Texted Lies, Whispered Truths: Jason Collier's Story by Terri Browning (books for students to read .txt) 📕

her paranoia that everyone in her town was against her and only out to get her, she asked me to meet her at a cemetery close to her house. She thought no one could see us from where we were parked, but I could tell anyone who drove past could see us easily enough. The whole time we sat there, she seemed nervous. She wanted to hide since she thought the cops would bother her if she didn’t. We sat in my truck and talked for a while, but I noticed a farm truck kept circling the cemetery suspiciously. I thought it might be her ex or the other guy I was sure she was also seeing.

Her nervousness didn’t stop her from kissing me for the first time that day, though.

I had reserved a hotel room in Dodge City, thinking it was closer to Stephanie’s house, but it was actually over an hour away from where she lived. The next morning, I drove back to her place, and the two of us went shopping for her friend’s birthday present.

Afterward, we met up with her friend and had dinner to celebrate the woman’s birthday. Once dinner was over, I dropped Stephanie off so she could pick up her car and follow me back to Dodge City. There, we went to a brewery to talk and get a few drinks before going back to my hotel to have sex.

In the following weeks, I saw Stephanie a few more times and even met her kids on several occasions. January 14, 2021, was the last weekend I went to Kansas, and I was ready to break things off. I drove up that day, and we had dinner with her kids. When we got back to her house, something was wrong with my truck door, and her son couldn’t open it. Something had caused it to get stuck, and I had to open it hard, shattering the window.

That night I went to my hotel, and Stephanie spent the night with me again. The next morning, she and her daughter went with me to get my window replaced, and then we spent the day together. One of our stops was at Target. As we passed the coffee machines, I mentioned which one I had and that I really liked it, and she told me which one she had been thinking of buying. But there was never any mention of actually buying that one or any other coffeemaker for her.

In truth, I was already moving on to the next player in my game.

13

That final weekend with Stephanie was a busy weekend for me. Closer to the end of my time with Stephanie, I had started chatting with Tiffany on the Facebook dating app. Of all of the women I chatted with and dated, Tiffany was the one I was most attracted to, even more so than Stephanie.

My plan was to spend the two days with Stephanie, break it off, and then on my way home, stop in Sweetwater, Texas to go antiquing with Tiffany on January 16.

While I was still getting my window fixed, Stephanie called me in a panic to let me know her son had run away, and I drove straight back to her house to help her search for him.

In the early hours of the morning, once he was found, I sat in my truck with Stephanie trying to break it off. One of the reasons I gave her was that I was very allergic to cats, and it seemed every time I came to visit her, she had even more cats at her house. But she kept saying she wanted us to try, that she loved me and wanted it to work between us. In a moment of weakness, I eventually let her talk me into getting a hotel room again, and we spent the rest of the night together.

In all, I got maybe forty-five minutes of sleep before I was on the road back to Sweetwater, which was seven hours away. Every weekend, I would get Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off, so weekends were the best time for me to meet up with Stephanie and the others.

The plan was to meet up with Tiffany in the Walmart parking lot. I got there in time to go inside and buy her a few bouquets of flowers, and then I went out to meet her at her vehicle. We went to lunch, and I made sure we stopped at Sonic to get drinks because she had told me repeatedly during our chats that it was one of her favorite things to do.

We went ax throwing and had dinner that night. It was fun, but we parted ways with nothing more than plans for the following day. The next morning, we had brunch together before going to the bookstore. When I left, we shared what I thought was a sweet goodbye kiss. I wanted more, but Tiffany wasn’t ready.

Not long after I started talking to Tiffany on Facebook, I once again started chatting with Candie. At this point in time, I hadn’t met Candie. The extent of our relationship had only been a few times chatting via the Facebook dating app. She disappeared for several weeks, and out of the blue, I saw her again on the app in January.

On my way home from Sweetwater on January 17, I drove straight to Amarillo and met Candie for the very first time. We went to dinner while her ex had the kids, rounding out one of the longest weekends of my entire life.

I was running on pure testosterone and adrenaline after the craziness of that extended weekend. My testosterone levels are high to begin with, something I found out about the hard way in June 2020 when I had a stroke. My levels get so high that it thickens my blood and causes clotting. One of those clots happened to travel to my brain, causing the stroke.

Thankfully, it didn’t cause any lasting damage, and I