Like I said in the last post: The names I use aren’t the real ones, because I’m telling my story and not theirs. If you know, you know.
In the last post I ended with my breakup with Iwan and meeting Arja. A few weeks later I met Kenny. I told you about him in ‘Childhood stories, part 10’. A small recap of us meeting: I had a childhood friend named Dahlia and she invited me to come hangout with her friends. Among those friends were two guys: Timo and his brother Kenny. Both brothers flirted with me and I kissed with both brothers on the same day. I did not make myself popular by doing that and I still regret that behaviour. Because I really liked my contact with Kenny and I didn’t have any contactinfo of him whatsoever, I looked up his parents on the internet. I did this, because I knew his parents had some kind of bands tourbookings and management agency. I found them, contacted them and eventually got back in touch with Kenny.
We started hanging out more often and we, like you all know, ended up in a relationship. Before we officially got into this relationship, something happened. I never told Kenny and I don’t even know if it would bother him. But I know he reads this, so I just want to say that I’m sorry.
Whilst spending more time with Kenny, I was still in touch with Arja. Arja was about to go on a trip to India to do some charitywork. He had to visit the Indian Embassy in The Hague and asked me if I wanted to join him. Of course I wanted that! I picked Arja up from the tram and we started walking towards the Palace Garden. We went for a walk in the garden and eventually sat down on a bench. We started kissing and he pulled me onto his lap. The kissing was very…passionate. He kissed my neck and unhooked my bra whilst doing that. He pulled my shirt down and started kissing my breasts a little bit. Oh my god, what was I doing?
It was time to actually go to the Embassy. We waited in line for like 30 minutes. I remember we had to stand on some kind of stairs and we were constantly giving small kisses to each other. At some point Arja said I looked like I was in love. I was pretty embarrassed by that and said that I often look like that, haha. I kinda lowkey was very much in love, though. When we were done at the Embassy, we just walked some more in the city centre. We had an hour before I had to go to work. I worked at a restaurant and had an on-call shift that day. They said it was going to be a very busy day and I was very needed. When I walked Arja to the tram, we suddenly started to hold hands. This made me so happy, until Arja said: ‘I don’t do holding hands, actually’. I asked him why he did now. I shouldn’t have asked that, because he answered he didn’t know and immediately let go. Shit, I sabotaged myself. When we arrived at the tram, we said goodbye and I went home to prepare myself for work.
At work it turned out I wasn’t as needed as they claimed I was. After an hour I was already done working and I went to see Kenny and his friends. They were hanging out in the city centre and asked if I wanted to join. I was pretty distracted from what happened that day, but I don’t think anybody noticed.
My relationship with Kenny was nice. I don’t think we were very compatible, but he was definitely sweet to me and I liked hanging out with him and his friends. We were always outside and when we weren’t , Kenny was playing guitar at home and I was listening. He was a huge fan of Greenday and even though I like Greenday now, it kinda annoyed me back then. I liked the guitar playing, didn’t like the Greenday fandom. I don’t even know why.
We had a similar interest in a band I still love very much: Enter Shikari. I saw the band for the first time at a festival in the Netherlands called ‘Lowlands’. I was immediately drawn to the music. When I found out Kenny also liked the band, we bought tickets to their concert at Tivoli Oudegracht, Utrecht. We were supposed to go there by car. Kenny’s car. When we left Kenny’s home, his mom said: ‘Be careful!’ We jokingly said we weren’t gonna be careful. When we drove to The Hague to pick up a girl from my school who was joining us, we accidentally drove the car into a bus trap. The car was total loss and I still hold my breath whenever I’m in a bus and we approach a bus trap. Kenny’s dad took care of the car and we continued our trip to Utrecht by public transport.
The concert was amazing. I think, to this day, it was the best concert I’ve ever been to. It was SO crowded and we were so close to the band. I had difficulty breathing and had to constantly look up to get some air. People were climbing onto the stage to get air and to stagedive. I did the same and had my first ever stagedive. At some point, near the end of the set, I was so tired. I saw a girl sitting on stage and I just joined her. The last songs I was sitting on the stage close to the bass player and I was having the time of my life. Because it was late and my dad didn’t want us to go by public transport, he picked us up. He always picked me up from concerts when I was a teenager, I still really appreciate that.
Even though Kenny was always very nice to me and I liked having him around and liked his sweet text messages, I think I started losing interest at some point. I guess I was avoiding one on one contact and I just wanted to hang out with the whole group. I still don’t really understand what actually happened, but it just started to fade. There were moments I hung out with his friends, without him even being present. Kenny started to hang out with this girl called Tasha. I hated her. Especially because the whole group had been talking negative about her for weeks, including Kenny. I didn’t trust her and I just knew she hated me as much as I hated her.
One day there was this party at Lars’ house. His parents were gone and it just turned into the most epic party we had in that period. Everybody was there and there was a lot going on. Kenny wasn’t there. He was with Tasha. All his friends were constantly stirring the pot and were saying that things weren’t right. Kenny called me that night and said he almost cheated on me with Tasha. I was mad, obviously. But his friends made everything worse and said Kenny was lying. It wasn’t an almost. They said he had already cheated on me with her. I was so mad, but also so relieved. To me the relationship was over. Kenny’s friends tried to comfort me. Well…they made it seem that way. I guess they just took their chance and I went along with it. I kissed four of Kenny’s friends that night. I am awful. I know. I still can’t believe I did that.
To Kenny: I know you often think it was all mainly your fault. It really wasn’t. I was a shitty girlfriend to you and I’m so very sorry about that. It took you some girlfriends, but I know you’re in a happy relationship now and you two have the sweetest little girl together. You deserve that.
Two of the friends I kissed at Lars’ party were Keith (I mentioned him before in Childhood stories, part 10) and Jonas. In the days and weeks after that party I started to talk with them more often. Like I mentioned before, I started having deep conversations with Keith and I just started to fall in love with him. But at the same time I was also hanging out with Jonas. I told Jonas about me hanging out with Keith, but never told Keith about Jonas. Even though they were in the same group of friends. At some point it was pretty obvious to everybody that Keith and I were almost a thing. Jonas seemed okay with this, but took a step back and didn’t talk to me that much anymore.
When Keith and I were almost a thing, but not yet, we had a little party at Keith’s place. His mom wasn’t home and we stayed over with eight people, I think. One of those people was Mitch. He was slightly different than the rest of the group. He was pretty hardcore and looked kinda intimidating. When everybody was upstairs in Keith’s room, I was downstairs getting something to drink. Mitch followed me and we started talking. It was an okay conversation when he suddenly said he could use a massage. I was in a funny mood and I gave him the massage. When I was massaging his back, he turned around and kissed me. He grabbed my hand, put it on his crotch and whispered to me that he would end my chances with Keith if I wouldn’t touch him. I was pretty scared. He grabbed my wrist pretty tightly and I just thought he was going to do something to me. I felt so embarrassed and sick. I don’t think anybody noticed when we came back. But oh my god did I detest that night. I still haven’t told a lot of people about this. I just tried really hard to forget it.
When Keith and I were in a relationship, I stayed over every Friday. We would go out at night or hang out with friends, we would spend the night together and in the morning Keith would go to guitar practice. Sometimes I stayed in bed, but most of the time I spent the morning with Keith’s mom and little sister. I really liked Keith’s little sister, she would tell me all about school or little girl problems, haha. Sometimes when people hung out at Keith’s place, I would go downstairs and spend a little time with this sweet little girl. I also really liked Keith’s mom. I even more liked the relationship she had with Keith. They talked about everything. She would just tell stories about her boyfriend or work etc. I remember her telling this story that she was snuggling and kissing etc. with her boyfriend and suddenly she fell between the bed and the wall and got stuck. I have never seen a mom and kid talk this openly to each other, but I genuinely loved it.
One day there was this party at a friend of ours. He wasn’t always fully part of the group, but everybody liked him and we were all invited to his party. His parents weren’t home and there were a lot of people. Also quite some people I had never seen before and people I didn’t see regularly. I remember that a lot of people were hungry and I asked if I could make some food. And there I was, at a party, making fried eggs and pancakes. Weirdo. Anyway, the guys from the group were in the garden annoying each other. It went from kinda funny to not okay to disaster. Bare in mind: we were all stupid teenagers. At some point Keith had peed in a beer bottle. He or someone else, I can’t remember, gave the beer bottle to Timo to drink. The moment he realized what happened, he just lost it. He ran after Keith. Keith ran into the house and closed the garden door. Timo ran into the door or the window. The glass broke and a shard landed in Timo’s leg and cut him pretty deep. At that point the party was over. Timo was crying and was angry and hurt. It really looked like there was an opening in his leg. It didn’t look good. The birthdayboy was also crying and was scared to tell his parents what happened. Everybody left, most people didn’t even help cleaning up. I stayed there with some people from the group. We helped cleaning up a bit and comforted Timo and the birthdayboy. It was just awful. Keith had left, which was quite the dickmove. Eventually everything turned out right for both guys, but…it definitely was something.
At some point Keith didn’t want me to stay over on Friday. He said he was busy, but I immediately knew there was something going on. It made me terribly insecure. I was so comfortable in this relationship and I wanted it to last forever, but Keith thought differently about it. A weekend later I did stay over on Friday. Before we went out, he sat me down and told me he was in love with someone else. I just didn’t understand. It didn’t feel like it was over. I kinda felt desperate and I didn’t want to lose him, so I said that it was okay if he had cheated once. I just wanted him to stay with me. He was nice to me, but also clear. He didn’t want to be in a relationship anymore. I was heartbroken. We still went out and I still stayed the night, but I shouldn’t have done that. I was crying all night. And kept crying the entire week after. This break up really broke me. I felt ugly and useless and worthless and overall not good enough. I didn’t want anything anymore and, like I mentioned before, started to self-harm.
I don’t think Keith was THE reason I started to self-harm. But he was the last needed trigger. I don’t blame him. I really don’t. If you don’t like someone, you shouldn’t be with him/her. And he didn’t lead me on, he told me pretty quickly what was going on in his head. I was just hurt by the situation, but he didn’t do me wrong. I don’t hate him. Looking back on it, I realized we weren’t that compatible either. I’m glad I got to experience a relationship like that in my teenage years. And even though it ended pretty badly with the Darrenstory I told in Childhood stories, part 10, I’m also glad I got to experience a group of friends like that in my teenage years. They definitely broke me and fucked up my self-esteem, but I do have some awesome memories from that time.
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