I started this series as a way to help me unravel what love means to me. I chose purposefully to start with a story that would rip your heart out as it did mine when I lived it. That was because I needed to set the stage for this next story. Which is the worst heartache I have ever felt. The worst broken heart I have ever experienced. A pain so gut wrenching it still haunts my dreams. Carmen was a prick of the finger. This was a stab in the chest.
Her name is Rebecca. She is the one of the most beautiful women you will ever meet. We met at an early age and became best friends early on. She is the person who was always there for me, no matter what. The first person I ever sorta told I was trans, in a way. She was also my biggest, earliest supporter.
We were two pees in a pod. We liked all the same things. We were both super into Star Wars, horror movies, Nintendo, Dungeons and Dragons, punk rock, break dancing, skateboarding, etc. Everything. There were few things we disagreed on.
We used to do everything together. When we were teenagers our love really blossomed in a way I can’t believe I ever had someone so wonderful in my life. We used to spend literally all day at the mall together just goofing off. We’d go to Spencer’s and she’d look at the gags and sex toys. She’d drag me to Hot Topic to look at punk rock t-shirts and horror toys. I’d drag her to Mr. Rags the skate shop were we’d look for breakdancing or skating videos we could watch together. I loved her more than life itself. My relationship with Carmen burned short and intense. My relationship with Rebecca was a life-long true love.
The story of how I lost her tears me up to this day.
Rebecca and I had gotten an apartment together with one of her best friends in 2006. We were of course living in the “big city” of Salina, Kansas. It was the first time either of us had truly live on our own. Together the two of use worked our asses off to start Mean Green Records, failed underground music studio where I would release 5 albums over the span of 3 years. She supported my techno/hip hop music. I supported her punk rock endeavors. I even bought her an electric guitar on her 16th birthday to help her start her rock band. She shoved me into the wall so hard my back popped when I gave it to her. It was the most intense hug I had ever received in my entire life. And the most sincere I love you anyone ever uttered towards me. I knew she meant it too.
I helped her learn to play that guitar. I even helped her write songs. We wrote our first song together, a duet we did that would have been on her album if we ever finished it.
It was in Salina our relationship began to go sour. After the record studio fell a part and I lost my job things got too difficult for me, so I ran away. I left her there to fend for herself. I moved back in with my parents. She married my sisters brother-in-law 2 years later.
The next time I saw her we had made up. We remained friends. Our love was too great to ever wane truly. I remained a part of her life for several more years. Watching her kids grow. Watching her buy her first home and start a family. I remember holding those kids in my arms thinking wow she was so happy, and I was so happy for her.
But our relationship did come to an end eventually.
In 2011 my sister Candy divorced her husband. The thing is. Rebecca was still married to Candy’s exhusband and so things became complicated. During the brutal custody battle I took Candy’s side and made a vague threat nobody would take those kids away. I said I would kill anyone who tried. Since it was her mother-in-law trying to take the kids her, and her husband, interpreted it as I threatened to kill her mother. They moved across the country. She told me in her goodbye we were threw. I would never see her or her kids again. Her husband said if I contacted his wife again he would hurt me.
This killed me inside. I never loved anyone, not even Carmen, more than I had loved Rebecca. To this day I wake up in the middle of the night balling every time I have a dream with her in it. Whenever a mutual friend of ours shares a picture of her and her family smiling their little faces off it cuts me even deeper. Whenever I think about her I cry myself to dehydration.
I do not say this lightly but I would kill to be in her life again. I would die for her or her kids. I have never loved a person on this planet the way I loved her. Rebecca, is my baby sister.
Stephanie Bri 