“Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day; or the agonies which are have their origins in ecstasies which might have been. ”
—Edgar Allan Poe

Jorge and I met in a technical arts college. Every program starts out with a couple of Gen Ed classes. I was in Film and my two roommates were in Digital Arts Media. Catreena, Myra and myself sat in a row and with the excitement of being out away from family, having a month before school to really get acquainted and accustomed to one another and starting a school that was solidly based on our interests (no academics like algebra and trig or college comp) was enough to have us giggling and joking before the class started.

Treena noticed Jorge first and was interested because he was opposite of everything she usually went for. Her norm was little ghetto boys like the ones that the Recording Arts program tended to attract. Jorge noticed me and was interested because I was cute and little and that’s what he liked. I fit the profile, you could say. Somehow he and I started talking online outside of the joking Tree, My and I used to do with him since he sat in front of us in class. There was a bet and if I was right he had to take me to get some ice cream. I ended up being right and he asked while we were leaving the building if I wanted to go. I said sure, but since I’m shy when people get me alone and I’m not stupid just to go off with him, as he is a 6’3″ Colombian who was cute, but you just never know. He could probably kill me blinded with one arm tied behind his back. I’m 5’2″ and at the time my weight was a buck o 5. So I turn and yell to My “Wanna go to DQ with us?” and she comes along as my punky third wheel. Jorge was annoyed with this, I find out later.

Jorge, before going into his major, wanted to change it. My and Tree are were trying to talk him into D.A. and he looked to me and asked my major. I told him Film and so he decided he wanted Film, too. Each program is an accelerated program so classes range between 4-8 weeks depending on the intensity of the class. Since Jorge and I started classes at the same time, we had all the same classes together.

I moved in with Tree and My in March, we started classes in April. June is My’s birthday and I should have had a small hint of what I was getting myself into at her huge birthday bash we had. When I am loaded I am fun and happy and sociable. I am a fun drunk and my personality may be exaggerated, but it’s still happy and fun. I was bouncing around talking to people and joking and killing it at beer pong and doing shots of tequila with Tree. Well when I was out on our balcony I was talking to a guy who was sitting to the right of me with the his back to the slider and Jorge was across from me. I don’t remember the incident of the guy touching my leg like Jorge claimed, but Jorge breaks an empty long neck beer bottle he had been drinking with one hand. Had I not been drunk, or foolishly in lust with him, I would have taken this as a serious warning. Instead, my drunk ass is getting things and mending his hand. It never gets brought up after that day and I never told anyone until after our relationship was over.

Another night I had been with Tree and My at their friend’s apartment and everyone was doing shrooms. I had never done a shroom so I figured what the hell. Jorge was quite the druggie in his youth and quit everything when he turned 18. He had been trying to get ahold of me and asking what I was doing. I didn’t feel shit from the shrooms so I tell him to meet me at my apartment. He’s angry that I was out, at least that’s what I think it was, but when we are arguing he notices my eyes are dilated and asks what I’ve been doing. I tell him and he blows up. I keep trying to tell him I’m not even high or trippin’ or whatever shrooms do to you. He doesn’t care. I go into the bathroom and look at my eyes and to me they looked fine, they reacted normally to the bathroom light. I tell him I m going to take a bath and then I hear a bang followed shortly by a slamming front door. I get out and I see he’d grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed it into my bedroom door. Sign number 2.

Tree, My and I end up fighting about the fact I am always with Jorge and he is always at our apartment. I am mad at Tree because she cannot seem to keep from going into my room when I’m not home. I move out into my own place near where Jorge lives with his mom and sister.

December comes and Jorge’s family takes me to New York with them for Christmas vacation. We stay in Queens with Jorge’s Uncles. One morning when we are getting ready to leave, I’m on the floor shoving my clothes into a suitcase. Jorge picks up an empty coke bottle and tosses it my way saying I need to go throw it away, it hits me in the head. So I grab it as he is standing at the corner of the bed behind me and swing back to whap him on the calf. Before it even makes contact he grabs my arms and whooshes me up bringing me within an inch of his face and screams (paraphrased), if you ever try to hit me again I’ll fucking kill you, bitch. Then throws me like a rag doll onto the bed. I may have been scared but I yelled something at him and ran up the stairs and as I was on my way out of the house his mother yells down asking what was going on.

“I thought I understood it. But I didn’t. I knew the smudginess of it. The eagerness of it. The Idea of it. Of you and me.”
—Anna Like Crazy

I run up to tell her and his sister and his mom’s response is never to raise a hand to a man. One, I was on the floor. Two, I didn’t think he was serious about anything until he had me face to face. So I said whatever and walked out of the house and called my mom and sister in hysterics. They were about to book me a flight home when Jorge kept calling. We made up and when we got back, my apartment had been robbed and I still needed to finish school so my only option was to move in with him and his family.

That was fun. I fought with his sister, I fought with him, I fought with his mom; it was drama most the time. Then I found out I was pregnant. It didn’t go full term (luckily) and I ended up going home getting a D&C which Jorge refused to come with me.

Jorge was strange. The longer our relationship went, the more he didn’t want to come down with me to see my family and friends, eventually he didn’t want me going at all. We fought and I ended up moving out for good after school when he’d held me down and yelled as loud as he could into my ear. And he tore up the caricature of us that I bought from Islands of Adventure. When he tore that up, I wanted to destroy him. The last time I saw him was November 13, a while after I had moved out, I drove up to talk with him and to figure out if we were done for good.

Even with all that shit, I don’t know if I will feel as much love for anyone else as I did for him. It was crazy, passionate, insane love. He never struck me, but he isolated me, was verbally abusive at times (me too), was not afraid to show how jealous and controlling he could be. But I could be me around him. I was most comfortable with him. I had no fear of intimacy with him.

I think this is why Alice’s relationship with Dipshidiot scares me. I think this is exactly why. That and the fact he looks like he would kill someone if put in the right situation.

I think with Jorge though, it was immaturity. I am not going to make excuses, but I’m also not going to say I was an angel and didn’t get violent in my own ways with Jorge.

I want that crazy, insane love again though. I want the silly yelling matches. I want the passion and love and silliness in general.

Now you get an idea, though, of the man that I still cry about every now and then. The man I can sit here and say I loved more fiercely than any other man I’ve been with. If he walked back into my life today, I don’t know if I’d be able to say no to him if he wanted our relationship back. He won’t though. It’s over.

“I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.”
—Carrie Bradshaw Sex and the City