Part 16: Is This Worth It?

 For my parents anniversary in 2019, they decided to go away to Tofino for the weekend and leave me at home to watch my siblings. I watched them all the time, but this was my first time watching them overnight. We started the day off at church but left after one hour to go home and eat lunch. Once we're home, we hear the doorbell ring. We had obviously been taught about basic stranger danger, so we knew to check the security cameras before we went to answer the door. But when we walk over to the camera screen, we see a man that we don't recognize. He has rang the doorbell, but as we're watching him live on the screen, he starts to look in our windows. After he looks in the windows, he starts to go through the mailbox, then walks over to our big window that looks into our living room and he looks inside. He then speaks into the door camera, saying something we can't quite make out. Then, he walks to the end of the driveway, takes a picture of our house and walks up the street. Did I mention we were watching this live on the cameras?

What am I supposed to do here? Some strange man is looking in our windows and took a picture of our house, I have three anxious siblings home with me without any parents and I don't know what my next steps should be. I decide to start by contacting my parents in Tofino. I send them the video of the man, fully expecting them to say that it's no big deal and everything is fine. My dad responds with, "Okay. That is weird enough that you should probably call the police." Okay, so dad was worried so it was actually bad. I try to keep my calm but I start to freak out. They tell me to set the alarm on the house and lock all of the doors. They call my uncle Jason to come be with us and ask around the neighborhood to see if anyone saw anything similar. Holly, who is anxious, curls up into a ball on the couch and starts to cry. Jason arrives shortly and after talking to the neighbors, none of them know who this man is. The police advise Jason to remove us from the house so that they can observe the area, at least until my parents get home. 

We go over to Lisa and Jason's house and show them episodes of The Office. I try to distract myself from what had happened earlier and how disturbed I was. Luckily, we lived to tell the tale and all was well. 

Things with Gaston and I are pretty rocky. I have graduated high school and he is just entering his senior year. He tells me that he's really busy all the time so he barely even answers my texts. He will text me good morning, ignore my messages all day and then I will say goodnight and he will say, "Love you." Everyday is the same. We still see each other on Saturdays. Only Saturdays and it's usually a fight to get him to ask his parents if he can go out. I have passed my driving test but he failed his, so I usually have to drive us. On New Years Eve, we have plans to go to a party with his friends. He is meant to pick me up at 7:00 but he doesn't show up until 10:00. Even his close friends are appalled by this and they tell him that he should treat me better. 

A few weeks after that, Gaston and I are supposed to hang out at the mall and then see a movie. My mom dropped me off right when the date was supposed to start and I was left there to wait for Gaston. Time starts to go by and he isn't there. He hasn't texted or given me any heads up that he's going to be late. Eventually, he answers me and tells me that he's out with a friend. That's okay, no big deal. He's already half an hour late but I can wait. Another half hour goes by, then another half hour, and he still isn't there. I text him and say that this is a terrible thing for him to do. I have no way to get home, I couldn't possibly tell my parents that I had been stood up by my boyfriend that they already didn't like. I tell him that he better get there soon because we're already late for our movie. He chose his friend over me. He was too embarrassed to tell a group of people that he had plans with his girlfriend and so I got stood up while he played Xbox with his stupid friends. 

When he finally shows up, he is smiling, he comes in for a big hug and kiss with a huge apology for being late (two hours late at this point, mind you). At first, I am so mad. I won't hug him, when he walks up to me, I just walk away trying not to cry. But I love him, and if I'm upset with him he might leave me. So I quickly surrender, forgive him and go on with the date. Part of me was starting to get the sense that this wasn't going to work out. Gaston was not nice to me. I grew up with parents that loved each other so I knew what love was like. I did love Gaston but I knew I deserved better than this. Unfortunately, the idea of not being together anymore was just too painful. We were just about to hit three years of being together. It felt like there was no life before him and there couldn't be any life after him. I was also completely alone in this decision because anyone I would talk to about it would tell me to leave him instantly. So I put on a face that we were really happy. Maybe if I faked it long enough, it would make it real.