You were one of those boys. The kind that I couldn’t forget, the kind that infuriated and frustrated, yet completed me. It was as if when I met you, you cast a spell on me. Keeping me within your realm of passion, but just on the outer edges, just out of reach of you. To you, I was a friend. A friend that you found attractive, but yet I was just a friend.

I never quite discovered who you really were. It was like there were two sides of you. One was the kind, compassionate, understanding, sweet, perfect, and lovely side of you. The other was the manipulating, perverted, lying, selfish, and uncaring side. It was so puzzling to me, how these two people could exist in the same person.

I remember the first time I discovered you were a liar, a manipulator. The night before, we had been talking, and you acted as though you cared about me, and that I was one of the most important people in your life. You complimented me, and said I was one of the nicest people you knew. I believe every word you said.

And then, the next day, I was telling one of my best friends about you. Quiet, but rushed whispers in a crowded room of students, with a teacher droning on about how the civil war affected history. I retold her everything you said to me in a hushed voice, and a smile that showed just how much you meant to me. But as my smile grew bigger, her smile faded, and soon, it just disappeared all together.

As I watched her excited face fall, my voice weakened, and I asked quietly, “What’s wrong?”

She took her eyes off the ground, and looked me in the eye and said softly, “He told me all the same things too…”

My stomach dropped and a sickening feeling tightened in my gut. My smile vanished, just as hers had, and my hands began to shake as my heart broke into a million pieces.

I said shakily, “The…the same things? The exact s-same things?”

And she nodded her head slowly and said, “I didn’t realize he told everybody the same thing…”

“Me neither. I never would have guessed.” And with that, my short trip of happiness was over, and I grasped the fact that you were a liar, simple as that. And after that, I couldn’t believe another word you said to me.

But it got harder after that. Because then, I knew you were a liar, but I wanted to believe you. You see, I felt stronger about you than I had for anybody else in my life. You could call it love, but I wasn’t sure if that was really it. I didn’t really know what love was, all I knew was that my feeling for you was different than I had ever experienced before.

The weekends were the most difficult. See, during the weekdays, it was easier to doubt what you said to me, because at school it was so obvious that you didn’t feel that way about me. And I talked to other girls, and they had heard the same things. So during the school week, it was so easy to deny what you said. But the weekends. They were strenuous. Because when I didn’t see you at school, and I didn’t talk to all those other girls, it was so easy to believe every word you said. The worst part was, I really, truly wanted to believe you. So I pretended. I know, it was pathetic. But that’s what I did. I pretended that you loved me, and that you wanted me. And it was so easy, so effortless. Mondays were probably the worst, because that’s when I went back to school, and saw you and her together. You, and my “best friend”. Mondays were when reality smacked me right in the face again, reminding me that you loved her, not me. Never me.

I’m not sure when I gave up. When I quit pretending, stopped believing, and ended my fantasies. Maybe it was when I realized that I was never going to get anywhere with you. And even if I did, what made me think you would be faithful? You never had been before.

Maybe it was when I finally faced the fact that you didn’t think I was attractive you thought my body was. Maybe it was when I met a new guy, and I thought maybe I’m really over him this time. But I thought the same thing every time there was a new guy before. But that last time was different. Even after that guy left (they all leave), I still didn’t go back to you. Sure, I talked to you, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have that unyielding desire for you. And even though I still want you, even though I still wish I was the one you loved, I don’t yearn for it like I used to. I don’t need it; it’s not necessary for me to live anymore. I can breathe without you now. I can live without your love, and I can live without you. It’s possible now, and even though I’ve let go of you after all these years, I’ll never forget you. And I’ll never forget what you’ve taught me.