twelve.

I turn to Sam, taking a deep breath to steel myself.

"Before I say anything, I promise it wasn't you or anything that you did," I begin. "Tonight was one of the best things anybody has ever done for me. You definitely made a good impression." Sam's smile peeks out, just slightly, at my words. "But being here with you felt unreal. When I was there, I didn't feel like Lisa Schwartz, sad, moody, cynical Lisa. I felt like somebody entirely different and that scared me. That somebody could affect me that much. That somebody could make me into a different person."

Sam tries to speak but I stop him. "I just need to say this." He nods. "It wasn't your fault. But if you have that kind of power over me and I can't do anything to stop it, I can't be around you anymore. I'm not saying that anything you did was bad or that you're a bad person. What I'm trying to say is I'm not right for you." I know my explanation is faulty and beyond stupid, but it's the only excuse I have to get my point across without having to tell him my entire history.

Sam shakes his head and takes my hand before staring at my face and slowly dropping them. "I promise that that's the exact opposite of what I felt tonight. Lisa, you made me somebody else today as well. Maybe it wasn't as big of a transformation as you but I felt so much happier when I was with you. I felt unjudged and free. I wish I could convey it all in words but I can't. I don't need to, Lisa. I know you felt it too."

Tears brim in my eyes. "Sam, I can't be with you. For so many reasons."

His face contorts, as if the words hurt more than I know. "Why? You're lying if you say you didn't feel anything tonight. Don't lie to me. Just be honest. Tell me that you felt even a little bit of what I feel for you."

I look away. "I did. And that's the problem." A tear slides down my cheekbone, resting on the tip of the bottom of my jawline before slipping off. "Sam. I'm a horrible person. I know you may not see me that way but I know who I am. I know what I am." I don't know how to make him understand. "Sam, I'm living two different lives. My life outside of people's eyes is so different from my life in your eyes. There's a monster inside of me and instead of fighting it off, I let it take over until I can't control anything about myself anymore. And I can't help it. There's nothing else I can do." Closing may eyes, I face myself to breathe. "I've hurt so many people, Sam. My friends, my family. Even my ex-boyfriend didn't want to have to deal with me anymore in the end. And because of the way that I feel about you, I have to let you go because I can't hurt you, too. Not you, too. I don't want you to hate me or be afraid of me and most of all, I can't see you hurt because of me."

I turn away from him, wishing that I could jump out of the car and run far, far away.

But I can't.

I have nowhere to go.

Sam takes my hand again, this time holding strong. He whispers quietly, "You could never do anything that would make me hate you, Lisa. Don't you see that? How can you not? I don't know how to explain it to you, but just know that whatever you do, it won't change the way that I feel about you." When I say nothing, he begs, "Please speak to me. Say something."

My voice breaks. "I can't, Sam. Even now, I'm hurting you." I motion to his pained expression as I let more tears fall and Sam wipes them away gently with his thumb.

"Lisa, I don't know when, I don't know how, but...I love you."

The world stops spinning and the tears stop.

No.

He can't love me.

Not now, not ever. No.

I shake my head, whispering no over and over again until Sam quietly shushes me. "Lisa, you mean the world to me. I know it's fast, I know we've barely known each other for a couple of months. And I know I don't know everything about you yet and I know that there are secrets that you are keeping from me because you are trying to protect me but Lisa, I don't need protection. I promise you, whatever you need to say, I will protect you. I will shield you from your inner monster, I will guard you from whatever hell you're living in. You don't know how sad it makes me to hear that you are hurting, that you are succumbing to something that you think makes you weak." He turns my face to his and I can see the genuine expression on his face as he says, "Lisa, you are the strongest person that I know. You are anything but weak. You are strong and beautiful and amazing and that's why I love you."

As the tears fall, he wipes them away until suddenly...

He's leaning forward and suddenly his lips are on mine and he's kissing me, making contact, lips against lips, and his hand is snaking up to run through my hair...

Until he leans back.

His eyes are bright and his cheeks are tinted a deep corduroy color as he curses under his breath.

"Lisa, I'm so sor—"

I cut him off by leaning forward and capturing his lips with mine, my hand being the one to mess up his artfully styled hair, and I pull him closer to me, so close that it scares me. I'm drowning and I'm not sure if it's in a good way. Can drowning really feel like a good thing?

This is not what I should be thinking about right now.

The feelings are too much and my brain is whirling, my thoughts spiraling, my eyes closing.

He makes me become another person.

I pull back, breathless, shaking my head over and over, trying to clear everything out of my brain. Trying to clear out everything that just happened. It never happened. "I'm sorry. I can't. I can't do this." I don't know why I just did what I did and there's nothing more that I regret in this moment. "I shouldn't have done that."

He stares at me, his bright and wild eyes darting back and forth between my face and some spot behind me. I want to look behind me to see what he's looking at but I can't seem to tear my eyes away from him. And it scares me.

"Lisa. You can't keep doing this to yourself. To me. You can't tell me you didn't feel anything there." He runs a hand through his hair. "You felt it too. Tell me you felt it."

I shake my head over and over again until he finally gets the message. His eyes darken, his face loses its color as he blanches, and he leans back into his seat, running his hand through his hair again.

"I'm sorry," we say at the same time, turning to each other simultaneously. Instead of laughing like we normally would, we look away from each other. It's my fault. I've managed to hurt him again. This time the pain is directly linked to me. I knew this would happen. I knew nothing good could come out of this. Us.

He sighs. He looks forward. He turns on the engine. His movements are choppy and stiff, and I can't think of anything to say to fix this. By now, the parking lot is basically empty. He drives silently, looking at the road, the radio knobs, the amount of miles on the car, everywhere but me.

When we finally arrive back at my house after a ride that seems too long, I turn to him one last time, trying to capture every detail of his face before I finally decide what has to be said. What has to be done. I climb out of the car and then turn back, tears brimming in my eyes, mirroring his glassy ones as he stares back at me.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I told you I would hurt you."

And then I leave, not allowing him to say anything back.

I walk inside, empty, back in the prison once again.

I sink to the floor and I finally let the tears fall.

******

I walk inside my room, empty and hollow. My mother let me go, wisely leaving me alone and letting me go upstairs without a word to me, though I know she saw my face when I walked in. It's either some mother-daughter code or girl code that signals for her to leave me alone.

I laugh to myself in the silence of my room.

Never in my life did I think I would be the girl in high school suffering from the horrible thing called boy trouble.

Only instead of a boy not liking me back, it's the other way around.

Though really, it isn't.

I do like Sam.

I'm just not supposed to.

I'm not going to put him through all of the crap that is my life. I'm not going to expose everything about myself to a kindhearted and pure boy who doesn't deserve any of that. And most of all, I'm not going to hurt him.

Though I already did.

I shake the thoughts from my brain, changing quickly and plopping into my bed, snuggled up in comfortable sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. I grab my laptop and mindlessly entertain myself with TV shows and YouTube videos, trying to avoid thinking about tonight.

As I stare at the screen, letting makeup tips and lovelorn vampires merge into the rest of my thoughts running through my brain, I feel myself starting to drift off.

Instead of heading to the usual, depressed route, it goes somewhere different.

Guilt.

I feel ashamed. The guilt eats away at me and I can't seem to get rid of it. Sam's face flashes through my mind, his happy, smiling, excited face when he saw me, and then his sad, hurt, pained expression when he left me. All at once, tears are streaming down my face at the thought of me having hurt someone by trying not to hurt them. And to have hurt someone as good as Sam...

The tears don't stop.

I want to call him, tell him everything about myself, apologize for everything that happened, properly thank him for what he did for me.

But I can't.

Because I already ended whatever we had going on between us. And there's no need for us to rehash it again, only to feel more pain and more regret.

I turn to the one thing that I know will make me feel better: Luke.

A quick YouTube search brings up dozens of her music videos, speeches, and interviews, as well as live concerts and fan-made ships and art. I spend the next two hours watching videos of Luke: smiling, laughing, crying, singing. She's a real person, not some fake idol like other conventional pop stars and celebrities. And this is why I love her.

A Google alert comes up on my computer and I click on it, seeing Luke's name. It's a link to a news article about Luke. I click on it hurriedly and it takes me to a sketchy looking website where I find a long article about the singer.

Late singer, Lukeanne Kendall, more widely known as the twenty-nine-year-old singer 'Luke,' was found dead in a hotel room January 18, 2018. Previously, the Los Angeles Police Department refused to release any information as to the cause of death and the circumstances in which the singer was found. As of March 12, 2018, news has been released stating that the drug that the motivational speaker overdosed on was not the ordinary over-the-counter medicine for a simple sore throat. Instead, it was an illegal drug by the name of 'diamorphine,' more commonly known as heroin. It is an opioid used to instill pleasure and excitement in a person.

Because of this newly-found evidence, fans and other people alike now believe that the suicide was accidental. Many celebrities have been found dead because of an overdose, including Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, and many more.

More to come. Be sure to subscribe to Scoop the News down below and follow us on all of our social medias, linked down below.

This should make me happy.

To know that Luke didn't mean to kill herself. To know that she didn't want her life to end so quickly and so horribly. To know that she didn't end up succumbing to whatever her inner monster was made of.

Instead, I break down.

The realization that she was stuck in such a dark and horrible place that she had to resort to drugs to make herself feels better sickens me. I don't judge her for what she did. I would give anything for an escape from myself sometimes. But it was all a mistake. She must have realized too late, as she started to retreat further into herself rather than out of the monster's clutches. It makes me feel worse than I did before, something that even I didn't think was possible.

I am selfish. I shouldn't be worrying about myself. And yet, I have always thought Luke and I to be similar, living similar lives, wanting the same things.

Luke.

If I feel even a fraction of what she was feeling, I can only guess at what it was like. The pressure, the stress, the overwhelming urge to curl up into a ball in tears while simultaneously lashing out at everyone around you and trying not to hurt them too badly because the guilt will be too much.

The pain she must have been feeling at the last moments of her life, the thoughts that must have been whirling through her head as she debated the merits of the drug that would so cruelly end her life, whether she had wanted it to or not. The regret and shame and internal screaming that she couldn't express as her eyes closed and her lungs took their last heaving breaths and her fingers stopped moving and her heart stopped working.

Thinking about makes my own heart twist.

And though I try not to, though I try to hold strong, I let the tears fall.

******

It's been a few days since I found out and the house has been silent, save for the yells of Peter and Landen downstairs and Mom's exasperated sighs as she tries to help them.

I've grown used to the solitary quiet of the house after everyone leaves for school or work. Mom tried to talk to me a couple of times but she gave up after a day or two of my silence and ultimate begging for her to leave me alone.

The silence is everywhere and I can revel in it. It makes me feel better. It makes it hurt less.

Until the doorbell rings.

I ignore it the first time. I figure it's the mailman accidentally pushing it as he leans over to drop the mail into our slat. Or maybe it's an incessant salesman who wants to try to con people into buying his useless appliances. It could be somebody scouting the neighborhood with flyers to vote for the next mayor or something.

But then it rings again. I ignore, telling myself that it's only a pushy salesman or an extreme Sarah Kent for Mayor supporter. I burrow deeper into my bed, not wanting to come out.

Until the third ring. And this time there's also a knock. And a voice calling loud enough so that I can hear it from upstairs, "Lisa?"

It's a boy's voice. Not Sam, though.

Greyson.

I force myself to get out of bed. I have to answer the door. I stare in the mirror at myself, squinting as I scrutinize what my face and hair have become over the past four days. I grab a brush from my dresser and do my best to get rid of the I-haven't-gotten-out-bed-in-a-week look. Then I pull on a sweatshirt over my pajamas to hide the fact that I have been sleeping in the same clothes I was in a week ago. I head downstairs, trying to calm my nerves and beating heart.

Why is he here?

When I open the door, I use what little strength I have and call out to Greyson, who has evidently given up on me and has started to walk down the path to his car, which is currently parked in my driveway. "Grey!" I manage to say. He thankfully hears me and turns around, worry crossing over his face as he takes in my appearance.

"Lisa. My God. Are you okay?" He quickly comes back to my doorstep and scans my face. I blush under his gaze.

"I'm fine. I'm just kind of a mess right now." I change the subject. "Why are you here?"

"Well. You haven't been in school lately and I was thinking that I should check up on you. I was worried that something bad had happened." He whispers, "You know, after the Luke articles."

I don't want to talk about her so I pretend I didn't hear the last part. "How did you know where I live?" I ask.

This time, he blushes. "I got your address from Ali. I hope you don't think it's creepy. I was just really worried about you. And Ali didn't want to give it to me because she thought I should give you space. But I insisted. So, you know, don't be mad at her. It's all me."

I wasn't mad at her for telling him but I'm not sure how I feel about Greyson being here.

I say, "It's fine. I'm fine."

He stares at me. "Are you sure about that? Because frankly, and no offense or anything, but you look like shit." I laugh, a foreign sound coming from my mouth. My voice catches halfway through, so I awkwardly cough through it and compose myself.

"I know I do," I say. He laughs a little with me. "Do you want to come in?" I ask when I realize how awkward it is to be standing outside in my pajamas, talking to a boy on my doorstep.

He nods and I usher him outside, shutting the door firmly behind us. "Forgive my appearance," I say finally after a moment of awkward silence. "I've been having a few horrible days. Do you want anything to eat or drink?"

He shrugs. "Do you have any juice?" he asks.

I smile, just a bit. "Orange, apple, cranberry, or tropical mix?"

"Tropical, obviously," he grins back. I head to the kitchen, his presence trailing mine as I open the fridge, grab the juice carton, head to the cupboard, grab a glass, and try my best to pour without spilling, given my hands are somehow shaking for no reason. I get nervous when I'm unprepared for situations and I was definitely not expecting this one. He grabs the cup after I successfully pour a glass for him and takes a long gulp. "It's good," he says.

I pour myself a glass, this time without faltering, and drink. It is good. I haven't had anything in so long, save for a couple glasses of water and some burnt toast.

"So what have you been up to all this time?" he asks, looking around my house.

I shrug. I don't know how to answer this. Crying, sleeping, and watching sappy romance movies on Netflix is not the most appealing thing to say.

"I haven't been doing much," I say. "I kind of just sat in bed and thought about... stuff."

He nods. "I know what it feels like. Sometimes you just need a couple of days off from life, you know?"

I nod, smiling. He understands me perfectly, almost as if his mind and mine are the same. I clear my throat. "So you know about Luke?" I figure he deserves some sort of explanation from me for my absence.

He nods. "It's so sad. The worst part is, I don't think she wanted to kill herself."

I want to hug him. He actually understands it. "Well. After I read that article... It hit hard. I haven't been able to do much of anything lately." I close my eyes for a brief moment before opening them again. "It's just... she might have lost her life for no reason because of a mistake she made."

He studies my face, my bloodshot eyes, my matted hair. "Do you have an... experience like hers?" He asks the question softly, as if he already knows the answer. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

I look away. Already, Greyson knows more about the real me than my own family. Finally, I whisper, "I almost made a mistake in the past, too."

He sets his glass down on the counter and walks over slowly, making sure to approach me softly so as not to scare me away. He wraps his arms around my body as he reaches me, bringing me closer to his chest and prompting me to unleash the waterworks for the billionth time this week. "Lisa, it's okay," he says, as I cry in his arms. His arms cradle my head as he guides me over to the sofa in the living room. I take a seat and he sits next to me, my face still buried in his shoulder.

I shake my head. "I'm sorry." I say the words again and again until he lays a finger gently over my lips, telling me silently to stop talking.

"It's okay, Lisa. I promise it's okay. It's fine. I'm sorry for even asking." He says comforting things for the next ten minutes until I'm finally calmed down enough to breathe normally, though tears still clog my throat and nose and leave snaking trails down my face.

"Thank you," I say. "I'm sorry you had to see all that."

He brings my chin up and says sternly, "Lisa, if you ever need to talk to someone or cry to someone, just know that I'm always here. You never have to apologize. I'm here for you and I'm not going to judge you for anything that you do. Or have done," he adds. "I'm here for you, Lee."

It's not a romantic gesture. It's not lust-filled or anything more than words exchanged between two friends. And I'm grateful for that. I don't need another boy in my life that's anything more than friends. I'm already beyond confused about Sam and my feelings towards him, and I'm glad I don't need to add Greyson to the mixture. Though I don't Sam even wants to say anything to me anymore.

"Thank you," I whisper to Greyson. He hugs me tightly before letting me go. I can tell he thinks it's time to leave so I grab his arm. I can't be alone in this silent house anymore. While the silence was comforting before, it feels oppressive now that I've had human contact. "Can you stay?" I ask. The words are soft and I'm surprised he heard me.

But he nods and clenches my hand with his. "Of course."

We sit there for a few minutes before it gets awkward. Then I stand. "Do you want to come up to my room?"

He shrugs. "Whatever you want, Lee."

So I take his hand and bring him upstairs. It should feel exciting to be bringing a boy up to my room, the first boy to ever see this secret part of me. But instead, it feels normal. And I like that. It's important that nothing ever happens between us. Strictly platonic.

He takes in my room in all its non-glory. I try to picture it as he is seeing it but I can't. Everything looks normal to me: the Luke posters on the walls, signed by her from when I went to go see her on tour, the stacks and piles of books lining my room's floors, the haphazard pile of clothes sitting in the corner that I never bothered to hang up. Greyson grins approvingly. "I like it. It screams Lisa Schwartz."

I laugh at that and take him over to my bed, gesturing for him to sit next to me as I grab my laptop. "Do you want to watch a movie?" I ask as I pull up Netflix.

He nods. "Yes! God, we need something like that after everything that just happened." We deliberate for a few minutes before finally settling on a new drama that just came out the other day. We watch for an hour or so before we find ourselves lying down with his arms around my waist and my hands clutching his arm. It should feel intimate but it doesn't. It feels comforting, safe. It feels like we're two friends who are watching a movie together.

I'm drifting off when my bedroom door crashes open and I jolt, whacking Grey in the chin with my head. We sit up suddenly, disentangling ourselves from each other quickly. Grey rubs his chin as I apologize profusely for hurting him. I narrow my eyes at my giggling brothers. "Peter! Landen!" They laugh more.

"What are you doing, Lisa? And who's that? Is he your boyfriend? Were you guys kissing? Ew!" They make smooching noises and I'm filled with an insane urge to smack both of them with a pillow. Or a book. Or my fist.

"No! This is Grey. Greyson. We're just friends." I can't believe I'm having to explain this to my younger brothers. Then it gets worse.

"Boys, stop bothering Lisa and come downstairs..." My mom trails off as she reaches my doorway and sees exactly who is in my room. Though she doesn't know who he is. It's just... he's a boy. And that's never happened before.

"Lisa?" she asks uncertainly.

"Mom. This is Greyson Carter. I promise you, it's not what it looks like."

She purses her lips as if she's unsure whether or not to believe me or chew me out. "Hello, Greyson," she says as graciously as she can. "How do you know Lisa?"

He looks calm as he grins widely, ignoring our suspicious and compromising position. "I just transferred to her school and we're both Luke fans."

She looks at him and finally nods. "Which one of you is going to explain to me what is going on here?"

I take the lead at Greyson's desperate glance. "Mom, we're just friends. He came over because he was worried about me not being at school for the past few days. And then we decided to watch a movie."

She sighs. "Okay, Lisa, but next time, I want you to be downstairs if you're alone together."

I roll my eyes. "Mom, we're just friends."

She shakes her head. "If you say so, Lisa." She turns. "Boys, stop bothering your sister."

She walks away, leaving my giggling brothers to continue to tease us. Greyson laughs silently next to me as I groan loudly and cover my face. Little brothers are a curse, I swear. Finally, they get tired of us and leave, though we can still hear their faint laughter as they head downstairs.

I groan and turn to Greyson. "I'm so sorry," I say.

He shakes his head. "No, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to get you in trouble." He laughs. "The looks on your brothers' faces were funny, though, don't you think?"

I manage to smile though I'm still dying inside from embarrassment. He grins and stands.

"I should probably go," he says and hugs me before leaving. "I'll call you," he adds. I don't manage to respond before the door closes and I'm left in my room, though my spirits have considerably heightened.

Somehow, I'm not alone anymore.

******

Greyson did call that night and somehow managed to convince me to come back to school, though it's completely against my will. The next morning, my alarm rings and I'm forced to wake up before I want to. I bang my head against the wall before dragging myself out of bed.

It's a new day.

I'm determined to have a good day. Or, at least, better than the past few days.

I change into a preppy outfit, something I wouldn't ordinarily wear. I think of it as a confidence booster, though really, it's just because I want to be different today. I'm a different Lisa. Better. Stronger.

At school, the hallways are bustling and I'm immediately drowned in a crowd of seniors who are running to the school buses for the senior field trip. I wince as somebody's backpack hits me square in the head but I don't say anything about it, and neither does he. Instead, I head to my locker and grab my books, making sure to put everything that I don't need away.

The day goes by fairly quickly. PE was beyond horrifying: it was Cardio Fitness Day and we had to sprint a mile-and-a-half by the end of the period. I was not at all ready and by the end, my lungs were heaving, my face red, and my leg aching from when I twisted the kneecap rounding one of the turns.

And to make it all worse, a grinning, arrogant Greyson laps me not once, but twice.

At lunch, I head to the grass hill that I sit at with Ali; Greyson is there as well. It seems that in my absence he and Ashton have become close friends. They banter and shove each other while Ali and I smile at their antics, eating sandwiches and chips and talking about everything that happened when I was gone. It turns out Kevin Parker, one of my middle-school crushes, has started dating Josie Smith. Paula Ritz fell during cheerleading practice and broke her leg. Harvey Patrick, a senior, got accepted into both Harvard and Princeton.

And then I hear it.

From the knoll next to us, they're talking about her. Luke. And instead of honoring her memory, horrid whispers sneak into my hearing range and I have to fight to hold myself back from raging over to a group of seniors and ultimately getting myself killed.

"Bro, she killed herself."

"Nah, bro, she was just dumb."

"So stupid. How dumb can you be?"

"Man, I wonder who she got it from."

"Maybe she was pregnant."

"Nah, she was just an addict."

"Just another one... stupid... dumbass..."

I'm sinking. This is what people think about her? That she was a drug addict who accidentally got herself killed? That she's lumped in with every other singer whose passed from drugs stemming from depression? That she's stupid and dumb and irrelevant?

I shouldn't care about this. I shouldn't care about what anyone else says.

But yet I do.

I stand abruptly, cutting off Greyson and Ashton's conversation. The former stares up at me, analyzing my face before jumping up also and chasing after me as I briskly walk away from the noise and the people and everything. "Lisa!" he calls. He catches up to me and gently grabs my wrist, spinning me around in the process so that I'm facing him. His forehead wrinkles as his brows draw together when he sees my expression. "Are you okay? What happened back there?" he asks.

I shrug and look away. "I don't know." But I do. He stares at me until I break apart and tell him. "Some people next to us were talking. About Luke and everything that happened. And I know it's dumb but it got to me for some reason. The things they said about her..." I shake my head. "I must be going crazy or something."

In reality, it is a little outlandish to be so overworked about this but I can't help my emotions from going haywire at any negative thing I have to hear about her. Greyson seems to understand this because he pulls me into a locked embrace and just holds me, somehow comforting me ten times more than if he had tried to talk me out of it. Suddenly, I feel myself being sharply pulled away from Greyson's arms and I open my eyes to see Noel William's very angry face staring back at me.

******

Noel clears his throat and folds his arms. I can't figure out what is wrong with him so I break away from Greyson and tentatively walk towards him. "Noel?"

He looks down at me, though his protective stance is still up. "Lisa, I want you to walk with me right now." His voice is cold and I can't help but do what he says. I shoot an apologetic look at Greyson who just shrugs and mouths an "I'm sorry" at me. I turn back to Noel and follow him to a secluded corner of our school, confused and slightly irritated. Noel always did this to me when we were together: making me follow him around, demanding unreasonable things from me without any explanation, and being unnecessarily overprotective. It's not that he was a horrible boyfriend or anything; he was just too overbearing and possessive sometimes.

I take a deep breath, steeling my nerves for the raging speech that is most likely about to come. I try to look as defiant as I possibly can but judging from his expression, it's not working. He laughs a little before staring down at me and starting with "Stop seeing that boy."

I want to shout at him but I don't. I've learned from past experiences that arguing with Noel Williams gets you nowhere. Instead, you end up with an angry boy who won't listen to reason and will entirely disregard everything you are trying to say.

"Why?" I ask finally. I don't bother to deny his statement, because he won't believe me anyway.

He crosses his arms. "Do you really have to ask?"

I cross my arms as well. "Yes, Noel. You don't own me. I'm not your dog that you can just order around. I'm a person. And quite frankly, you don't have any right to tell me what to do. We aren't together. There is no us anymore. You're the one who ultimately sealed our fate after you cheated on me! That means that you have no right to tell me anything."

He looks slightly pained. "Lisa, you know I'm sorry about the whole cheating thing. I've told you countless times over and over again. It was a mistake. If you would just—"

I shake my head fiercely and cut him off. "No! I've heard this one too many times. You don't deserve another chance, you don't deserve anything from me." My voice breaks as I struggle to understand why this has to be happening to me today, right now. "Noel, do you know how much you hurt me?"

He shakes his head. "Lisa, I promise I wouldn't do it again. I'm so sorry. Every single day, it's like, I want you back. I need you back. Please tell me you'll come back. I made a mistake. And I want to fix it."

"Noel, it wasn't only the cheating," I say, blinking back tears. I once trusted this boy. I once thought I loved this boy. "It was the constant possessive qualities of you, the anger that you held back whenever you saw me even looking at a boy, the rage that possessed you when you beat up Lewis Archer when we were only sharing math notes, Noel." I look away from him. "It was all of the shit that you talked about me behind my back. To your friends. To other girls. To the 'guys'. It was everything, Noel. The cheating was just the final straw."

He seems to be struck dumb. No words come out of his mouth and I've finally rendered the great Noel Williams speechless. Only, instead of feeling bad about every cruel word that I just said, I feel freed. I feel liberated. I feel strong.

He turns away. "I'm so sorry, Lisa. I really am. For everything." He starts walking away. Suddenly, he turns back. "I never talked about you behind your back. Ever. I don't know where you heard that from but it's not true." He pauses and then turns again. "For the record, you were the first girl I ever loved."

And then he's gone. But his words still resonate with me.

loved.

another double update?? what do you think about noel?

malaynaturally xx