Chapter 5 - My Book

The next chapter of my life is what started it all for me really in not trusting people. And began probably me being used or it could have started with others but I think really began here. I was young, dumb and naive at the time. It started with all with Petra, well actually it started with Carol or maybe it began with Tonya who was my first relationship. So it started with Tonya.

I met and became friends with Petra. She worked with me at Alcoa in the warehouse, she was a truck driver. She was 42 at the time and I was around 22 or 23. I started talking to Petra and I guess we started dating or so I had thought. At least that's what she made me believe.

Petra was staying with a guy named Al. She said they were roommates. Well, they ended up getting married. And at the time I was living with Mom and Dad still and started hanging out over Al and Petra's and eventually moved in with them. That was a mistake but at the same time I learned a lot and became close with Al.

I learned a lot of lessons in life after this whole situation for sure. I was used, manipulated and controled. I still worked at Alcoa. Petra and I worked the same shift. I worked a lot of overtime to keep myself busy. I think a lot of the things I did I wouldn't have done if Petra hadn't talked me into doing them. I ended up getting a second job at Etna Gas Station which later changed to Kangaroo Express. I loved my jobs.

Petra was older so she sometimes acted like she was my mother. Al more acted like a grandfather figure or father figure. He was sweet and caring and loving and would do anything to help you. Al was famous for sitting in the kitchen and listening to the scanner. Several times he would fall asleep with a cigarette in his hand and there would be burn marks in the linoleum. And I always had to tell him to go to bed because he had fallen asleep in the chair at the kitchen table.

Petra was a very manipulative person. And very controlling. I was always giving her money and she made more then me, way more. Not to mention she was taking all of Al's money too and using him.

One time a guy from work had given me some Purple Haze from his vacation in Jamaica. Now I didn't know what Purple Haze was but I came to realize it was stronger pot then I had ever smoked. I thought it was laced with something but he said it wasn't. I laid on my waterbed but that made it worse cos the whole room was spinning. Thankfully Petra and Al weren't there they had gone to Al's appointment at the Salem Veteran's Hospital. I called Ashley cos I was freaking out and she tried to calm me down.

While I was living with Petra and Al I eventually realized that Petra and I were nothing more than friends. So I had started talking to this girl named Ashley who was married. Ashley was living in Arizona with her husband Curtis at the time. Ashley was from Houma, Louisianna. Ashley and I started dating and talked on the phone all the time. She would have to go hide away from Curtis to talk to me. I fell in love with her, the first girl I had ever been in love with and we had never even met. We only talked on the phone and the computer and sent pictures back and forth to each other and constantly emailed each other and talked on Myspace. Man was I in love with her and she was absolutely beautiful. I loved everything about her, her voice, the way she talked to me, when she called me baby. Man she made my heart skip a beat. I eventually planned on being with her but it never happened. She did eventually end up leaving her husband and moving back to Louisianna. Her husband Curtis was in the Army. Well, I eventually ended up joining the Army and I think she didn't like that one bit. We ended up for some reason stopped talking and lost touch. And it was heartbreaking. I still think about her sometimes and wonder how she's doing.