Troy

My first heartbreak and the craziness that occurred in its wake

Troy and I had met in Speaking and Listening class first quarter. Bright blond hair, light blue eyes, Troy was a cutie pie. His shyness and soft-spoken voice made him mysterious. A class project put us together and ultimately opened the door of friendship. By the time the class ended, we were inseparable. Troy's favorite thing to do was to come up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. We would walk each other to class everyday, meet up before and after school at each other's lockers. Soon phone numbers were exchanged and notes were written. For Christmas, Troy gave me homemade fudge placed in a Santa Claus ornament. That made me smile. For my birthday, I was presented a beautiful heart shaped jewelry box. That blew me away. It wasn't long until our classmates noticed and soon we were the hot topic of 7th grade gossip. Troy and I always laughed it off. It was typical teenage teasing. Jokes that I would have ten of Troy's babies were normal. People telling us we should kiss were the ones that made us laugh the hardest. I was confused when one classmate would sing about me having jungle fever, but I ignored it. It didn't matter that this was an interracial relationship; him white and me black. We liked each other and that was that. We tried being boyfriend and girlfriend for about 3 days when it became clear neither one of us was ready to go that route. We went back to being friends, but it was never the same after that.

The first thing that happened was Troy's behavior toward me started changing. He wasn't as friendly as before and got jealous when he saw another guy put his arm around me. To get even, he started to flirt with other girls in front of me. Soon I had various people approaching me telling me that Troy had written notes to other people telling them he was tired of me calling him everyday. First off, Troy never once told me he had a problem with me calling him. I did make the mistake of calling during dinnertime, but other than that, there was never any complaint. Secondly, who were they to stick their noses in MY relationship? They weren't telling me this stuff because they cared about me. These girls wanted to be number one in Troy's life. To say I was angry at them is an understatement. I was at a level that rivaled the Hulk's.

I eventually asked Troy about the accusations made against him. He insisted that they were lies and that he was sorry I went through that. For the rest of the year, some of the girls still tried to get me jealous by telling me about Troy's flirty nature and telling me I shouldn't call him so much. Again, who the hell were they to say anything? My relationship was nobody's business. Unfortunately, our 7th grade history teacher Miss G started showing her dislike of our relationship by publicly humiliating us in front of the class. With me, she announced that I had gotten a bad grade on a test I studied hard for. This led to me being harassed for nearly two weeks since I was an honor student. It ultimately set the platform for me to be bullied next year. A month later, Troy was answering a question when Miss G ripped into him about his soft-spoken voice...in front of the class. Humiliated, Troy shouted his answer. He hated her after that...and so did I.

By the time 4th quarter had rolled around, it became clear that nobody was thrilled about our relationship. Even our families weren't thrilled anymore. I was starting to wonder just how much Troy cared about our relationship. I was calling him more than he was calling me. He had only called me twice during our relationship. I wanted him to call me more often, but he blamed his mother saying that she always found a way to stop him before he could dial the number. Needless to say, I thought Cat was a troublemaker. Why didn't she want Troy to call me? She didn't do this to the last girl Troy was interested in. Lord knows it got really frustrating at times, but Troy was ALWAYS so insistent that I be the one to call him. There was one day Troy literally grabbed me by the shoulders and begged me to call him. He was so desperate that I gave in. In fact, every time he got on the bus, he would always motion, "Call me." So I did. Needless to say, Troy controlled the relationship. This concerned my mother because she was afraid I was going to get hurt. Not just because the relationship had become one sided, but the fact that she knew a number of grownups had expressed their disapproval. I told her people needed to mind their own business and stop talking about us. Troy was my friend and they need to deal with it.

One month before the year ended, Troy dropped a bomb on me...he was moving away at the end of summer. There wasn't a reason given except that his parents had seemingly decided to move to a different city within the state. Troy would actually be living closer to me, but it was decided that he would go to the school in that district. It was devastating to hear, but Troy promised that we would be best friends forever. He said we would still see each other, call each other, write letters, and maybe we would end up at the same high school. It wasn't long before people found out about Troy's upcoming move. Instead of receiving sympathy, I was constantly mocked about how Troy was going to be gone and he would find himself another girl. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. Even my parents weren't sympathetic. Whenever we would watch a movie that had a scene where teenagers were falling in love, Mom would tell me, "This summer Troy is going to be kissing another girl...he's going to find himself a White girl." That always got a rise out of me. Mom would ask me if I was jealous and I was like, "What do you think?" My best friend is moving away and you're talking about him finding somebody else."

As the last day of school got closer, everybody was preparing for the end. Troy had told me that we wouldn't be able to see each other during the summer since he would be out of state for two months. We spent as much time together as we could. I asked him if he had a picture of himself I could keep, but he informed me he had given them all away a long time ago. When our yearbooks arrived, I asked him if he wanted to be the first to sign my yearbook. Troy said he wanted to wait until the last day of school to do it; this way we could say goodbye and he could write a special message. Funny, Troy found time to sign other people's yearbooks, but kept delaying signing mine. Troy kept insisting it was better to wait for the last day. We still wrote notes to each other. We still met up at each other's lockers, but soon it was starting to become clear that the gossips had been telling the truth about Troy. I had two girls write in my yearbook about how much I had called him..which was funny because I never ONCE spoke to them about my phone conversations. But I ignored it saying they didn't understand. Troy's mother was the reason why he couldn't call me. The denial was deep with me and I wasn't willing to leave it.

Finally the last day arrived. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. The clouds were white and fluffy. I found out I was going to end the year on the honor roll. However, in the mist of that beauty, there was sadness in my heart. Today was the day I was going to have to say goodbye to Troy. I didn't want to, but knew I didn't have a choice. The move was happening and there was nothing that could be done about it. I found myself wondering if Troy and I were going to be able to handle the goodbye. But I couldn't worry about that yet because I had to get through my classes. I didn't get to see Troy in between classes, but I finally saw him before our lunch break. Troy and I chatted for a bit when he suddenly said that he needed to get to his class in a hurry, but he'll see me after school. To say time dragged is an understatement. A turtle was moving faster than time. But eventually the last class ended and I raced out of the building to wait by our spot.

As I stood by the door, I waited for Troy to get out of his class. Our ritual was we would meet each other outside of the building and I would walk him to the school bus. We'd say "see you later" and Troy would do his usual, "Call me" talk. He'd get on the bus and I would go to Mom's car.I searched the crowd hoping to see the familiar blond hair with light blue eyes, but I didn't see him. Occasionally, one of us would be late coming out, but we always waited for the other. I figured Troy got held up in his last class and he'd be along soon. I watched the eighth graders cry on each other's shoulders as they said goodbye to each other and to their teachers. Soon five minutes turned to ten minutes. Ten minutes to twenty minutes. I started getting worried. Where was Troy? What's going on? I started asking some of my classmates if they had seen Troy and they hadn't. They figured he was just late coming out. I started saying silently, "Troy, come out please." I was holding my yearbook waiting for him to finally sign it. I was waiting for him to come out so we could say our goodbyes. As I continued to wait, the crowd began to thin out. My mom was still waiting in the car for me. She knew Troy and I were to meet up and she was starting to wonder what was going on. I finally saw another classmate come out and asked him if he had seen Troy. He said he had. I asked him where he was. It was then I was informed that Troy's mother had picked up him from school shortly before lunch break...Troy was long gone.

Just like that, the wind had been knocked out of me. Troy was gone. He hadn't said goodbye. He didn't sign my yearbook. He didn't leave a note or pass along a message to me. My classmates let me humiliate myself in front of the whole school waiting for somebody who wasn't going to show up. Time literally stopped. The only thing in motion was my heart slowly breaking into a million pieces. Soon my spirit followed suit. After that, the tears that had been in my eyes started gushing down my cheeks. Nobody said anything. Nobody did anything. They just watched me cry. My mother; who had been watching the entire scenario play out, got out of her car when she saw me break down crying. She held me as she asked what was wrong. One of the teachers said it was just an emotional day for everybody. She knew good and well that I had been stood up. I cried all the way home. I told Mom that Cat had picked up Troy before lunch which is why he hadn't shown up. Mom thought maybe there was an emergency which is why Troy had been picked up early. It was then she let me know that Troy and I were most likely over. I didn't want to accept that. I needed answers. I needed to say goodbye to Troy.

Numb with pain and anger, I called Troy's house and his aunt picked up the phone. I asked if Troy was there and she said he wasn't and hung up the phone. Two weeks later, I called again and his grandpa picked up the phone. He said Troy was mowing the lawn, but he would have him call me back. I never heard back from Troy. When I tried calling again, the number had been disconnected. Troy's family had made it clear they didn't want me talking to him. I couldn't for the life of me understand why they were acting so nasty. What did I do? Why wouldn't they let me say goodbye? Didn't they understand that this is my best friend? Why was Cat so determined to keep us apart? First she stops Troy from calling me which put me in the position to do all the communicating, then she purposefully picks him up early KNOWING we were planning on saying goodbye, and now she's finding ways to keep Troy from contacting me? What a horrible woman!

The rest of the summer was miserable. Even though I had friends that came over, I missed Troy. They knew it and thought it was horrible we didn't get to say goodbye to each other. That was the only sympathy I got. My parents wanted me to move on, but how? How do you move on when there is no closure? I was lost, stuck, and broken. But that wasn't the worst.

The rest of junior high was miserable. Now that Troy was gone, many people showed their true colors. It came out they hated the fact that I was in an interracial relationship, but since they liked Troy, they were nice to me. Now that he was gone, they saw no reason to continue to fake it. The harassment got so bad that my father threatened to sue the school. There was talk to take me out of there, but Mom said I had to stay. She said we don't run from our problems. Things continued to get worse after Dad withdrew the lawsuit. The administration didn't do anything to stop the harassment. Desperate for attention, I tried to force relationships with boys who looked at me twice. None of them worked out of course. They got teased and they backed away. When the year ended, the harassment finally stopped. I was done with the people from that school and was thrilled most of them weren't going to be at the same high school as me. I was finally going to start over.

Over the next several years, I tried to put Troy behind me. High school proved to be a much better experience. I finally got friends and not too long afterwards, I met a great guy who would later become my husband. High school did have its challenges, but I got through it. I still thought about Troy from time to time, but I was convinced that Cat was a controlling b***h who broke up my relationship. I cursed her when I thought about what could have been. I still hoped I would run into Troy one day and he'd tell me what happened that last day and closure would finally happen. I do admit that I did struggle with relationships because I had trust issues. Unfortunately, I did end up in relationships with people who ultimately threw me away in the manner Troy's family did. Over the next fourteen years, I would try multiple times to contact him only for his family to continuously intercept my letters and phone calls. They even went far enough to take their names out of the phone book and tried to make their names unsearchable. For the life of me I couldn't understand why they were so hell-bent on keeping us apart...even after we were grown. I finally found him in 2009 using 1-800 US Search. At this point, I didn't care about a reunion. I had a heart full of anger because it came out that his parents hated that their son was so interested in a Black girl. They were worried about what other people were thinking so they decided to break us up. But Troy himself wasn't innocent. It came out that the rumors about him talking behind my back were true and I had FINALLY realized that I was in a relationship all by myself. Troy was lazy in the relationship, but told everybody I was bothering him. I realized then that he never wanted to sign my yearbook. He deceived me into thinking he was going to do something special. I realized his family was very messed up to purposefully hurt a child and that they were cowards for not telling me themselves they had a problem with me. Instead they hid like the cockroaches they are.

Needless to say, I emailed Troy a very angry email in which I let him have it. I called him a coward for the way he treated me and let him know how my life had been damaged because of his parents. You name it, I most likely said it. I ended the email by saying, "I'm going to tell you what you didn't have the guts to tell me all those years ago. It's over. I'm done with you. Have a nice life!" After hitting send, I felt free. Years later, I saw him on Facebook and found out that his parents' efforts to put him with a proper White girl backfired in a big way. All I'm going to say is that they shouldn't have messed with our relationship. Sometime later, I wrote his parents a letter and told them everything that was in my heart.

It took many years, but I finally put that family behind me. The lessons I learned were harsh, but necessary. The first lesson I learned is that prejudice involving interracial relationships happens everywhere. Just because nobody says it out loud doesn't mean it's not there. Second, a relationship can only work if BOTH parties put in 100% effort. One person shouldn't be doing all the work. It isn't fair and you're being played. Leave the relationship right away if this occurs. Third, just because somebody is a parent doesn't mean that they're mature. If Troy's parents had any kind of maturity or true concern, they should have spoken to my parents or me about it. Making a rash decision to move and intercept phone calls and letters just showed how immature, petty, and selfish they were. They hurt a 13 year old girl and didn't care. Fourth, don't waste years chasing after somebody trying to get closure. I wasted fourteen years of my life trying to force Troy to talk to me when it was obvious it wasn't going to happen. Fifth, there is a very real possibility that Troy may have lied to his parents about me and the nature of our relationship. He probably lied to me about Cat not letting him call me. Don't be so quick to pass judgment on somebody based on what another person says. What they say or do to you directly will tell you the whole story.

So, as I finish typing this out, I'm ready to cut the spiritual ties to this family and the ripple effect their selfish actions had on my life. I allowed Troy and his family to control me for far too long. It's time to cut them loose and finally live the life I'm destined to live.