(I)
My love for Sydney didn't start to fade until about six years into our relationship. It really did feel like we were heading down a road leading to nowhere. We had plenty of good times; however, the bad times were starting to outweigh the good. Love was starting to become “not enough”. The constant bickering, the nonstop attitudes for no reason, it was all really annoying and unnecessary. I needed full clarity. Should I put in more effort to help make this relationship strive or should I call it quits because I want more than what she is giving?
“Why do you want to be with me?”, I asked her.
“Because I already made you mines. I don't want anyone else, and I don't want you with anyone else”, she responded.
“So, it's not because you love and care for me? It sounds like you just want to hold on to the relationship itself”, I replied.
“I do love you, Myles. You know I do. I want us to have the world”, she said.
Ultimately, I decided to end our relationship. We had been together since junior year of high school, and we had been through a lot as a couple. I wanted something that would remain solid and strong, no matter what we went through. The type of “realness” that was undeniable. Surely, it was time to move on.
(II)
I met Katrina about two months later. I wasn't really looking for anything serious since I did just recently end a long-term relationship, but Katrina was so cool and down to earth, I couldn't let her get away. I didn't want to tell her I wasn't ready because I didn't want her thinking I was seeing other people. If she was taken by the time I was “ready”, I would have been so crushed. I knew that I would become ready once I got to know her more and she was already off to a really good start. She made me feel comfortable and I loved talking to her.
We were together for seven months before everything just went bad. I had called her one day and her mother, whom I’ve never met, answered the phone.
“Hello”, she answered.
“Um, hi? Trina around?”, I replied.
She instantly broke out crying.
“Is everything ohkay?”, I worriedly asked.
“Someone beat her into a coma this morning”, she responded.
“What! Where is she?”, I said.
She told me which hospital they were in, and I was on my way. I couldn’t believe it. Who would do this to her? I arrived at the hospital, and I met her mother for the first time. Obviously, this is not how I wanted to meet her mother. She left the room and went down to the cafeteria. She wanted to give me a minute alone with Katrina.
She was definitely beaten bad. Black eyes, broken nose, busted lips and eardrums, and all her limbs were casted up. Thats just external, so I'm sure her internal wasn’t looking good either. My eyes filled with tears, and I got so mad. Who did this! I was staring at her, just imagining all the pain she was in and how scared she must have been. Her left eye began to open and when she noticed it was me standing over her, she looked scared. It looked like she was trying to speak, and I told her that if it hurts, then don’t speak. But it's like she didn't care. She wanted to talk through the pain.
“Get... away... from... me”, she angrily whispered.
“Huh”, I responded because I was confused.
“This happened because of you. Those girls did this because of you!”, she said.
“Katrina! What are you talking about?”, I responded.
“There were these four girls, and they said that they were doing this for some girl name Sydney and that I need to stay away from her man”, she replied.
I’m like, “.... Sydney? I haven’t talked to her in months.”
“They almost killed me, Myles. They told me to back off and that is exactly what I am going to do. There is a reason why I do not talk to guys with crazy exes, and I never thought it would be this extreme, but this is one of the reasons why,” she said.
“Katrina, listen. I will get to the bottom of this, but please, do not let us go.”, I said to her.
“I can't, Myles. I would have to have my guard up at all times, not knowing the next time she decides to attack me. I don’t want to live like that,” she cried.
She was scared and my heart was breaking. She was right though. She shouldn’t have to live in fear. I said ohkay and that I understood. With tears in my eyes, I left the hospital.
That same day, I went down to the court to file a restraining order against Sydney. I showed them previous text messages between Sydney and I after the breakup that showed she was, for lack of a better word, obsessed. I told them I felt like things were coming up missing in my home and I even mentioned the fact that I believed she had something to do with putting my girlfriend in the hospital. I just couldn’t prove it. They granted the restraining order. I went back to show Katrina, but of course a piece of paper did not put her mind at ease, and she wanted nothing to do with me.
(III)
About ten months later, Moriah and I met while I was out one day running errands. I had made a stop at Sweet Delight Donuts because they had a special going on- get a dozen glazed for $4.99, when the normal price is $11.99. She was already there, waiting for her order, and we locked eyes soon as I entered the store. She smiled and looked back down at her phone. I stood in line, waited my turn. She received her order, and as she walked toward the door, we locked eyes again, she smiled again, and then she left. I received my order and left the store. As I'm walking back to my car, I hear this woman who was trying to get my attention.
“Excuse me, hi”, she said.
“Hey”, I responded as I smiled a little.
“I’m Moriah and I’ve been out here trying to figure out how to approach you, but you came out faster than what I had expected.”, she said with a little bit of nervousness.
“Well, this is new,” I responded, “Never had a girl approach me before.”
“Yeah, well, I saw you and I just couldn't leave here without knowing if you were already spoken for”, she said.
I smiled and said, “Well, I'm not.”
I hadn’t seen or heard from Sydney in almost a year so I figured she finally moved on and therefore, I can finally move on too. We talked some more and exchanged phone numbers. We were together for the next year and a half.
We went out to dinner for date night, and the night was wonderful. We had a few drinks, we conversated, and we ate a lot. Like, literally! Our bill was over two hundred and fifty dollars. But we had a good time. We went back home that night and we made love. But roughly two hours after we laid down, she woke up out her sleep with this intense pain in her stomach. We both were thinking that maybe that salmon she ate just wasn't cooked right and we chalked it up to a really bad case of food poisoning. She took some medicine, and we both went back to sleep. Sadly, I would never have her again. We slept for the next four hours. And when I woke up, she was shaking and sweating. She was sweating so bad that she was leaving a puddle in the bed.
“Mo, you ohkay?”, I asked.
“I don’t know. I think something is wrong”, she shakily responded.
I said ohkay and we got her dressed and I helped her into the car. She randomly started talking about her pet cat she had when she was like ten. I looked at her weird like what are you talking about? And then there was this silence. She was silent. I looked over and began calling her name.
.... I'm calling her, but she is not responding. I pulled up to the ER entrance and rushed to her side. I picked her up and I could already feel it in my soul. My eyes started feeling with tears and I was ready to break down. But I was already at the finish line. Maybe they could still help her. I screamed “help!” and to bring a gurney. I begged them to save her, but it was already too late. They did all they could do on their end, but after surgery, she was declared brain dead. How did this happen? It was only food poisoning. And because of the description of our night, that's what the doctors thought too. How could such a beautiful evening turn into one of the saddest nights of my life. I was down for a while after that. I never been through the death of a girlfriend before. Or course, I’ve had heartbreaks, and women and I have departed ways before, absolutely. But the departure being due to the departed, yeah, that hit different.
(IV)
It took a long time for me to wake up and not think about her. She will forever be in my heart, but I need to keep living. She would want me to. However, I noticed how my luck with women was changing and not for the better. And it all started after Sydney. I know that Sydney was involved in Katrina’s attack, but I can't prove it since Katrina won't talk to me and has deleted me from her entire life. And Moriah never evened mentioned Sydney’s name to me. I hadn't heard from or seen Sydney since I stopped talking to her and I hadn’t heard her name since I filed the restraining order. I was thinking that Sydney was actually respecting the restraining order.
It took me two and a half years before I started dating again. I felt like my life was spinning uncontrollably and I took some time to refocus. I frequently went to the gym and that's where I met Nina. In the beginning, everything was cool. She was so happy, and she laughed a lot. But as the relationship went on, and the more we fought about frivolous, nonimportant things, the more closed off she became. She, sometimes, made me feel like she did not want to be around me, which would make me feel some type of way.
We dated for about two years before we decided that we both needed some space from each other. A little time apart will allow us to miss each other and to see if we could find our way back to each other. Instead of going to the gym, I started doing more workouts at home, just in case Nina was still attending. It's not really space if we still running into each other all the time. About two weeks later, around eight o’clock at night, I received a phone call from Nina. I was beyond excited. All the times I wanted to crack and call her. I missed her so much, but we did need this time apart. When I answered the phone, there was complete silence. I said “hello” multiple times before I hung up the phone. What was that? Was she really on the other end of that phone, just scared to talk? Or did she accidently butt dial me? Should I call back? So many questions were running through my head. I was so excited, but the no response had left me so confused.
I decided to take a chance and went over to her house. Before I knocked, I took a deep breath. I was really hoping that this was the right move to make, not the wrong one. Will she be excited to see me too or was it really just an accidental butt-dialed call? Should I just turn around and go home? My excitement was turning into fright-ness and nervousness. But I really did miss her, and I wanted to see her. So, I knocked. She answered the door and her face lit up like a Christmas tree. That made me so thrilled. She hugged me so tight and kissed me so hard. She clearly missed me too and I loved that. We made loved that night and everything was starting to feel right again. The next morning, we both went to work and agreed to meet later at the gym.
We had text each other to meet around 8pm and when I got there around 815pm, there were cops everywhere. The gym was evacuated so I started looking around for Nina, but I didn't see her. Maybe she wasn't there yet. But then I saw the paramedics carry out a body, that's when I got scared. I called her phone and the bag that one of the paramedics was holding, started vibrating and I instantly fell to my knees. Not again. This cannot be happening again. The paramedic saw me when I fell and rushed over to me.
“Sir, how do you know the decease?”, he asked.
I looked up at him, and I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn't hear a thing. There was this steady ring, just ringing in my ears, and I could not take my eyes off that ambulance. The paramedics had seen that I wasn't responding to any of their questions, and they could see that I was clearly in shock. They helped me get up from the ground and they drove me to the hospital with Nina’s lifeless body.
“What happened to her?”, I finally spoke.
“She was found unresponsive at the deep end of the pool. We’re thinking she accidently drowned,” the paramedic responded.
What are the odds that I have two girlfriends die, back-to-back like that? Am I cursed? Why does this keep happening to me? My heart is literally shattering, and I don't know how much more I can take?
(V)
There was a point where I had my mind set on spending the rest of my life alone, and I was only in my early thirties. To me, my love life equaled death and heartache. It was sorrow and sadness, and it was something I was just done going through. I even thought I was cursed, and any woman’s life would be in danger with me. I didn't feel like a safe place for a woman's heart, so I became content with being alone. The way I looked at it, at least I was not getting another woman killed.
About a year later, I was approached by a woman named Selena and I immediately turned her away. There was no way I was going to go through the death of a third girlfriend. I guess you can say I was also afraid. Afraid of falling in love, afraid of being happy, and afraid of losing another girlfriend through death.
A few months later, I ran into Selena again, around the neighborhood.
“Heyyyy, Myles, right?”, she asked.
“Yeah, that's me,” I responded, “But sorry, I don't remember your name.”
She giggled, “Its Selena silly.”
I smiled and she started a conversation. As we were talking, I could tell that she was a nice girl. She eventually convinced me to let her take me out to dinner. Of course, I wasn't going to let her pay for the dinner, but I did agree to go. We ended up exclusively dating for eight months, before I got that phone call I was dreading.
“Myles, it’s me. I’m at the hospital,” Selena said.
“What's wrong!”, I responded with a panic.
“I'm not hurt. I need to show you something,” she said.
As I made my way down to the hospital, I tried redirecting my mind because I did hear her voice. She said that she was not hurt, and she didn't sound sick, so why was she at the hospital. But then I got excited, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I was going to have to get ready to have my first child. I arrived at the hospital and Selena greeted me at the front door. I rushed to her and gave her the biggest hug.
“Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me, but my girlfriends usually don't walk out of the hospital”, I explained.
“No, you’re fine. If anything, I need to apologize to you”, she said.
“For what?” I asked.
“For lying to you about who I am, for being deceitful, and for getting you to feel a connection that wasn't real,” she replied.
My face showed nothing but confusion.
“What are you talking about,” I angrily asked.
“Everything that I did was for the case,” she said.
“WHAT CASE?”, I yelled.
“Just....follow me”, she said.
Now, I'm agitated and confused. Selena just told me what we have is not real.... like what? We have been spending a lot of time together these past couple months, we laugh, we had fun. How was none of that real?
I followed her down the hall, to the last room on the left. I walked in the room and who I saw lying in the bed had me more confused than ever.
I turned to Selena and said, “What is this?”.
“Detective Silvia Porter”, she said, “Do you know this woman?”
“Detective.... ye- ye- yes.... I do”, I stuttered.
She looked so relieved, as my confusion soared.
“Since the moment I met you, I have been undercover. Me running into you around town was not a coincidence. After you brushed me off the first time, my UC house was relocated to your neighborhood, so that I would have a better chance of running into you again.
“The goal was to find out how you were killing all of your girlfriends”, she continued, “One guy, two dead women. I didn't want you slipping through the cracks, becoming a serial killer, because their deaths kept being called accidental. I was so sure you were doing something to these women.”
“I now know that it was not you. I went to the mall yesterday. I was excited because everything was going so well. I was thinking to myself about the case, and my guard was down. I was walking back to my car and that's when I was attacked by Sydney,” she went on, “she came from behind and hit me over the head, but it wasn't enough to knock me out. My head was hurting, but I did fight back. She tried to eject me with a syringe, but I was able to tased her. She fell out shaking, started foaming at the mouth, so I called it in. Thats why she’s here, handcuffed to the bed.”
My eyes were so big because I could not believe what I was hearing.
“I had that syringe tested too. Apparentlly, your girl here was trying to kill me and make it look like a heart attack.”, she said, “So that had me thinking that maybe you were involved with her some point before your last two girlfriends.”
She assured me that Sydney was going to prison for a very long time for attempted murder of a detective, but she still wanted to place Sydney at each of the crime scenes. She wanted to know where Moriah and I ate out that night and where Nina and I went to the gym. She told her team, and they did what they had to in order to obtain video footage of the restaurant and the gym. She used disguises but there she was, at both crime scenes. She was the one who brought out Moriah’s and I food at the restaurant. She must have poisoned her food. And she walked in Nina’s and me gym as a gym-goer, went into the locker room area that connects to the pool area about fifteen minutes after Nina, and then walked out about an hour later. We can't see inside the pool area since there were no cameras, but Nina was found dead floating in the pool area.
My life has been a living nightmare for almost a decade all because of one woman. How could this be? I needed to leave the room because as a man, what I was feeling, I didn't want anyone to see me like that. I told them to just call me when Sydney woke up.
When she was awake, I'm glad they did call because I just needed to know why? She really didn't want me to be happy, she didn't want me to love, and she wanted me to hurt. Our breakup was not the go-crazy kind of break up.
I looked at her and simply asked, “Why?”.
“I loved you, Myles. We were together for so long and we just needed a little more time to get things right. But you didn't want to be with me anymore and my soul was crushed,” she explained, “It was really hard to go on without you and then you started dating so soon after, it was like I really didn't matter to you.”
“I only turned to killing because I felt like you were not understanding me. After the first girl, I made sure you would know that I was behind the fight. She was smart. She left because she didn't want to get hurt anymore. Then you started dating again. I couldn't constantly set up fights for all your future girlfriends and chance them just walking away from you, starting a never-ending cycle. I needed to get YOU to stop dating for good. Then you would realize that life with me wasn't so bad.” she finished.
This was beyond crazy.
(VI)
Obsession can be a very scary thing. It can lead people to commit acts that may cost them their lives or the lives of others. To desire something or someone so much to the point where you cannot eat, sleep, think, or even breathe without wanting it can be very dangerous. You just must have it.
How am I feeling right now? For starters, relieved that my curse has been lifted. And Sydney was that curse. All this time, she has been at the very center of my life, and I didn't even know it. I have felt nothing but misery for the past ten years and it was all because of her. I had been living in a nightmare. All of those beautiful lives unnecessarily taken. That was the worst part about all of this. They all met such senseless ends and that is my fault. All those lives and dreams cut too short. Such a tragedy.
