I had been engaged once before breaking it off a few weeks before the big day at which point, I vowed never to get serious with anyone again and I had a series of flings and short-term relationships throughout my thirties.

Enter legal-aged Whitney Monroe.

I’d learned that she’d been infatuated with me for years, praying for the moment she turned eighteen and that I’d maybe reciprocate her feelings. “Or at very least one night of sex.”

That one night of sex where I took her virginity turned into another night and another until it was almost every night and some days. Weekends away. Secret vacations where she’d told her parents she was away with friends. Sneaking out in the middle of the night because she still lived at home at the time so we could fuck in my car.

The sneaking around was fun and the thrill of the forbidden kept us both coming back for more but it grew to be more than that.

There were I love you’s and talks of the future together. There were nights when we were drunk on tequila and each other as we whispered our vows of devotion. We’d been together two years and her parents still didn’t know. The only people she had told were friends at school that weren’t as familiar with our family dynamic and her cousin Chloe who almost lost her shit when she found out. And that was only because Trey had accidentally slipped up and told her during their pillow talk or whatever.

I’d gone so far down this road with her that I didn’t know how to explain it to my best friends who just happened to be her parents. How could I have let things go on this long without telling them? How did I let things get so far? How did I let myself fall in love with the one person I knew I couldn’t have? Shouldn’t want?

I went back and forth for weeks, wondering what was the worst thing they could do. They could forbid me from seeing her. But Whitney wouldn’t listen and suddenly there would be this irreparable rift in their family that I would have caused. Uncomfortable holidays and family functions, heated arguments, and tension so thick and able to divide a family. Not to mention, on top of all of that, I’d lose my best friends.

It wasn’t until Doctors Without Borders needed me on another team, this time in Mexico to help when COVID-19 hit that I decided it was time for Whitney and me to have a talk about us. The look on her face still haunts me when I told her the news that I was leaving and that it would be best to use this as the ending point of our relationship.

Three Years Ago:

“I can’t come with you…?” Her brown eyes are brimming with unshed tears, realization dawning on her that I wasn’t telling her to pack a suitcase. “Doctors are supposed to just up and leave their families?”