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

showering, I responded to a few texts from Stephanie to keep her from annoying me all weekend.

By the next day, I realized Candie and I had nothing in common. Although I had drifted so far from God by this time that I couldn’t clearly see the road back to Him, I was still very much a religious man. Candie didn’t attend church, and that bothered me. On top of that, she continued to push for me to move in with her—after only having met in person six days before. Throughout the weekend, she just seemed to act more and more off, and it was disturbing to me.

I dropped her off at home on January 24, and as I drove back to my own house, I texted her that I thought we were moving too fast and should slow things down. As with Stephanie, I used the excuse that we were too different—she was a cat person, I was a dog person, I was religious, she wasn’t—and in this case, it was absolutely true. She called me and we talked, and that was when I informed her I absolutely would not be moving in with her.

Candie became irrationally angry and started yelling. I couldn’t take her like that, so I hung up.

I got several messages from her on January 25. “You’re a lying piece of shit,” came in at 9:00 p.m., followed by, “I’m telling everyone.” And then the last one was received at 9:08 p.m. that said, “You fucked with the wrong person.”

The next day was when she made the post on the City of Stinnett, Texas, Facebook page. It seemed like, within no more than a blink of my eyes, that post went viral, getting shared thousands upon thousands of times. She and Stephanie started talking, and everything escalated from there.

Things began getting crazy fast, and my head was spinning that so many people around the world were commenting on what was going on. But it wasn’t until my kids began getting threats that I messaged both Candie and Stephanie to ask them—beg them, if that was what it took—to stop.

That was the last contact I had with either of them.

That same day, I was put on administrative leave at work.

16

I confessed to O as soon as everything started blowing up in my face.

While I was still at work, she called our pastor and his wife, who came over immediately. The three of them talked about what was going on and prayed for guidance. When I got home, O told me that everything was going to be okay. She forgave me and said we would work everything out.

Relieved, I vowed to go back to counseling with her and do whatever else she thought was needed to make our marriage work.

But that was when we started getting inundated with phone calls from the media, talk shows, and everyone in between. People wanted to know my story or tell me what they thought of me or laugh at me. Suddenly, all the attention I was getting wasn’t the kind that made me feel good at all. Everyone I loved was now in pain, and it was the one to blame.

O and I went to bed together like normal, and I honestly thought everything was going to be all right, that I wasn’t going to lose my wife. We just needed a few days for things to calm down, and life would get back to normal. I just had to have patience and faith that it would all be over quickly.

Then in the middle of the night, O suddenly sat up in bed. Concerned, I asked if she was all right, and she said no. I’d embarrassed her and her family too much. She no longer had faith in our marriage, and she was done.

She told me to get out of our room. I didn’t want to push her more, so I didn’t argue any further, and I slept on the couch.

The next morning, she came into the kitchen and told me she was going to her parents’ for a few days. I had to get out by Saturday. During that time, I could use the truck she had bought, but it couldn’t leave the city limits. If it did, she would report it missing and have me arrested for theft.

I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I was losing everything right before my eyes, and on top of that, someone had released my home address and phone number on Facebook. All the local police agencies decided that I was in possible danger and put my house on close patrol.

Not long after O left for her parents’ house, the city manager called to ask me to come back to the station to discuss the situation. I was met by a Texas Ranger and a member of the district attorney’s office. They questioned me, and then the city manager came in to speak to me alone once again.

I knew I had two choices: resign or be fired. At least with resignation, I would be released with an honorable discharge.

As soon as I resigned, the Ranger arrested me for allegedly tampering with a government document—the annulment papers. Fortunately, a family member was able to bail me out so that I didn’t have to spend the night in lockup.

When I look back on everything that happened from November to January, I can see that I was being a narcissist the way I played all of those women along. I realize I may not have abused anyone physically, but I did abuse them emotionally by making them think I loved them.

I basked in all the attention they gave me because I wasn’t getting any of it at home. But I struggled with breaking it off every time. I got somewhat emotionally attached to them and didn’t want to hurt them. Even though I only wanted far, far away from Candie, I still didn’t enjoy hurting her or the other women I strung along for all