When I think of my high school years I don’t remember my class schedule or the people in my class, but I remember this one boy who changed my life. His name was C and I met him I was just fifteen years old.

C taught me how to love and hate, and how to forgive but never forget. Before him I didn’t know what love was or even if it really existed. I had only read about love and watched love stories on TV. Love to me was something of a mystery, that is until C.

I don’t believe in love at first sight or anything like that, but I do believe that what happened the day I met him was the closest thing to it. I only remember major things about that day but I remember being introduced to him and for the first time in my short life someone made me smile a way I had never smiled before. He made jokes and had me laughing all night long. I didn’t want to let him go that night and I never forgot him.

I didn’t see C again until I was well over sixteen, and I found him on Facebook. We started talking and Im not sure exactly how it started but we started dating. Things happened and before you knew it we were broken up and saying things like we’re better off just friends. And we did stay friends and that was by far the hardest thing in my life to do. It was easy at first since we had only dated a short time and I knew that I needed him in my life. I look back now and see how I could have easily changed the outcome of my life. I could have told him “no I don’t want to speak to you anymore”, or I could have just ignored him until he quit talking to me. And if I had of said those things then I know for sure I wouldn’t be who I am today.

Love is a funny thing, you never think about falling in love with someone until after it happens and then it’s too late. Even now I don’t understand why I was the one to fall in love with him. Why did it have to me to make all the personal sacrifices I made, to suffer all the heartache and depression. Why was it me who was to sit up at night and wonder what I did to deserve such a fate. But never once did I regret loving him. He was part of me now.

All throughout my last two years in high school he was my best friend. We had our ups and downs like all people do but somewhere along the line I fell in love with him. I didn’t even know I had and never admitted it to myself until the day I told him that I loved him. I didn’t expect to hear I love you back and I didn’t want him to say it if he didn’t mean it. So, he didn’t say it back. Well not at that time anyway. Sometime in my junior year of high school C told me that he was in love with me. I believed him.

C was diagnosed with depression at the end of my junior year. I had known for awhile that he suffered from it. I could always tell when something was wrong with him. He had this way of acting distant of just saying one word to answer a question. I hated when he did that. The months prior to his diagnosis he was terrible. He lashed out at me. He would get angry and upset so easily. He would talk bad about people and treat them how people should never be treated. He would use people just to be able to say he had them and when he got bored he’d start to ignore them and sooner or later they gave up too. I was afraid of him, I saw everyday what he was capable of. He could tear someone to pieces and not even care. He would laugh at peoples suffering. I was terrified that some day he would do that to me, so I decided I wouldn’t make him angry. I would try to be the best friend. If I did anything, even if the fight wasn’t my fault, I still said I was sorry. I always said I was sorry, mostly because I knew he never would. He never apologized for any of his actions. Not before he was diagnosed, he never meant it if he did apologize.

I remember one time when what he did to someone backfired on him and ended up effecting me. I don’t think he ever forgave himself for that. He had yet again used someone and I had been talking to the person, just being nice and everything. See C was bisexual and he never dated girls just guys. So one day he made one guy mad and he attacked me. The guy started saying how ugly I was and that I would never amount to much. He told me how C talked bad about me and the guy used everything he knew about me against me. The guy had gotten mad when he found out one of C’s biggest secrets. C had a boyfriend in Wisconsin. C always dated here while he was “dating” the guy he had never met. That drove me crazy and for the first time since I had become good friends with C I thought about giving up on him, but in the back of my head I could hear him saying the one thing I wished so dearly for him to say to me. I always wanted to hear him say: I need you. I needed to be needed by him. I wanted to always have a reason to talk to him. C was like a drug to me. I had to talk to him or I didn’t feel right. When he stopped calling me as often is when I started reading. I became obsessed with reading. I read as many as six books a week.

One time that C hurt me the most was in April of my junior year he was supposed to go to a party with me but he told me that his dad was making him go to his older brother, Aus’s, baseball game and that he couldn’t make it. So I went to the party by myself. C and I shared one friend, her name was Meg. She was a good friend except for that day. She had asked him to come with her the night of the party and willingly he ditched me and went with her, but he got caught by me. As long as I live I will never forget the pain I felt when I saw him. I will never forget how low he made me feel. He had done some low things in his day but that was the worst that he had done. So far. Things got worse after that.

C still wasn’t diagnosed with depression and he was still into cutting himself. I remember him telling me about all the cuts he would make on his leg and how he wanted to kill himself. To this day I don’t know if he would have really killed himself or if he was saying it all for attention. Either way it wasn’t good. I begged him to tell him mom, for him to get help. Anything I didn’t care but I didn’t want to lose my best friend. Or who I thought was my best friend.

He finally went to a doctor in the summer of 2008 and he was my old best friend again. He was nice and happy. He gave up the drugs he had tried and he started talking to me again. We spent almost everyday together the second half of the summer. We were the closest I have ever been to someone. I didn’t want school to start back because I knew he would start ignoring me again. And I was right. By Christmas I hardly knew him anymore and he was this alternate person. He started spending all his time with a girl from his school and he started acting like her. He always had that problem. When it was just me and him he was fine but when other people were around he acted like this arrogant jerk who was acted like he was twelve instead of sixteen. I hated when he was like that.

I saw him the day of my eighteenth birthday and he never once said happy birthday. He knew it was my birthday but he just said I was waiting. I was like whatever. He never said it and I mentioned it once and he laughed and said your never going to forget that. That was just one thing that I would never forget.

C did have good qualities too. He could be the most caring person- when he wanted to be, which wasn’t often. I would call him upset and crying and he would talk to me sometimes or other times the Rayville girl would answer and she was rude and mean. Its no doubt that you can tell that I don’t like her. I didn’t but none of that matters now.

Months into my senior year of high school I finally realized just how much I was depending on him. He was what made me, me. I had to have him in my life. I still cant explain why I needed him, but I did. I hope someday he’ll realize just how much he meant to me. I didn’t want to date him. I didn’t want him to love me. I just wanted him to need me like I needed him, for support to be his secret keeper again. It always made me feel close to him when he told me his secrets. I would beg to know and then guard them with my life. I knew so much about him that it was scary. He knew many things about me too. He would listen when I talked, he would voice his opinion when I needed it. But he got tired of me and forgot all about his secret keeper. Now I’m just a memory for him. I smile and ache when he hears our song. A laugh when he sees anything to do with us. I know he remembers, because no matter what I do I can’t forget him. I will always that boy but sometimes you have to let go of the past to move on to the future. So C if your reading this, don’t forget me…