Chapter 1
Have you ever felt trapped and stuck in a situation? At one time, this was something you thought you wanted, something you thought would last forever. Just in truth and reality, it was totally something different.
Let's start at the beginning. I am Deanna, a very petite girl with long, straight brown hair and brown eyes. I was raised by an older set of parents who kept me very sheltered from the world. I was raised believing you stayed home, got married, and had children. I was never really taught to want something more. To go to work and become something for yourself.
My father died when I was 19. One of the last things he told me was get married. He believed that was the right thing for a woman to do. I had no problem with it. I was very willing to find someone,fall in love and live happily ever after. This is what happens when you are young and very native. Not knowing life,people or the way of the world.
I believed in love. Falling in love at a very tender age of 9. To a boy named Joe, that I went to grade school with. Thing is he feel in love with me as well. It was a kid thing but he show me what tender love was. Leaving flowers and trinkets on my desk. It was innocent,sweet and something I would never forget. He was also someone I would never forget. Someone I thought I would spend the rest of my life with.
8th grade graduation came,and that would let our friendship come to an end. Joe knew I liked him just never knew how much. We were children and both very shy. So we walked away that day feeling that would be the last we ever saw of each other.
Joe was a tall slender boy with brown eyes and hair. He was shy, and sweet. He could also be very romantic for his age. I knew I had feelings for him the moment I met him. There was a connection. If only we would listen to our younger selves. Sometimes we see things better then our older ones.
Time went on and we both went to different high schools. He went to the traditional four year high school as I went to a two year business school. During this time I did think about him, still having a hope that we may one day be together, one day be married,have children.
When we were seventeen I found Joe's phone number in our yearbook. I was nervous and scared but wanted to talk to him. So I gave it a shot and dialed. He answered. I was happy and nervous, but things flowed. We talked for a bit about school and life like we never lost touch. Just one thing he told me he was going to be moving to Atlantic city. Well, to a shelter seventeen year old that at the time seemed like the worst thing ever. In reality it would have only been 45 minutes away. We lived in Philadelphia. He knew how to drive we could have probably made it work. Just in my mind back then, I wasn't thinking like that. It was a let down.
Yet, I still tried again giving a second call. I enjoyed talking to him and sent him a note saying do you like me I like you or, something to that matter. I called after I sent it. He seemed alittle upset, his older sister picking on him for it. We still chatted for a bit but I wondered if I pissed him off and that maybe he didn't like me the way I did him. So I let it be. I stepped back. Did it mean I didn't care? Not at all, I just thought I was going to get hurt and I didn't want that. Plus when you are seventeen you don't always think the right way, hell you can be 30 and still not.
Two years went by, my father passed away. It was just my mother and I. I was now nineteen. No boyfriend, never dated. Still sheltered but wanted to get married and have a family.
My mother had gotten me a computer after I graduated. I just was using it for playing games. I heard about AOL and I wanted to give it a try. I thought it would give me access to talk to people. To get to see and know new things. Once I got on it. The first thing I did was look up Joe, I typed in his name in the search bar. Hoped to find something , but found nothing.
As time went on , I would go into chat rooms. I would meet different people. The first person I met was Brandon.\n He was a young boy who lived in Mississippi and was also 19 at the time. We became good friends and would hang out from time to time online. It stayed platonic. He was very good with computers, and he told me a lot about them. At the time when we were on AOL, There were programs going around with people punting us offline. It sure wasn't fun being punted offline. But it was fun punting others, so I asked him if I could have one or get one, and he did get me one and himself.
I hurried and downloaded and was all excited, I couldn't wait to use it. So I went into a chat room started picking on a person and yes, it was silly, but please remember I was a 19-year-old kid.
After a while, me and Brandon would go into rooms and do that nightly.
One night, I picked a fight with a man named Phil. He was asking for women's photos. You Could see that's all he wanted. He annoyed me. others were in the room but were not asking as aggressively as him. This made him my target.
I had fun picking on handand punting him, he just kept coming back. We played around all night and before I went to bed, there was something within me that said to write him an email to say sorry. To say sorry I sent a pick of myself. At the the time I was a blonde,young petite and had nothing to be ashamed of.
The next morning I got an email back from Phil saying how pretty I was, and that he accepted my apology ever since that day, we spent every following day talking and getting to know each other. I even sent him upon him a punter and we would go into rooms having some fun together at the same time Getting to know each other better.
Phil, an older man, claiming he was 28. Yes, that was a lot older than me, as i was now twenty it didn't bother me. Age is just a number. He was from Wisconsin, with light, Brown hair, Hazel eyes and 6 foot. He was pretty easy on the eyes.
As we kept talking, the relationship grew, it wasn't only friendship. It was starting to be a lot more. We would talk every night even calling each other on the phone at times falling asleep and me staying on the other end , listening to him. He told me that he wanted to get married that he did want children. I told him I wanted the same and we agreed on three children. There was just one catch, he would have to move to me because I wasn't moving, I was my mother's only child I wasn't leaving her, he said that that was fine. That he would move.
We talked for about 6 months before he would come up to visit, but he did. We were all excited to see each other and all went very well. We both seem to like each other just as much as we did online as in person. He was a gentleman he knew I was a Virgin, he didn't push we kissed And we're close, but nothing else happened. He was willing to wait until I was ready. I thought this was very sweet of him, that he was a gentleman.
Before coming to visit me, he did have one little secret that he did have to tell me.He was very nervous about saying so he called me up saying that he had to come clean and that he hoped that it wouldn't change my mind. He told me that he was actually thirty two instead of twenty eight. I didn't think anything of it, like I said, age is just a number. He was scared to tell me the truth as I was only a kid when he met me. Plus at the time didn't think this was going anywhere.