How do I get my boyfriend back after I cheated?

Asked by Durnnnnn (26) December 1st, 2018 from iPhone

I’m only 17 and I just lost my first ever relationship of 6 months with someone that I had known and liked for a long time. I cheated on him with a friend of mine at the very beginning of our relationship at a party, I was extremely drunk and in a bad place mentally and I didn’t think at all at the time as it meant nothing to me and I had been a bit hesitant about getting into a relationship in the first place. It was difficult afterwards but he forgave me since we hadn’t been going out for very long and wanted to give it another shot.

About a month later I cheated on him with the same guy after not talking to him at all since the first time – but nobody knew that this time had happened. It was only one kiss – it was very brief and I was disgusted and embarrassed afterwards. It should never have happened and we agreed not to tell anyone because it was so silly and I couldn’t believe myself. I buried it and almost convinced myself it hadn’t happened so I could focus all my energy to being the the best girlfriend ever and to make my boyfriend happy and it worked. We grew closer than ever before and our relationship reached a completely new level of understanding, tenderness and intamacy and we made eachother so happy. We said ‘I love you’ for the first time. We completed eachother. It was perfect. When I looked back at the mistakes I had made at the start of the relationship it was like a completely different person had done it. Don’t get me wrong, the guilt still crushed me but I figured since nobody knew about it and it was so long ago that it would only be unnecessarily destructive to bring it up and I was terrified of losing my boyfriend as all I ever wanted was to show him how much I truly cared for him and wanted to see him succeed and be happy.

Alas, the story somehow got out and everyone was gossiping about it. They made up lies exaggerating the whole thing and my boyfriend was in shock and angry so he told me he was breaking up with me right there and then because he could never trust me again. We haven’t spoke for days as he said he needs time and doesn’t want to speak to me and that I’m toxic and bad for him, however my friend talked to him and she knows that he knows this isn’t true and that our love was real.

How do I let him know that it was only one kiss and that the love we had shared since then was so much more powerful than the silly mistake I had made? How do I let him know that the last few months had been the best of my life and that that was the real me, and that the silly mistakes I had made early on in the relationship didn’t represent how I truly felt about him? I know for a fact that he knows I truly did care about him and that i wasn’t faking how I felt. Am I delusional and is the situation hopeless or do I just need to pour my heart out and tell him how much this has devastated me and that i will do anything to fix it?