Teenage Love
David Archer.
By this point you should already know a couple of things about me. I was raped at 14, I was almost raped again at 14 by an ex-boyfriend. That one was even scarier! I met David when I was 15. I don’t even remember how we met. But I remember he was the first person I ever told about the near rape and he kicked that guys ass (I know his name but don’t know if its legal to mention it. He eventually went to prison for rape). I remember how calm David was about it and how calm he was when he came back and told me he had taken care of things. Lol.
Teenage love. David was a year older than me but we were so cool together. His mom loved me, I babysat for one of his sisters, I can’t listen to Metallica’s Master Of Puppets Album without remembering us making out to it. So stupid. When teenagers “made out” for an hour without even trying for a second base. Can you even imagine that at 40 something? I don’t have a lot of “normal” childhood memories. I was always in trouble, run away from home, locked up in a facility. No sweet first kiss, no prom, no rides to the movies in someone’s car …. He was a good, normal memory. My first love.
We really weren’t together long before I did something stupid to be sent away again. Parole violation. I feel like I might have been taken from his house. I’m really just not sure anymore. But far away I went to some group home. Eventually I send David a letter releasing him from our sacred relationship. It wasn’t fair to have to wait for me.
Again, I don’t remember how this all came about … I know I heard from his mom that he was devastated and off the deep end. I made some sort of argument with the group home to get them to take me to her house to “get my things”. He wasn’t there but his mom was so mad at me. David was off the deep end over the break up and it was my fault.
Fast Forward.
I’m out of the group home, I’m home. David just wasn’t the same. We were drawn to each other but he would cheat on me right in front of my face. He drank all the time. He was a shit at home. His mom told me that he had said something about his hopelessness. That if he could treat me like that, there was no hope. In and out of other things, I wind up with who was eventually my daughter’s father but still in love with David. I was still friends with his sisters. But David was never the same again.
I fell off a bridge and broke my neck. This also should not be new news. I know I was with my daughter’s dad because I was wearing his leather jacket when I went into the water and he was pretty annoyed by that lol. But he kinda took it like a champ. I mean, he had the wisdom of someone 15 years older than me and I had a broken neck. But he did come from Rome to Upstate Hospital in Syracuse to see me.
Here I am now with a halo brace on my head and I still hang out with David’s family. Dude, I’m still in love with this kid. One night, he gets into a fight and I jump in to help…. In a halo brace. I got knocked to the ground during this, unconscious. I wake up to the sound of sirens and take off. Because for some reason that is what every trouble making teenager does even when they haven’t done anything.
I don’t remember how we get here but at some point my mom came and picked me up. But she wouldn’t take me to go check on David. So as she is pulling up to a stoplight, I open the car door and jump out. In my halo brace. And I take off running. Rome, NY isn’t a big place. I go to where I know he is living to find him meeting up with his girlfriend. Oh my god.
Teenage heartbreak is nothing to fuck with. Here I am screaming in the street about how we had just been together and he goes home to her.
That could have been the last time we ever really spent together. I had knocked my neck bones out of whack a little. Not enough to rebreak and reset. But enough I will be hunchback when I get old. He went on to become a drug addict with his girlfriend. Life goes on.
Year’s pass. Decades pass! Life changes and evolves. I always thought about David. I was never ready to let go of him. Over the years I have thought of him as the one boyfriend I never got over. There was never resolution, never a defined ending to our relationship. Life just kept moving.
Years down the road this thing called “Facebook” shows up. By now I’ve gone through a couple of life’s phases. Had a couple kids. Had wonderful healthy adult relationships. Eventually I wonder if I might find him there! No luck. I’m no quitter and every once in a while David would cross my mind and I would look him up and just didn’t find him.
That really didn’t surprise me as I didn’t hang out with the best people and many had grown to develop drug problems or just never left the rut they were stuck in. But I would look him up every few months or so. I never found him.
I looked him up tonight. And this time, David Archer Jr popped up as a suggested option and I thought, yes! He was a junior!! It wasn’t a person, it was a post. Crazy thing??? A post by my niece from 2 years ago.
David is dead.
My niece had shared his obituary. It didn’t say how he died but he was only 48 so I will just assume since they didn’t say, that it was from drugs. I didn’t recognize the picture at all but I know it was him because it mentions his surviving siblings who I knew. His mom has passed too. I loved her!! She wasn’t old enough either. What the fuck??
I immediately messaged my niece. It’s the middle of the fucking night. But I asked how did you know him? What happened to him? At the time of this telling she hasn’t answered me yet. She’ll answer when she wakes but I want to tell this in the moment.
I was so completely gut wrenched torn!! I cried for him though I haven’t seen him in over 30 years! I almost started texting a friend of mine but didn’t even know where to start. She would wake up to a book! As I’m thinking about it all I get this message from someone on Instagram about the example I had set as a powerlifter, thanking me. I’m snotty and crying as I type out …. Awwww so sweet, thank you ….
Why was I even answering? Why was I looking at my notifications? What made me feel compelled to answer this person as I’m sobbing like a nutcase? And I thought about my friends. I had another ex that died of a heroin overdose. Hated him … haven’t told his story yet. An ex that went wrong and killed people then himself. What did I associate myself with?
And for some reason I’m not thinking about how I made it out and did better. I’m thinking about how I’m one of them and what am I doing here? How was I not around when these people died or went wrong? Do I think I’m all high and mighty because I got out and got a good man and a good job? Because look at me now. I’m a porn star.
Who am I to look up to? Who do I think I am to accept these complimentary posts from people looking up to me? Within minutes I got a second message from someone that remembered my part in the beginning of their powerlifting career, and they were giving me credit!!! NO!!! Stop!
I don’t know why I feel like such a fraud right now. I know I am sad for losing David. For never speaking to him again or never actually cutting our connection. For feeling like I sent him over some edge that led him to a life of drugs and dismay. Its like I feel like I am just one of my druggie friends who found a way to pretend that their bullshit was actually some motivating inspiration. I’m just a juvenile delinquent with a high IQ. What if I was just able to fake life? What if I was never anything better than that and just was smart enough to look like someone you should look up to?
For the life of me, I cannot tell you why the death of this one person I used to know is affecting me so damn hard. I’m ashamed of that too. This second, I’m questioning all that I know about myself and who I am. I have never wanted to run away from home so bad. Just go. I can do OnlyFans content from the road. Change my name and just be nobody. I want to be nobody.
Even as I say that I remember as a teenager …. My school had levels to every grade … 4 or 8, I cant remember. All I know is I was in the top, my fiends were in the bottom. So I stopped doing homework and failed tests on purpose but they wouldn’t move me to the lower level classes. Right now I am just thinking about making out with David. This crazy passionate tongue filled teenage makeout with Disposable Heroes by Metallica playing in the background. We are on some guy’s couch, I don’t remember who he was. And I feel like an outsider where I am now. What would David have thought of me? Would he have thought I had too much muscle? Would he have come to the gym with me?
Listen, I saw the pic attached to the obituary. I didn’t even recognize him. Skinny, facial hair, I don’t know who that person was. Except that he was EVERYTHING to me at one point. And he was never NOTHING to me. But he is gone. And even though I haven’t seen him in over 30 years, I feel infinitely more lonely now that I know he is gone.
….. it’s the next day. My niece got back to me. David overdosed on Heroin. His sister Nora is dead, don’t know how. Due to some family drama, no one speaks to his sister Penny and my niece doesn’t know how to reach her. Its like the whole thing is just swiped away. But she said she has known him her whole life! He was her uncle because of whoever he was with. What kind of weird joke on life is that? I wonder if he knew I was her aunt.