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I probably should have seen it coming. I know I should have. But I didn’t, or didn’t want to. Either way, it caught me by complete surprise.

He’d been coming around a lot more. My Brother brought him. The one with pale hair and the thoughtful eyes. The one that couldn’t just leave things be, like everyone else. The one that wouldn’t look away. Little things, at first, were how it started.

How he moved closer to me. How he involved me more and more with what they did. How, if I was hungry, he would waste time and money to take me out to get something. How he paid attention, even when what I was saying was boring and pointless, and I knew it. It was nice, and I smiled. Not a real smile, but a smile, and that was more than usual. It seemed enough for him, for the moment.

And then it was more. I felt it, a subtle shift. But it was strange, and different, and I didn’t like it. I was nothing special. Not particularly pretty. Not very funny. I refused to believe it might be true. No one could be interested in me.

Besides, it wasn’t right. Even if he was, for what reason? These days passed in a blur, and I learned a bit more about him. He was older than me; that much had been obvious from the start. Duh. Another thing though, I had not known. He was taken. A girl, far away, lay claim to this thoughtful, wonderful boy. In my mind, she was a stunning beauty, someone that would have made the silicon dolls of Hollywood cry. Oh yes, tall, willowy, graceful. Dark hair, creamy perfect skin. Lovely eyes, kissable lips. Incredibly intelligent. Hilarious. With the personality of a Saint.

In other words, I couldn’t hold a candle.

I held this in my mind, held that image of that lovely, perfect girl of his, close to me at all times, in front of my heart like a shield. Yes, yes, I was sure now. He didn’t want me. He was being nice, just nice to a girl with nothing to smile about.

That’s what I let myself believe.

But then he started staring longer. Taking me out more often. Staying as close to me as possible, while keeping it just discreet enough so that I was always confused as to whether or not he even realized he was doing it.

And then another thought struck. Maybe he was doing it on purpose. Long-shot, but if I thought about it from the right angle, possible. And then I began closing in on myself. Holding the shield closer to my heart, in an attempt to keep it safe. Maybe he just wanted to use me. With his girl so far away, and a naïve one right here, desperate for attention--…It would be so easy. Would have been. I couldn’t let that happen. I could not imagine that pain was better than being empty.

It was the pain that turned my world upside down, inside out.

“You’re lonely, aren’t you?”

The words, achingly true, ringing in my head, coursing through my blood as my heart beat out the answer. Yes, yes, yes.

He wasn’t using me. Wasn’t trying to hurt me. He saw it, knew what it was. Knew what kept me awake at night.

I was lonely, and he knew.

Love was something I had never really experienced. Not true love. Not this, not the warmth, the comfort. Not the heady, dizzy rush I got, every time his lips found mine for a hurried, secret kiss. It was wrong. So wrong. I was so young, he was taken--…But I didn’t care. Why should I? So what if the perfect girl would cry. Hadn’t I cried enough to compensate? Didn’t someone else deserve a turn?

He had said it first. He had said he loved me. That was all I needed, all I had ever wanted. I didn’t even care anymore whether or not he meant it. He seemed to mean it, filled the role perfectly. If he was acting, he deserved an award. And I, I was his unwitting co-star in my favorite production. Everything was right. He knew what was happening in our house. He knew it was wrong. He wanted to take me away. I wanted to go away.

I wanted to be with him.

My parents noticed nothing. My Brother ignored everything.

I was so happy.

It hurt. I had known it would. But it was a good hurt, I had decided, as I limped inside. I wished he could stay. Just stay there with me, all night, hold me, and stroke me, and whisper to me as he had been doing earlier. It was my first time. He was gentle. I was grateful for that, because I could tell he had wanted more. I walked inside. The room was dark and filled with pot smoke. I wondered if they would notice now, now that their wonderful, sweet, innocent little girl had done such an unforgivable thing. My neck was covered with marks where his teeth had been. Thinking about it made me shiver. I smelled like him, and I was happy for it. I was grinning from ear to ear. I was more than happy. My head spun with the elation I felt.

My parents, of course, noticed nothing. I made my way up the stairs, looked in the mirror, and decided that my neck would be covered in very pretty bruises the next day.

Which it was.

It did not cause the stir I had thought it might. In fact, no one seemed to notice. No one except for him, that is. He could barely contain the smile on his face, I could tell, and I had no such self-control. The little twinges of pain I got from the lovely splotches made my smile even brighter. He wanted to laugh, to point them out. I wanted to show the world.

But, somehow, I managed to contain this urge. Life went on. I was happier than I could ever remember being.

I let myself forget the things that I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think about his girl. I didn’t want to think about her lips having been exactly where mine were. I didn’t want to think, that somewhere, she was thinking about him too. That her heart might possibly twist the same way mine did when someone mentioned his name.

So I didn’t.

When they agreed to take me away, I was happy. So, so happy. Until I realized where they were taking me to. My Aunt had agreed to take me in, for some unfathomable reason. A reason I figured out relatively quickly. She had done it, not out of kindness, but as leverage. She wanted to hold it over my Mother’s head.

I hated her. She hated me. It was a mutual agreement.

But when I was not allowed to see him, she crossed the line. Because she had caught us whispering to each other, because she had seen the way he held me, the way he looked at me. No, that would not be tolerated. She did not let me use the phone, for fear I might call him. The computer was out of the question.

But she had to sleep sometime. I, on the other hand, could do fine without it. That’s what Social Studies was for.

I waited. This was excruciating to me. I lay in my bed, with the lights off, until there was silence in the house. And then I waited a bit longer, just to be sure. If no one moved, then I got up, and, with all the stealth of a drunken cat [seeing as how I was not a very sneaky person; I had never had to be], I made my way to the room right next to mine. It held the computer.

In this way, I kept my sanity. Every night, I snuck in to speak with him, if even just for an hour or so. Normally, I stayed up all night, until I heard the alarm clocks going off, and then I quickly hid the evidence and went to my room to catch a few moments of rest.

Once, we even set up a meeting. I told him a time…it took much longer than expected. Finally, at two a.m., two hours longer than I had meant, I got him on the phone. I had to see him. He agreed. I put the phone back on the hook, and ran for it, down the road, listening to my MP3 player. That was a wonderful night…But I had to go back home eventually, and so we crawled out of his bed, and I snuck back into my residence.

This cycle repeated for a while. And then my graduation came. I was so happy, finally out of grade school.

A call came. The person on the other line was what made it perfect. My Brother, calling to get me out of the house for a little while.

This little while turned into a long while when they found out who tagged along with us. There was lots of screaming on the phone. I was afraid. But they swore they wouldn’t take me back there, and I was thankful for that…I went back to my parents for a night, and then, finally, when we got it all worked out, I got what I had wanted from the beginning. I moved in with him.

It was great. Better than great. I was in a good home, and I was in love. What more could a girl want? I certainly couldn’t think of anything.

My birthday rolled around. Birthdays had never meant much to me. If I was lucky, I got a cupcake. One year, I even got a singing candle. Yay. So yeah, I wasn’t expecting much.

I was wrong. It was more than I would have wished for. They fixed my favorite food, made sure I didn’t have to clean anything, got me a cake, and some very nice presents. Needless to say, I was very, very happy.

This bubble of happiness didn’t last very long. I finally found out the plans for Christmas, and the thoughts I had been trying to suppress came flooding back. His girl was coming, the dream girl of my nightmares. I was horrified. It was my own fault, I knew. I should have accepted the truth of the situation. But I had been so happy. Was that so wrong? To let myself be happy? It seemed that way now.

Christmas Eve came far too fast. The DVD player belted out the lyrics from the new CD I had gotten from one of our friends. An early gift, since I wouldn’t see him on Christmas.

Softly we tremble tonight…Picture perfect fading smiles are all that’s left in sight…

I certainly wasn’t smiling. It was all I could do not to break down and cry in the living room. It was only for a little while, only for a bit. A week. A few days, nothing big. But it felt like the first day of an eternity. The once “yes, yes, yes” beat of my heart turned into a pained: No, no, please no…But there was nothing I could do. It had to happen. She would be there tomorrow.

I had one night with him. A fun night. And then I went to bed in tears.

Christmas was what Christmas is. Fun. We opened presents, messed around, just generally had a good time. And then, what I had been dreading. We loaded up into the car and headed towards the airport. I’d never been to an airport before. I didn’t much care for the experience. He smiled at me the entire way. Smiles, smiles, smiles. I smiled too. It broke my heart to do so.

We waited. And waited. And then, here she came. I didn’t know her. Didn’t recognize her. I was still looking for the horrifying beauty. The girl that they welcomed was not what I had expected. This did nothing for my self-esteem. I had come to think of myself as a relatively okay-looking girl. The girl that arrived was pretty, yes, in her way. But she was not the stunning beauty I had led myself to believe she was. Not that that mattered. She was the only thing in his world now, and that was enough.

I smiled. I smiled for him, and I smiled for her. I went with them to the movies. I only made that mistake once. Watching that girl cuddle up to the man I loved while I huddled in on myself in the cold theater…I found myself sobbing, and the movie had nothing to do with it. After that, I let them mostly do their own thing. And here is where I look back, and wish I could change things.

I was playing a game, trying to kill my mind and not concentrate on the two of them. They were sitting on the couch together. Flirting. Which was acceptable. They were a couple. I never flirted openly with him. That wasn’t allowed. With good reason, I knew. He could get into a lot of trouble. I didn’t mind. But seeing him flirt with her reminded me of all the things I couldn’t do. And then they stood up, and went to his room.

Now, this is that moment I was talking about. If I were a bit more mature, or if I had been thinking clearly, I would have continued playing my game. However, my breaking heart and stressed out head were not the best judges at the moment. I kicked at the power button, turning the screen black, and turned on my heel, going to my room. I didn’t listen to anything. I started running lyrics through my head. I didn’t want to hear anything.

I slipped my feet into my shoes, put my phone in my pocket, and ran. Not far, I couldn’t go far, didn’t want to go far. A small clearing in the woods. I ran there, and I stayed, staring at the ground, crying my eyes out. I was a teenager. I, naturally, assumed the absolute worst, and that broke my heart. It felt like someone had shoved a candle down my throat, only to let the flame lick at the insides of my chest. I had never known such pain before. Perhaps I had been right. Perhaps the emptiness had been better.

It had been a mistake. If I had stayed, just a bit longer, I might have seen them come out soon after. Too soon for anything to have happened. If I had stayed, he might not have been so upset with me. After that, I was as good as possible. I did everything I could for that girl. I became as good a friend to her as anyone could hope. It was killing me that he was mad. I would do anything to get back in his good graces, anything at all, even hand this girl my heart so that she could rip it to shreds with words she couldn’t possibly know hurt me.

But I hadn’t done enough. When she was gone, he would barely look at me. Wouldn’t hold me. Wouldn’t touch me at all. No sweet, hidden kisses. No whispered I-love-yous…Nothing. I hated myself. I hated what I had done. How could I have overreacted like that? How could I have been so stupid?

I was miserable for weeks. I cried. I cut myself. I wrote horrible things about myself on my legs, so that I would see them every time I undressed. Half of the words weren’t even true, but they were mean, and they were what I deserved.

I was so lonely. In this time, I remembered how things had been before. And I realized that I never wanted them to be that way again. I told him that I wanted him. Perhaps the wrong choice of words. His reply came in a text.

You don’t want me. You want me inside you. There’s a big difference.

The words hurt me more than I thought possible. I got angry. I agreed. That’s what he wanted to hear, wasn’t it? That, instead of him using me, I had turned into what I had feared he was? It certainly seemed that way. But I loved him, I loved him so much, and the words were instantly regretted. I didn’t just want sex. What did that matter without affection behind it? Without love? It was nothing, and I wanted none of that.

And so I stayed, alone in my room at night, crying myself to sleep and just wishing to never wake up.

Things got patched up eventually. It took time, but everything does. I was so happy. Time passed. Everything went on as normal. I forgot about the girl again. Until I heard something. They had broken up. He and his girl were no more. It would be wrong of me to be happy for such a thing, but I have to admit, I did get a small rush of pleasure from the thought. If he was alone now…Maybe…maybe…

I was so hopeful. I smiled more brightly. I was so excited. I kept waiting. And waiting. If he was alone, maybe all of our fun wasn’t pointless. Maybe I could have a real relationship…something I’d never really considered before. Maybe I could be his girl now.

And then a new name came into the picture. One I had not heard before. A female name.

I couldn’t understand it. What had I done wrong? What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I good enough? Why couldn’t I be his girl? No, no. I didn’t get it at all. I loved him. I had for a long time now. Why wasn’t that enough? I was broken-hearted, again. I knew I was young. Obviously, we couldn’t have an open relationship. But what about a secret one? I had hidden what we had. Why couldn’t it be just a little more, just between us, just until I was older?

But that idea was apparently completely unacceptable. I wondered, bitterly, if it had even crossed his mind. If I had even crossed his mind.

But I’m very good at pushing things out of my mind. She, like the other, became just a word to pull at the strings of my heart at night, when I could not deny the thoughts.

And then, I made the mistake of getting online. And a new person was adding me to their friends. The girl. His girl. Her name hit me like a brick in the face, and I stared for several seconds before clicking the ‘accept’ button. But I didn’t accept. I didn’t want anything to do with this girl. I didn’t want to know her. I didn’t want her to know him.

I told him that I was talking to her. It hurt me inside to do even that much.

“Be nice to her, or I’ll break your legs.”

A joke. I think.

Actually, I wasn’t so sure, and that just made it hurt more. I wonder if he had warned her ahead of time to be nice to me. If he had threatened to break her legs. I highly doubted it. I highly doubted he would ever say anything like that to his girlfriend. I was as sweet as could be as I tried to keep from throwing up on his keyboard.

A sweet girl. A likeable girl. A girl so much like me. Oh, how I wanted to hate her. That’s what she was. An older, prettier, blonde me. It made me sick. I felt replaced, and I wanted to die. But I couldn’t hate her, and I couldn’t die. I talked to her. I became her friend. What else was there to do? Nothing. It made him happy that we got along so well. That was enough to keep our friendship going, even if I had been able to hate her.

They were bringing her…here. Here, here, to live with us. To room with me. He was bringing that girl, that girl that he was so madly in love with, down here. I smiled, and I told him that would be fine. At this point, after I had learned of this, my heart gave up trying to repair itself. And it was okay, in a way. I was gaining a new friend. She was great. Wonderful. Perfect.

But what was I giving up?

Everything. He had become absolutely everything to me. He was my entire world, and in one night, one night, that would be ruined. His parents were not around, and he was getting ready to leave. I was crying so much, and trying so hard not to. I wanted to be strong for him. I could cry after he was gone. This plan didn’t work out so well. I was crying before he got half-way across the living room.

“I love you so much…”

Luckily, I could at least still speak clearly. He turned and he looked a little guilty. I think. Then again, it might have been my emotions trying to convince me that he knew at least a little of what this was costing me.

“I love you too…”

A kiss. My last. The last kiss I would ever receive from him. He pulled away far too quickly. I wonder if he could taste my tears.

The car started, and in my eyes, my life ended.

I went to my room, closed the door, and slumped against it. I did not turn on the light. The darkness had won, and there was no place for it here now. I watched the red glow of the tail lights as the one I loved went to retrieve the one he loved.

The next few days were absolute hell. Things did not go as planned, and he could not immediately get her. It was taking time.

And more time.

And more. I was dying inside. I wasn’t feeling good at all.

And then they were on their way back…without her.

A part of me was sickly happy with this. But mostly, I was just disappointed. He was going to be so sad. I hated to see him sad. It upset me so much…

And I was right. He was sad. Everyone noticed. He was normally very good at keeping his emotions out of things, but this was different. He was distracted, and it looked like it hurt him to smile. I knew how it felt. Too well, actually. But I would never say this, because I didn’t want to upset him further. I just wanted him to be happy. At this point, even I was wishing she had made it here. I couldn’t stand seeing him like this. It seemed like nothing I did helped.

But of course it didn’t. Why would it? I wasn’t what he wanted. I wasn’t who he wanted. Not really. Not now. She was the only thing that would make this better, and he had heard nothing from her. She was on red-alert lockdown. No way in, no way out. I hated her parents for doing this to her, for doing this to him. This was what he wanted. This was what he would get. There was no point in what they were doing, merely delaying the inevitable. I, who loved him more than anything else in the world, had come to this conclusion. And they were hurting him in their stupidity. Even I wouldn’t dare to come between them when the time came.

I was not his special someone, as he was mine. I would not be the one standing beside him at the altar. I would not be the one cradling a child in my arms. I would be whatever he asked me to be. I would be his anything, because he was my everything. I had always wanted to get married. Always wanted to have a child. A family had been my greatest aspiration in life, always, that one perfect moment in life when everything was right with the world.

I had a boyfriend, at this point, but I was lying to both of us. He was a great person, don’t get me wrong. He would make an excellent husband…for someone else. It wasn’t right, and I knew it. I didn’t want him the way he wanted me, just as my special one did not want me the way I wanted him. I knew how much this was going to hurt him.

But I had to do it. I broke up with him, because I hated what I was doing. I could have stayed with him. I could have kept the lie going. I could have kept my chances at a family. But I wouldn’t have been happy. Of course, I doubt that either was a great choice. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, I chose what I wanted to believe.

Vacation is always fun. We get out of this Godforsaken place we call home, and go elsewhere, to a more pleasant place. The ride was horrible, but driving for thirteen hours was always a bad idea. But once we got there…oh, that place is so beautiful…We checked into a hotel. Me, him, our brother, our brother’s girlfriend, and our parents. Three rooms with two beds. One for me and my brother’s girlfriend. Connected to this room, one for my brother and him. Downstairs and away from us, our parents.

Of course, these arrangements did not last long. Our brother and his girlfriend naturally wanted the same room. We obliged. I didn’t care. I was upset. He had a girl, and I was alone. By my own choice, but…had I really had a choice? Did love like this leave a choice? I began to think not. We went walking. I didn’t want to talk, and so I didn’t. We made a few laps around the place, and then we went back inside. We turned everything off, and I lay down. I don’t even think I said goodnight.

And then he was beside me. Whispering. Reaching out to hold me. I could have said no, I suppose. I could have put forth the effort. But why in the world would I do that? When he was being so sweet, making me feel so nice, really important for the first time since I had learned of his new girl? So I accepted what was happening. I figured I would feel like a toy when we were done, but I didn’t care. I would be important for a little while. His next words almost made me cry.

“I’m thinking of keeping you…bringing you to bed with us…”

Sick as the meaning of that sentence would be to most people, they were some of the sweetest words he could have possibly said to me at that moment. So what if I wasn’t his main girl? I would give anything, anything at all to have a relationship with him. Polygamists did it all the time. The wives got along just fine. I loved him. She loved him. He loved us. It could work.

I was happy again. I was happy as he held me, as we cuddled in the dark. I asked him if he had meant it. He told me, “Of course.”

Girls are always talking about those wonderful summer romances. This is what it felt like to me. The warm nights, the quiet fun, the hushed affection. It all seemed a bit hazy, like a dream. I even had a little girl, a member of the family we had come to see. And she loved me. And she loved him. And we loved her. I felt like I had the family I had always wanted.

And then it ended. I was brought back down to earth when we arrived home. He was going downhill. I could see it now. He was in pain, and there was nothing I could do to help him.

He needs her. He needs her. He needs her.

The words kept looping through my head as the tears, seemingly endless, poured onto the screen of my phone where the words rested. I need her.

A new set of words, more desperate, began racing through my mind.

I need you, I need you, I need you.

I need you.

I felt so sick, and the tears would not stop. Why wouldn’t they stop? My eyes hurt, everything hurt. I curled up on the bed and closed my eyes. Everything seemed so wrong in my world. What had happened to my perfect little summer sanctuary? Gone, shattered, forgotten.

Exactly how I felt.

I needed him too. I knew this. I had to have him to survive. I closed my eyes.

My heart will continue beating as long as you are here to keep me breathing.

I needed him.