When the love bombing began, I was so young that my cheeks were still round as snow globes. I met him two months after my 18th birthday and two months before my high school graduation. When I say "him," I mean my toxic ex. I've tried coming up with code names for him, for his own anonymity but also because saying his real name still makes me queasy. Lately, I've settled on the pseudonym "Mr. Backpack," because he was outdoorsy but also because our relationship still weighs on my shoulders and I look forward to the day I can finally take a load off, untie my boots, crack a beer, and wistfully chortle about the time I slipped and nearly fell off an emotional cliff.
Mr. Backpack was 29, with an acerbic wit and aloe green eyes. He was my friend's older sibling so, naturally, I developed a crush. He had a sandpaper beard and Scotch Irish pale skin that bore more tattoos and scars than the baby-faced boys my age, and those eyes, which crinkled when he told me I was special, a "genius." He swore I had something important to say to the world and that he'd help me figure it out.
Our flirtation began while I was finishing up senior finals and he was working on a movie set in California. I'd stolen Mr. Backpack's number out of my friend's phone at a slumber party and prank-texted him some silly joke; even after the messages developed into long late-night phone calls and Skype chats, I never considered it could be anything other than an unlikely friendship. After all, why would a 29-year-old man with a job and a life 3,000 miles away want anything more from someone whose greatest life accomplishment had something to do with an AP exam?
A few weeks later, Mr. Backpack told me he was interested in me romantically.
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