Chapter 4, First Love. DIVORCED, DAMAGED AND DANGEROUS

Chapter 4. First Love

Written by

Tracey COOPER

Before the damage, before the danger—there was love. My first. The kind that flips your heart and hijacks your thoughts. The kind you never really recover from, even when the world moves on. This is where my story begins…

The first time I saw S, my heart did a backflip. Tall, dark, and handsome—literally. With blue eyes darker and deeper than the Med. I was a shy 11-year-old in my first year at comp, and I didn’t have a clue what had just happened to my heart. But he had it—right from the start.

His mate asked me out on the school bus, but I told him straight: your friend’s more my type. I couldn’t believe I was bold enough to say it. As I ran off the bus, I was mortified—and elated. My secret was out.

It became years of eye tennis. A glance in the hallway, a faint smile on the bus. For so long, he was my reason to go to school. Just one look would lift me. I loved him quietly, fiercely. I replayed every moment in my head like a song on repeat. It was an unspoken love—my first. And nothing has ever come close.

By 15, we were going steady. He’d walk me home, and we’d hang out at his parents’ place, surrounded by vinyl and guitars. Whitesnake, Marillion, Gary Moore… his music became mine. To this day, Is This Love and Kayleigh take me straight back to us—young, wide-eyed, and full of hope.

He was the only constant in my life then. And I had two friends I loved like sisters—our little gang of escape artists. They helped me forget what was happening behind my own front door.

Eventually, things at home got unbearable. I was thrown out of my dad’s for a “funky” sandwich box under the bed. Left in a magnolia B&B room with blue curtains and no warmth. S’s mum wasn’t having it. She told my father I’d be staying with them, and he said, If she’s any trouble, ring me. I remember the look she gave him—like, Trouble? Really?

I stayed with them for six weeks. S gave up his room and moved in with his gran. His brother’s girlfriend was there too, escaping her own chaos. It felt like a house full of misfits. I was grateful, but also ashamed. Unwanted. Like a headache no one could shift.

My dad found me a job, and S’s mum lent me a blouse for the interview. I moved into a shared house. S came every night. At first it was comfort, routine, love. But soon, tensions surfaced. After arguments, I’d try to walk away and cool off—he’d block the door. Contain me. It felt suffocating, like I was being marked in netball. No space to breathe.

The relationship started to crack. I loved him more than I loved myself—but we were too young, too broken, too desperate to escape our own homes. That’s all we were doing—running from pain, not toward each other.

By 18, we had a room in a cottage in Jersey Marine. At first, it felt like freedom—Pizza Hut dinners, wild nights, us against the world. But within 18 months and a string of addresses, we’d become volatile. I scratched, ran, he restrained, held. The more I fought, the worse it got.

All I knew was conflict. All he knew was control. We were just 19 and 20, playing house with no tools for love. My heart shattered in pieces, over and over. The bruises were real—on our skin, on our spirits. And yes, I always came off worse.

I wanted out. I wrote to Dear Deirdre. She told me to leave. And someone at work started showing interest—and I left. Not kindly. Not cleanly. I regret that part the most. Because S and his family gave me everything when I had nothing. But we were never going to make it. Not like that.

I left my first love not to chase someone else—but to run from a version of myself I couldn’t survive being anymore.

And I did get away. I moved to Cardiff.

But I never forgot him.

Or what his family did for me.

I was angry. Full of rage. And I had nowhere to put it. So I burned bridges and told myself the grass was greener.

It wasn’t.

It never is.

That was the first time I realised love isn’t always enough. And sometimes, the damage we carry writes the ending long before we get to turn the page. I was too young to know how to love gently. Too desperate to stay. And too afraid to admit I didn’t know who I was without the chaos.

But that girl—scared, fiery, and full of longing—she became MissT. Divorced, damaged, and dangerous. And this? This was just the start.

MissT x

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One woman’s story of survival, strength, and starting again.”

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