Life before you was simply, simple. Every day was completely routine and followed a perfect schedule. I'd wake up at six, shower, read for a bit and then catch the school bus. And then you came along and sucked me into the glamor of your friendship. At first, things kept going on as everything always had. And then something changed. I'm not sure when it happened, or why, for that matter, but it did. One morning, when I woke up at six, my first thought was “I wonder what Mattie's going to do today...” During my shower, I found you in my head once again, pricking my mind and making me laugh with the random jokes you tell at utterly inappropriate times. Even after my shower, my brain refused to focus on my reading, but kept drifting back to you. Later that day, you and I were talking and laughing at absolutely nothing. I couldn't help thinking how right it felt to be there in sixth hour with you, laughing and making Mrs. Mahoney angry with our corresponding missing assignments. Right then and there, I knew I was falling for you. I was terrified, because I just knew that there was no was way you felt the same way. Fortunately, though, you proved me wrong the very next day. You told me that you had feelings for me and I was practically walking on air. You didn't know, though, because I tried to play it off like I didn't feel the same way about you. To this day, though, I don't know how you didn't see through my terrible poker face that afternoon in sixth hour. Before I knew it, we were passing notes in our biology class and people began passing us suspicious glances and were asking if we were together. Unfortunately, we weren't, but that Friday night I got your number. I remember telling you that I wouldn't get home until pretty late, and you said to call anyway. Soon thereafter, we began speaking on the phone every night I was at my mother's house. Our phone hours, though, were quite odd, seeing how we talked from nine o'clock P.M to eleven o'clock P.M. We talked about the craziest, most random things, and one night I had you describe to me what your ideal woman was. When you told me you wanted a woman who was athletic, I began to pick up running again. Instead of six o'clock every morning, I began waking up at four to go for a three-mile jog. There went the first thing on the routine of orderlies. Of course, I continued showering every morning, but you were on my mind the entire time. During my morning reading time, I found my mind drifting towards you rather than focusing on the book in front of me. Pretty soon, every time I saw you, butterflies went through me, and I got a little nervous. Actually, to tell the truth, I got very nervous. There was, and is, something about your smile that just melts me down into a puddle of helplessness. Within a week, we were seeing each other as often as we could between classes, and hugged every time we saw each other. Things were going great, and then I did something that I feared would ruin our relationship forever. We had been talking on the phone every night from 9 o'clock to about 11. One night, though, my depression was worse than it ever had been, and I was curled into a ball in my bed, sobbing. I pulled myself together just long enough to go downstairs to the kitchen and grab a knife. I ran back to my room and locked my door, and cut myself. There were only two cuts, but they were deep enough to tell me that I had some serious issues. I hid the knife and immediately called you, even though it was only seven-thirty. When you heard that I was crying, you were so worried and concerned, and that made it easier to tell you what I had done. You talked it out with me and made me promise I would never do it again. Once I had promised you, I poured out my feelings to you, telling you how suicidal I had been, and you listened. I couldn't believe how much I had told you, and I was so sure that you wouldn't want to stay by my side. After all, we weren't officially together because of my family and religious beliefs. When you came up to me the next day and hugged me as if nothing had happened the night before, I was in shock. That night on the phone, you repeatedly assured me that I wasn't crazy. When I told you about my crippling low self-esteem, you told me that I was beautiful, smart, and caring. You made sure that I knew I wasn't a terrible person as I thought I was. At this point, I knew that we had something special. We still weren't together, though, and you didn't pressure me, which I appreciated. Though I hadn't told you yet, there was still one more reason why I was hesitant to get into a relationship with you.