This is a non-love story about a guy named Liam and a girl called Lilly. There isn't a traditional Happy ending to the piece but rather a realistic one.

Now it is important to understand how different Liam and Lilly were. Basically, it boils down to the fact that she was very affectionate and warm whilst he tended to be standoffish and cold. It is also vital to know that she cared a whole lot for Liam.

It is her 3rd birthday party, all of Lilly’preschoolol classmates are gathered in the community building in a small city of just 711 people. The Parents all know each other,as well as the grandparents and so on. On the boom box that is owned by Lilly’s older brother,her new Brittany Spears C.D plays.Dear Diary is the current tune. Coaxed by her mother,Lilly dances with a classmate of hers,a lanky and dark haired three year old boy. Through a wrinkled nose and protest,he agrees to sway with her for a bit. A picture is snapped.

Flash-forward about 5 years. Lilly is “in love” with a boy named Max,who happens to be Liam’s best friend. Liam and Lilly are what one would consider academic rivals. She dislikes him because he is strong where she is weak,math. They do not speak.He doesn’t even appear in her stories,which are heavy with a Max like character.

Another two years, and there has been a robbery in the town. (It was the hot gossip for weeks.) The six graders are made to eat their lunch in the classroom,lights off,doors locked and blinds closed. Lilly wants nothing more then to run to her little cousin down in K-3rd,to comfort him. By the time school is over, she is having what she now knows was a panic attack. Sitting in the middle of a cafeteria,Lilly felt someone take a seat next to he. A hand is rested on her shoulder and comforting words are said. She thinks that maybe Liam can’t be so bad so he gets a supporting role in her next story about Max.

The next year, an older boy is picking on a girl Lilly considers a sister. She finds out he is also bullying Liam. Having had a bit of a violent streak in the 7th grade she resolves the situation by confronting the boy. She may or may not have taken a swing at him for him to understand that she was serious. Later that day Liam thanked her,the boy had apologized. For the rest of that year and 8th year,they were best friends.Max becomes a “B” character in her writing that is now laden with Liam.

9th grade meant a new school for them. During the summer,a large misunderstanding happens and she no longer has Liam after a few nasty words are said. They make new friends,avoid each other in their 4th period class up until semester.Gradually things heal between them and they are back to being them. The dynamic duo. Everything goes smoothly for the next two and half years and he has a starring role in her pieces of “fiction” now….then she does something stupid

Lilly falls in love with him.

It is soon after everything falls apart. Words are said by Liam in what he thinks confidence to Eleanor “Ellie” Thomas. He apparently forgets that Ellie just happens to be Lilly’s best friend of about three years. This time when it ends,no words are exchanged. She stares blankly in response to his secretly pleading look and tries not to let him see what is hidden in her dark eyes.

She misses him. Sometimes so bad it makes her sick but she does nothing to soothe that nausea. Her smothering love for her friends and family doesn’t help her,nor does the brief fling with a boy named Peter,who she knows Liam hates with a fiery passion, dilute the ache for him.

He visibly replaces her. Someone who is prettier,someone who is smarter.You name a quality that Lilly holds and his new friends are that times ten.This fact only serves to twist the knife a little bit further.

But she knows that whatever had been between them,friendship or more,can never be salvaged,not even in the fictional realm. So she closes that chapter of her life,labels it “The Era of Liam”, and attempts to move on to the next page.