I've shared many firsts with Tobias James Eaton, and all of the best times of my 23 year life were with him. He was it for me, my first love, my first boyfriend, my first lover and my true soulmate. Life with Tobias was perfect for many years, or so I thought.

I met Tobias when I was 7 years old. He and his father moved into the duplex next door to us after his mother's death. Tobias was 9, quiet and withdrawn, and it took almost 4 months for him to speak to me. What started as forced interactions during numerous dinners between our families soon blossomed into a full blown friendship. We became inseparable, and the teenage years saw Tobias and I become closer than ever, even though we were both more introverted and artistic. We weren't the popular kids in school, and we relied solely on each other for companionship. On my 13th birthday Tobias officially became my boyfriend. Back then, a boyfriend was simply who you held hands with in the hallway at school, and occasionally talked to on the phone. Our love was young, but steady, and when I was 16 Tobias and I gave our virginities to each other. We went to proms, homecomings and other school functions, and reveled in our time together. We had the perfect high school romance.

I managed to graduate a year early, and Tobias took a year off after his own graduation so we could attend Dauntless University together. While our childhoods were spent in our own little bubble with sparse outside friendships, in college we found a great social circle of shared friends. Zeke and his brother Uriah became surrogate brothers to Tobias, and their girlfriends Shauna and Marlene were the types of girl friends I longed for in high school. When Tobias and I were looking for roommates, we lucked out and found another couple who were perfect for us in Christina and Will. Our little circle was special, and we spent many fun nights together partying, playing truth or dare, or relaxing at one apartment or the other. This was exactly where we were supposed to be.

In hindsight, I see where the first cracks of our relationship started. Tobias was accustomed to having me all to himself for most of our lives, and he had difficulties with any social activity that I participated in that didn't include him. Girl nights with Shauna, Marlene and Christina became impossible due to Tobias' relentless calling, texting and guilt trips. We had our first major fight after I went to the movies with Shauna and didn't have my phone turned on for 2 hours. I simply thought Tobias was extremely protective of me, and he loved me so much that being apart was difficult. The cracks were small, and to both myself and our friends it was nothing more than the hardship of the two socially awkward high school sweethearts learning how to let loose and live a little. We spent more time together as a group, so the little insecurities that were creeping into our relationship went mostly unnoticed.

After graduating last year, Tobias wanted for us to to find our own apartment. While we loved living with Christina and Will, sharing a common space and bedroom wall meant for many awkward moments with both young couples. We found a perfect one bedroom apartment that was close to the police station that Tobias and Zeke worked, and was within walking distance to the rehabilitation center I was working at. The microscopic cracks that had started in our relationship grew much bigger this past year. Tobias' possessiveness and jealousy became a huge issue in our relationship. He hated any male attention or interaction towards me. He put a wedge into the close friendships I maintained with my girlfriends, and he became very suspicious of my work schedule and coworkers. What had always been an almost flattering attentiveness early in our relationship soon became suffocating.

My parents and brother Caleb were in a fatal car accident 6 months ago, and the night of their funeral was the first time Tobias ever hit me. He drank way too much after the funeral, and while we had a house full of friends paying their respects Tobias decided that one of my brothers friends was hitting on me, which was furthest from the truth. A simple hug between mourning friends flipped a switch in Tobias, and in a drunken stupor he demanded everyone leave our home. As soon as the door closed, Tobias slapped me with a rage I've never seen before, and at the time I needed him the most he walked away from our home and didn't return for 2 days. I never knew where he went, but when he came home I was so in need of his companionship that I forgave him for everything. He was all I had left, and that was exactly what he wanted.

I made excuses for his verbal, physical and emotional abuse. Tobias was a victim of child abuse from his own father, and his mother was driven to suicide because of the abuse she also suffered at Marcus' hand. When Tobias started abusing me, he didn't recognize the parallels from his own childhood. He refused to talk to me about it, he refused to get help, and since he was a highly respected new detective he certainly made me believe that no one was ever going to believe me if I talked about it. How could they? We had been together for 10 years, and to everyone who knew us we had the perfect relationship. No one knew how much I was suffering.

This brings me to another first in our relationship, the first time he left me for death.