The Lost Boy - Chapter 4 – part three - Where The Damage Was Done

This is where it gets harder.

To write.

To share.

To own.

Not because I don’t remember —

but because I do.

Enough of it.

And what I do remember…

hurts.

It hurts me.

But more importantly —

it could hurt others.

I’ve shared about other people in this story —

my parents, my past, people who’ve shaped me —

but this feels different.

Because this isn’t just about being shaped.

This is about where I did the shaping.

Where my actions left marks.

Where my behaviour became someone else’s burden.

And I can’t tell that lightly.

Not now.

Not ever.

This is where my behaviour shifted.

Where I went from a confused boy

to an abusive young man.

It didn’t happen in a flash.

There was no single moment where the switch flipped.

It built.

Slowly.

Quietly.

Until it wasn’t quiet anymore.

As I began to lose control in some parts of my life,

I think I tried to take control wherever I could.

No matter what that meant.

No matter who it hurt.

And there’s another reason this part is harder to write.

It’s not just about me anymore.

It directly involves other people —

people who were affected by me,

who were hurt by my behaviour,

who didn’t ask to be part of this chaos,

but were pulled into it all the same.

Some of those wounds were deep.

Some may still be open.

And as I write, I don’t just carry my memories —

I carry a responsibility to approach this with care,

with respect,

and with gentleness.

This part will be slower.

Because before I speak some of it,

I’ll be reaching out.

Checking in.

Making sure that what I share doesn’t re-open what they’re still trying to close.

Because yes — this is my story.

But it’s also theirs.

And I won’t bulldoze through it just to get to the next page.

That consideration —

the impact on others —

is going to shape how I tell the rest of this story for a while.

And rightly so.

I’m not holding back because I’m scared to face myself.

That part I’ve already done —

and I’ll keep doing it.

But I am holding back to protect others.

To respect their privacy.

To honour their healing.

Because that’s something I didn’t do at the time.

Back then, I bulldozed through feelings,

boundaries,

people.

But now — I want to do this differently.

So this part might be slower.

More careful.

More considered.

Not because the truth isn’t coming…

but because it’s coming with love.

As with so much of this story, there are gaps.

Big ones. Small ones.

Memories that blur or stretch across years —

moments that feel stitched together from different times.

And this is no different.

I don’t remember the moment we moved out of her parents’ house.

Not clearly, anyway.

There’s no vivid memory of packing, or signing a form, or even talking about it.

Just the knowing that somehow, we were somewhere else now.

What I do remember from that time is this:

we were both going out more.

But not together.

Not that I remember.

I don’t know if she was avoiding me —

avoiding the mess I brought when I drank too much,

the arguments, the drama,

the weight of being around someone who still hadn’t grown up.

Maybe her friends didn’t like me.

Maybe they saw something she was still trying to ignore.

Or maybe we were just two people drifting,

trying to live parallel lives under the illusion of one.

I only remember fragments now.

Blurry scenes.

Nights out.

Maybe fights.

A lot of silence.

And maybe that silence is what’s left in my mind —

not because I don’t remember,

but because I’m ashamed to.

I was a teenage boy full of hormones and confusion.

She was a young mother, likely exhausted, trying to hold it all together.

I wanted sex.

She wanted peace.

It’s not that either of us were wrong for how we felt —

but the imbalance between us became another quiet wound.

One neither of us knew how to name.

I hated being rejected.

That’s how I saw it —

every cold shoulder, every turned back, every “not tonight.”

It didn’t matter what she was feeling.

To me, it was rejection.

And the truth is…

it probably was, at least partly.

She probably despised me to some extent.

Felt stuck. Trapped.

Because she was.

And I knew it.

I felt it from her — the resentment, the heaviness,

the way her eyes didn’t light up anymore when I walked in the room.

But here’s the part that hurts to admit:

I didn’t care.

Not really.

Not in the way I should have.

Not enough to stop.

Not enough to ask why.

Not enough to see her pain before I saw my own need.

Back then, it was all about what I felt.

What I wanted.

What I thought I was owed.

And that’s where the damage started.

Not in fists or fights —

but in the selfishness.

The blindness.

The choosing of my own discomfort over her right to just breathe.

I wouldn’t give up at the first no.

I’d try again.

And again.

Pushing my luck past the point of what was acceptable.

I see that now.

Back then, I dressed it up as persistence.

Told myself it was just passion, or desire, or love even.

But it wasn’t.

It was pressure.

It was a refusal to respect boundaries.

To take someone’s no and honour it, instead of twisting it

into a maybe, or a not yet, or a prove you love me.

And this wasn’t a one-off.

This wasn’t something that happened in just that relationship.

It was a pattern.

Something I carried —

into almost every relationship that followed.

I didn’t know how to handle rejection.

So I’d push.

Manipulate.

Try to make them feel guilty.

Try to make myself feel wanted again.

And underneath it all…

was fear.

Fear of not being enough.

Fear of being unwanted.

Fear of abandonment.

But fear isn’t an excuse.

And I need to say that clearly now —

so that no one reading this gets confused:

It wasn’t okay.

Not then.

Not ever.

And I’m not telling it to justify anything.

I’m telling it because it’s true.

Because naming it is part of making sure it ends with me.

But the truth is, that was just part of it.

The pushing, the pressure —

it lived alongside something else.

Anger.

Real, venomous anger.

And not the kind that flares and fizzles.

The kind that simmers.

I’d become controlling.

Accusing.

Suspicious.

Shouting.

Name-calling.

Throwing around labels and insults that didn’t fit —

didn’t belong to her —

but came flying from my own pain, my own shame, my own broken edges.

I belittled her.

I know I did.

Even if I can’t recall every word, I know that energy.

The look on her face.

The way the room felt when I raised my voice.

And it hurts that I can’t remember it all clearly.

Part of me feels like I should.

Like I owe it to her — to all of them —

to remember it all in perfect detail.

To line it up and name every blow, every bruise, every word.

But I can’t.

Some of it is blank.

Merged. Blurred.

Lost in the haze of alcohol, and immaturity, and whatever else I was using to numb myself.

Still… I know this much:

I was angry.

I was controlling.

I was demeaning.

I’m sure I made digs about the house, the mess, the lack of cleaning —

as if that ever mattered more than kindness.

And I know this escalated.

That part I feel in my bones.

Even if I can’t remember every detail,

I know how the slope felt beneath my feet —

slippery, dark, and only going one way.

And all the while…

she was forgotten.

By me.

Maybe by everyone around us.

My daughter’s mum.

Still just a teenager.

Still trying to hold it together.

The mother of my child.

The victim of Gareth’s first truly abusive relationship.

And that’s what it was.

Abuse.

Not just pain.

Not just dysfunction.

Abuse.

And I was the cause.

I don’t know how long we lived there.

A year, maybe. Give or take.

It’s blurry — like a lot of this chapter.

By this point, I was working for someone new.

Still on the tools, but this time it was rendering more than plastering.

Hard work. Dirty work.

But it paid well, and I wanted good money.

Felt like I needed it — for us, for her, for our daughter. But also for me, enough o lay what I had to and have enough for myself. Not extra for them.

My boss owned a few properties.

And when one became vacant — a nice three-bed with two living areas,

a kitchen-diner, a decent garden —

I jumped at it.

I don’t remember how it all played out.

Just that we moved in.

And somewhere in the fog, I’ve got a funny feeling

there was another house in between.

Another stop along the way.

But that one doesn’t feel important to the story —

at least not from where I stand now.

And if that feels wrong to someone else involved —

if that house meant more to them than I remember —

then I’m sorry.

Truly.

This isn’t me erasing anything on purpose.

It’s just me telling the truth as I know it.

As I remember it.

This whole journey — this story I’m sharing —

it’s not about perfect recollection.

It’s about owning what I do remember.

And honouring the weight of that,

even when the details go missing.

Because memory’s like that, especially when it’s wrapped in trauma.

So if parts are missing,

if something gets left out that shouldn’t have been —

please know it’s not out of disrespect.

I’m not skipping over your truth.

I’m just trying to stay grounded in mine.

That house should’ve been a fresh start.

But it wasn’t.

Not really.

By the time we moved in, things between us were already strained.

I was angry — always angry.

And she was tired.

Tired of me.

Tired of trying.

Tired of being the one who had to hold it all together.

I didn’t see it then — not clearly —

but now I know:

She was surviving me.

I thought I was building a life.

But I was building a cage.

For all of us.

And no matter how many bedrooms we had,

how nice the kitchen was,

or how well the garden caught the sun…

It wasn’t home.

Not for her.

Not for me.

Not even for our daughter, really.

Because the walls carried our tension.

The floors held our fights.

And the silence… that said more than words ever could.

Around this time, the drugs were back.

Maybe they never really left —

not since I’d walked away from the church.

The hash, at least, had always lingered in the background.

But now?

It was more than that.

Almost every week, I’d buy an ounce of hash —

and a bag of coke to go with it.

It became routine.

I’d sit up in the spare room,

snorting lines and playing computer games,

sometimes with mates, sometimes alone.

Either way, I was locked in my own little world —

and nobody else really existed there.

She didn’t know about the coke.

Only the hash.

And even that?

She never really said much.

Looking back, I wonder if she felt there was even any point.

What could she say to someone like me back then?

I wouldn’t have fucking listened.

Not really.

That’s what hurts now.

Because I can’t remember ever being asked to stop.

And I can’t remember ever offering to.

Not for her.

Not for my daughter.

Not even for myself.

It was just part of who I’d become —

this storm of addiction, anger, and control.

And she lived with it.

Silently, mostly.

Because speaking up would’ve meant conflict.

And conflict with me wasn’t something you wanted.

That’s the truth I’m sitting with now.

I wasn’t just using.

I was using people up, too.

I remember one night we went out together —

her, me, and the family she worked for.

An Italian family.

Warm, loud, generous.

But I was a mess.

I got so drunk,

flirting openly with one of the new girls they’d just hired —

right in front of her.

She saw it.

She knew.

And I knew she knew.

But still, that night —

when we got home —

I went back out.

And I cheated on her.

That wasn’t the first time.

By then, we were barely even pretending.

I didn’t want to be there anymore.

Not really.

And I know now she didn’t either.

We were done —

but dragging ourselves along anyway,

because somewhere deep down

we both thought we had to.

For the child.

For the image.

For the lie that staying together meant we were doing the right thing.

But it wasn’t noble.

It wasn’t brave.

It wasn’t love.

It was fear.

It was shame.

It was control, dressed up as loyalty.

I wasn’t doing it for her.

I wasn’t doing it for our daughter.

I was doing it for me —

for the mask,

for the illusion that I was a good man doing the good thing.

But I wasn’t.

I was a boy in a man’s role,

hurting people while trying to look like I had it together.

And that’s where this part ends.

Because what came next —

the break-up, the unraveling,

and the fallout that followed —

That needs its own space.

That’s Part Four.