Charles was in came from my favorite picture. Of us. Together…

It was about six months after Charles and I got together, the whole crew had come over to my place for game night. We had just sat down to play 'Sour Apples to Apples' when I got a call telling me that my mother was in the hospital. I freaked out. I was on the complete other side of the Atlantic with no way for me to get to her! I was pacing and working myself up into a panic attack when Charles stepped forward. He suddenly pushed me onto the couch and cupped my face between his hands, foreheads nearly touching, and said to me, "Look at me Erik. Look only at me and breathe because everything is going to be alright." I realized in that moment that I loved Charles more than anything. Neither of us had realized Raven had taken a picture of that precious moment until one day she handed us each a frame with the print inside.

When I was able to get off the floor of Hank's bathroom without feeling nauseous, I tried calling Charles. All I got was a recording saying his phone had been disconnected. I thought back to the text about his eviction and instantly felt the panic rise in my chest. It must have shown clear as day on my face because Raven asked what was wrong. I could barely get my throat to work but somehow I managed to slip out that we needed to go to Charles's apartment.

When we arrived I knocked frantically on his door only to have some stranger answer. When asked, the person explained that they had just moved in. I didn't wait for them to finish; I raced straight to the building manager's door. He told me that Charles was ordered out of his apartment by Kurt Marko - the asshole he called his step-father- and that he didn't know Charles' whereabouts. I felt so heavy-hearted that words refused to leave my mouth, leaving me to just walk away.

I told myself that I'd find Charles at the beginning of the semester, apologizing and begging for forgiveness. The only problem, I couldn't find him. When I looked up his name, he wasn't registered for any classes. He was just gone, completely and utterly gone.

I -barely- managed to finish the semester and graduate without Charles. The night I got a job at Thorneycroft Engineering, I was so excited. I ran home and shouted out to Charles that I had got the job. The only response I was met with was silence. I cried that night. Sure, I got the job I had been dreaming of, but, without Charles by my side, it seemed worthless. I had lost the light of my life, mein liebling, and I had no one to blame but myself. If I hadn't disregarded what Charles had said about being pregnant; if I had remembered that he wasn't, in fact, lying about that, I would have tried harder to find him. As it was, I didn't find happiness again until 7 years later. Even then, he made me work for it.