As we continued dating, I continued changing. Soon, he became the only thing that was important to me. I lost some of my friends because all I cared about was him. We dated for almost 2 years, even though I wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend. My parents knew that we liked each other but they didn’t know we were exclusive. He would come over to my house a few times a week so that I could help him with his math homework. We went to lunch together almost every day at school. We would meet up at school events, such as basketball games. And when I finally turned 16, he took me on my 2nd date (my dad took me on my first). We went to homecoming together my Junior year. Everything was going great with us. We were in love. This was the boy that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. When our relationship got to this serious of a level, things started happening. I won't go into details, but things that should be saved until marriage. Yes, I felt bad about what was going on, but I knew I would marry him so I began to justify my actions. I knew I would have to repent if we wanted to get married in the temple, but I decided to let “Future Jerica” worry about that. But since I knew what I was doing was wrong, I starting avoiding things that once made me feel happy and feel the spirit, such as temple baptisms. I would be sick that day or I would have another important thing come up so that I didn't have to tell anyone what was going on. I also quit taking the sacrament. This one was harder to hide from my parents, but I did. They never noticed that I wasn't taking it. I would walk out to go to the bathroom or I would pretend like I was taking it when I really wasn't. I did not want my parents to ever find out what was going on. They would be so disappointed in me.
In September, 2005, I was so excited because I bought him and I tickets to the Dierks Bentley concert at the fair. I bought the tickets far in advance and bought the Dierks Bentley CD so that we could listen to his songs to get ready for the concert. When the day of the concert came, he suddenly couldn’t go anymore and told me to take someone else. He wouldn’t say why. I was a 16-year-old emotional teennager, so of course, I cried through every love song at the concert. I soon found out the reason he didn’t go is because he was hanging out with another girl. Within a few days, I got dumped and they started dating. I was devastated. I was in love with this boy and he was my whole life. Now I have to see him with her every single day at school. I guess I didn’t really blame him though, because she was beautiful and skinny and always wore really cute clothes. I just wasn’t good enough I guess.
I kept trying to win him back, but I finally gave up after a few weeks when one of his friends yelled at me in front of my entire class and told me to leave him alone. He said how pathetic I look for trying so hard. I ran out of class crying. I still wanted him back, but I decided to try to get over him and to quit making myself look like a fool.
A few weeks went by and I realized that it was that time of the month, and I was late….
