If you are just joining me now for the first time…welcome! Before you continue on, refer to my first blog post The Beginning Pt.1 and start my story from “The Beginning”. March 18, 2015: “It’s been three weeks since I have been home and I still don’t even have words to say. I feel like the hardest part of it all is being away from the one who I want to be with most, Arik.” – An entry from my diary. Being home felt like absolute torture. I felt like I was in prison being watched 24/7. I wasn’t used to feeling like this, I felt trapped. I know my parents were just trying to help, but I felt like I couldn’t even have a minute alone to breathe and collect my thoughts. On top of that, Arik was still telling me that I should just leave and come back to Utah. Believe me, at this point I was definitely tempted. The only thing on my mind at this point was Arik. He wanted me to come back so we could be together and get married. We were talking about possibly getting married sometime in June. I liked the idea of it, but truthfully I just didn’t feel in my heart that it was ever going to happen. Since the day I found out I was pregnant my dad started digging for information. He wanted to find out everything he could about Arik Mack. My dad made phone calls to practically everyone who was close with Arik growing up or people who just knew him generally speaking. I’m the youngest in my family, and a girl so naturally my dad is very protective of me. My dad sent direct messages to people off Instagram, signing in on my mom’s Facebook and messaging all of Arik’s ex-girlfriends and their parents. In my eyes, my dad was acting like a complete crazy person and I was constantly irritated at him for it. But since Arik was wanting to marry me, my dad wanted to know EVERYTHING there was to know about him. The crazy thing was that people responded to him, and typically a lot of those people talked major trash on him… including his ex-girlfriend who obviously had plenty to say (with good reason). YES, my dad even contacted Arik’s ex who just had her baby three months prior. My dad was in constant contact with the ex-girlfriend’s family who had nothing but bad things to say about Arik. Honestly, I completely dismissed it because I knew they would have those types of opinions. I mean who wouldn’t considering that situation?

“Pain. Pain is all that I feel. Last night I talked with my parents for a couple hours about Arik. I’m hearing things that are very, very concerning about him. I’m just so confused and I feel hurt. Maybe Arik wasn’t the guy I thought he was? It just hurts, because I didn’t think it would take me getting pregnant to find out all of the stuff I’m hearing now, and it sucks. So yes, pain is all I feel right now.” – An entry from my diary. I thought I knew Arik inside and out. We talked about most things, including our pasts…but I was finding out new stuff that he never mentioned before. Stuff that was a concerning component of his character. Stuff that if I would have known beforehand, I wouldn’t have dated him. So, I went out on a quest for answers. I started sending DMs to people, calling his roommates and other people who may be able to help me find out the truth about who Arik really was. It took me less than 10 hours to find out the news I was dreading. This is a part of my story that I have always been nervous to share, mainly because I pride myself in being a very confident person. But this…completely crushed me. I would always leave this part out when I talked about what happened because I was so embarrassed about it. It destroyed me. Arik did in fact cheat on me. The person that I trusted the most…my best friend, and the father of my child. I couldn’t even believe it. The only thing running through my mind was, “wait he cheated on me? There’s no way.” Like I said, I was a very confident person so I didn’t think I would ever get cheated on and that’s why I fought my dad so hard on it. March 24th, 2015 – I found out that Arik cheated on me by a very reliable source and that’s how I knew it was all real. I called one of his cousins who we had hung out with multiple times in the past. I told him I was pregnant and that I really needed to know if Arik had cheated on me. His cousin sighed and said, “ugh mayc, yeah he did”. I feel completely blindsided. So here’s the rundown for when he cheated on me. I was out of town with my tennis team competing one weekend when Arik decided to get super drunk. He had some girls already hitting him up to hang out and since he was with some of his guy friends he let them all come over to his apartment. Arik proceeded to get more wasted and had a one night stand with some girl. This happened at the end of January, I believe it was January 28th or 29th. I found out I was pregnant February 1st.

So, I got ready…put makeup on and did my hair because I wanted him to see what he was going to be missing. Then I FaceTimed him. I still remember he was wearing a light blue sweatshirt, the one that I loved because it made his blue eyes pop. We started talking and he was more quiet than usual and looked nervous, maybe even on edge. I told him that I knew he cheated on me, and I even talked to the girl that he cheated on me with. He completely denied it. He kept denying it and denying it over and over. Until I got frantic and with tears welling in my eyes, I said, “stop lying to my face, I know you cheated on me, just admit it!” He replied, “I didn’t do it, even ask my cousin!” I said, “I did, I called him and he told me that you cheated on me!!” He paused, then let out a nervous sigh and said, “Mayci I am so sorry, I f*cked up.” I didn’t give him a chance to say anymore. In the calmest voice I could possibly muster I said some of the most hurtful things I could think of. “You’re never going to see me again, and if you do it’s going to be in court where I’ll be granted full custody of our baby. You’re never going to see our child growing inside of me and our baby will never call you daddy because he will have a new daddy who loves him and cares for him.” Tears started streaming from his eyes. This statement is word for word- straight from my diary. Even writing this out I am crying, because looking back this makes me feel horrible that I said all of it. He started apologizing to me, asking for forgiveness and pleading for me to take him back and I told him to stop. I ended the FaceTime call by saying, “have a good f*king life” Once the call ended I grabbed the picture of us in the frame on my desk and threw it as hard as I could against the wall. The glass shattered and then I did too. I was crying hysterically… if I didn’t have Arik who did I really have? Of course, I always had my family, but its different than having an actual partner. I just lost my best friend and lover. Part me started to doubt how much he loved me since he cheated on me. I decided to call Arik’s dad to tell him what had just happened. I was close with Arik’s parents and I wanted to let them know what had happened and why I decided to end things. I didn’t want Arik to tell his parents a different story portraying me as the bad guy. I talked to Arik’s dad for over an hour and his dad essentially told me to keep an open mind and not cut the relationship off. Arik’s dad also told me that I was the first girl they had really seen Arik love and want to be with long term. During the phone call Arik sent me one of his favorite photos of us… which was a photo of us hugging in the mirror. I responded, “I’m confused as to why you would even send this to me. What is the purpose honestly I’m just confused.”