I met Thomas the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at college. That first year of college was a big one for me – I’d suffered my first real broken heart, experienced my first taste of true independence, and taken up drinking. Milestones, you could say. So when May rolled around and it was time to pack up and go home to live with my family – my family! – until next September, I was understandably distraught.

My parents lived on Long Island. While I was away at school they’d moved to a smaller house in a strange town – a house that didn’t have a bedroom for me. I got the top bunk in my younger sister’s room, which neither of us were too thrilled about. I would lie in that top bunk at night, unable to fall asleep, and consider the cruel tricks of the universe, which had coldly cast me one step forward and two steps back. How, I despaired, would I ever grow into a fully enlightened being if the progress I made at college got canceled out each summer as I languished on Long Island? It just didn’t seem fair.

That all changed when I ran into Thomas at a mutual friend’s party. It turned out that he lived in the new, strange town my parents had decided to call home. We talked about school, he filled me in on all the essential information I needed to survive for a summer in his neck of the woods, I talked about school some more, he told me he liked my dreadlocks, and before the night was over we were making out in the laundry room while everyone else passed out on the living room floor.

In the beginning, for those first few magical weeks, things were great. Sure, I was stuck at home and Long Island sucked, but I had Thomas — and that was a new kind of adventure. We spent most of that summer getting to know each other in the dark and sweaty cavern of his room. We talked, discussing drugs and the downfall of civilization, we played board games (though I quickly learned that it was better to let him win than deal with a sulking boyfriend for hours afterwards), and we had lots and lots of sex. But no matter how we managed to fill the days and nights, we always had his computer on in the background, playlist loaded and ready to go.

Thomas loved Counting Crows, so Adam Duritz’s plaintive lyrics quickly became the soundtrack of our skin. Before I met Thomas, I didn’t really listen to the Counting Crows. I’d heard “Mr. Jones” – who hadn’t? – and that was the one song I could sing along with at first, though by the end of the summer I knew the band’s whole repertoire like the back of my hand. Thomas loved to hear me sing “Mr. Jones,” despite the fact that I have an awful voice and no sense of tone or rhythm. I hated singing, but I liked the feeling of being adored. It seemed like an okay tradeoff.

Cut Maria! Show me some of them Spanish dances / Pass me a bottle, Mr. Jones / Believe in me / Help me believe in anything

Things got complicated quickly. I returned to school at the end of August and Thomas stayed behind on Long Island. He became jealous of the time I spent away from him, demanding more visits home, longer conversations, constant check-ins, emails and updates on what I was doing, who I was with, and always, always needing to know how I felt about us. This was my first serious relationship and I had a hard time saying no. I felt guilty all the time, convinced from Thomas’ rants that I was being selfish, ungrateful, that I refused to give love a chance, that with an attitude such as mine, I would surely end up alone and unloved. It wasn’t exactly healthy. Those long days and nights under the worn blankets of his bed seemed like another lifetime. I tried to end things but Thomas always had a way of twisting my perfectly rational reasons around, so that instead of breaking up with him I found myself in tears, begging him to forgive me for hurting him. It’s not something I’m proud of and nothing I can explain. I didn’t even love him but I couldn’t leave. I felt trapped, miserable. I considered studying abroad for a semester just to get away.

I want to be a lion / Everybody wants to pass as cats

Thomas got tickets to a Counting Crows concert in the city and naturally I was expected to go with him. It was a small show, and you could only get tickets if you were on the band’s email list. We entered a tiny club and made our way to the front, people crushing in at all sides. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone fall to the floor – a girl, unable to breathe or move with the weight of the people around her, had collapsed. Someone yelled for us to make room, move back, and we did, but it was a slow wave that lapped at the shore of the room’s perimeter. The girl was carried out, her face pale, her arms limp at her sides. She was going to be okay, someone said. Thomas squeezed my hand. I swallowed, hard.

When the Counting Crows finally came onstage, we were in the very front row, standing in the space where the girl had been. Adam Duritz was drinking while he sang, Coronas at every corner of the stage, and as the night progressed he got more and more intoxicated until finally, he forgot the chorus of “Mr. Jones,” the one song that even I’d always known the lyrics to. I almost didn’t notice. I spent the whole night feeling crowded, crushed, and trying to remember how to breathe. It was then that I realized the danger of suffocation wasn’t in the people pressed around me – it was in the person next to me, the person holding my hand so tightly that my bones felt like they might break.

Thomas asked me what I thought of the show on our way to the train station. I told him I was pretty sure I hated the Counting Crows and that to be entirely honest, the lyrics to “Mr. Jones” didn’t make any sense. He took this as a personal insult. I felt like I had won a small victory.

I wish I could say that I broke up with Thomas right then and there – that I grew a spine, realized I was in an abusive relationship, and reclaimed my precious freedom. That would make a better story, but it wouldn’t be true. Thomas and I stayed together for a few more weeks, until late one evening he confessed that while I was away at school he had cheated on me. Instead of being hurt I found myself relieved. Even then, he tried to twist it into something I’d forced him to do, tried to blame me for his own faults and indiscretions. By then it was too late. We were finally over. I didn’t have to leave the country. I didn’t have to stay miserable for the rest of my life. And most importantly, I didn’t have to listen to the Counting Crows ever again.