Maybe someday he’ll understand what he did to her.  It may be next week, or it may be when he watches his daughter’s heartbreak over a boy that he knows isn’t worth it.  Either way he’ll come to understand.
            

He broke her.  She smiled and laughed in public because she wanted to come off like she was okay.  That was the thing though, she wasn’t.  It killed her to know that he didn’t care about her at all.  He hurt her, in more ways than one, but she never seemed to cross his mind.  She almost thought it was worse if she would have though.  I was already hard to hate him.  If he cared she thought it would be impossible.
            

The flash backs never seemed to go away.  The good came during the day.  They were flashes of his smile, or a joke that he had told her that never seemed to get old.  It was the way he would look at her when she was singing in the passenger seat of his car, but that was when everything seemed so simple.  Those memories had become bittersweet.  They reminded her of everything that she wanted to forget.  It was hard to hate someone that had made her so happy, but she knew that she needed too.  Those were only the good.
            

The bad came in the middle of the night in far greater numbers. They were vivid with the truth that she wished had never happened.  They reminded her of being terrified of him when he was angry. He was so much bigger than her, and damn he knew how to use it.  The flashbacks of the fights were what killed her.  She remembered the bruises that she had to hide for so long and how it hurt when he would grab her.  “I bruise easily,” she would say to cover for him.  Everyone always believed her, but she wasn’t sure when she started believing herself.
            

She remembered the time they went to a party at her friend’s house.  He had made a scene about not wanting anything to do with her while he was there, and that had hurt her feelings.  She tried to walk away from him to join her friends, but that wasn’t what he wanted.  He grabbed her by the arm and began to pull her away from the group.  “Stop!” she yelled.  “Stop! You’re hurting me!” “Please, please stop,” she tried in a lighter tone.  “You can’t force me to do anything!”  Both of their friends were there, but no one stepped in to do anything.  Later he pinned her against the car when she wouldn’t listen to what he had to say.  She decided not to bring it up later.  She didn’t want to make it worse.
            

“It’s your fault,” he would tell her when they fought.  It seemed like he could have blamed her for anything.  His mom was mad: it was her fault for having him come over that day.  His brother was acting out: he had been with her, so he couldn’t be there.  At first she thought that he was being ridiculous, but she heard it so often she wasn’t sure when she had started believing him.  Soon she thought that everything was her fault.  No matter what he did to her or how he said it, she ignored it.  It was her fault anyway.
            

Then it happened.  He blew up.  She knew that what he was doing was wrong, but all she could think about was what she had done to cause it.  He had taken her car and left her stranded at his house to scare her.  His friends had been there and he needed to prove a point.  When she brought it up with him he told her that it was her fault.  She had been making fun of him in front of his friends so she deserved it.  She had made him do it.  The worst part was she believed him.  She told him he was right.  She was sorry for being a b****.  He claimed that wasn’t what he said.  Three days later he decided he didn’t want her anymore.
            

He never checked on her after that.  While he was out having fun she was at home dying.  All that she could think about was the “what if.”  What if she hadn’t gone over there that night?  What if she has just sat there quietly like he wanted?  What if she had just apologized and moved past it. Would they still be together?  Would he still want her?   She kept telling herself that if he wanted her again she would never pick another fight.  It ate her up inside until she couldn’t even see herself anymore.
            

So he broke up with her.  Her self-confidence was shot, and honestly she was scared of ever giving someone that power over her again.  She had told him that she loved him and he still treated her like she didn’t matter.  That wasn’t enough for him.  He lied to her in the worst way possible, “I love you too.”  She believed him, and that was what killed her.  She was scared of not only him, but of herself.
            

How could she have let a boy treat her like that?  The stories she was told growing up about those girls had always been a far off dream to her. Those girls were weak. They didn’t have a mind of their own. That wasn’t who she was.  She would never let a boy hurt her, and she damn sure was never going to let a boy make her feel like she didn’t matter.  It was all so much different once she was in that situation.  It didn’t even cross her mind that what he was doing was wrong until it was too late. By that point she was already convinced it was her fault anyway.
            

So no, he may not know how badly he hurt her, but he will someday.  She went to bed pray every night that God would make her stop hurting, but he never seemed to come through.  So over time she deleted his number and blocked him on social media, but that didn’t numb the pain.  Time was all she had to hold onto for that, but even time didn’t seem to be helping her much.
            

Teen dating violence is something that needs to be addressed.  Often times these teens don’t know what to say or who to talk to.  Teens don’t want to think that the girl sitting next to them in English was hurt by the boy they sit next to in math.  Teachers don’t want to think that two of their students are capable of something like that. The issue is that they are no longer in elementary school where everyone was holding hands and singing songs.  This is real life, and teens can make their own choices. It’s time to talk about it because if it’s not more teens are going to be hurt in ways that cannot be healed. Every action has a reaction, but that reaction isn’t always a good one.