My Love, My Future, My Loss.

Charles was the man I always dreamed of. SIKE!! Charles was nothing like I ever dreamed of. He was more. He was the man I didn't know I needed in my life. He was the one who pushed me to do better. He made me a better woman. Let's start from the beginning.

Charles and I went to middle school together. We dated when we were in the 8th grade for a whole week. The "relationship" ended by him saying that I was "too much like a sister", and shortly after that we graduated and ended up at different high schools.

When I was 20 we reunited. My friend Jordan was asked out by a guy named Michael, who happened to be Charles best friend. Jordan told Michael that she was willing to get lunch with him, but I was with her, so I was coming too. Michael said okay, and he was with his friend too, so we could all do lunch. Jordan and I showed up to lunch and I noticed Charles right away. I was so excited to catch up with Charles a bit and the four of us talked for hours. I was definitely attracted to Charles, but I was already enrolled in a makeup school in California at this point and had no intentions of ever coming back to live in Charlotte once I was out in Hollywood. I had big dreams of being a famous makeup artist and was determined to make it happen. I moved out to California a few weeks later and only saw updates of his life on facebook.

Fast forward five months. I came back to Charlotte for a long weekend for my moms birthday and to see my friends. It was a whirlwind weekend where I hardly slept, but it was so needed for my homesick heart. As quickly as I arrived, I had to leave again. All my friends and family know how much anxiety I get while flying, so some news was kept from me until I landed back safely in California. When I called to tell Jordan that I was back at my apartment in one piece, she told me that Michael had passed away. It shook me to my core. I needed to be back with my family and friends. You just never know when is their time, and I wanted to be with the people I loved most. I was on the fence about moving back to Charlotte at that point and that call made the decision that Hollywood was not the place for me. My mom and Jordan came for my graduation from makeup school a month later and Jordan and I drove me and all my junk back across the country to Charlotte. A decent part of our trip was us discussing what we should do for Charles when we got back home. We finally decided that we wanted to take him to lunch once we were back, and that's exactly what we did. We met him for lunch on his lunch break on the Saturday we returned. From that day forward we only spent a handful of days apart. I knew almost immediately that he was my future. He was the man that would change my life. He did that more than I could ever have imagined.

Charles was a mechanic. When we first started dating he was working at Take 5 Oil change and quickly climbed the ranks in the business. He got snagged up by Speedee Oil Change to be the manager of their Concord shop and he took over so effortlessly. He wanted to make me proud. He wanted to be more than he thought he was ever capable of for me. He wanted to provide a stable home for me. He wanted a life he never thought he could have because of me. Charles admitted to me the night before he passed away that he was scared he wasn't enough for me. He wanted to give me the world, but knew his life before me had hindered him to giving all the things he thought I wanted to me. What he did not realize was that he had changed my entire world in such a profound way and he was all I needed. We made an amazing team. We had each others backs. All of my down falls were his strengths. He fought back with me. He had his opinions and he did not let me forget them. That is why I loved him. He was unapologetically himself. He would give anything he had to make someones life a fraction better. He had a heart like no other man I know. He was it. He was all I never knew I wanted.