In my 15 years of life I have never truly known what true love feels like. The only kind of love I knew was about loving my family and my animals. I always thought that loving a guy would be the same as loving my parents, so I really thought that I was prepared to fall in love. I had crushes on boys and I dated them but never really felt anything more than a little crush, and now that I’m 15 I look back I over used love way too much. I threw it around like it was nothing…But I was so young and I wasn’t sure of the real meaning of this word. I didn’t think about the precautions about love and so the very first time I fell in love, I fell for it hard. He asked me to go to a movie with him on Valentine’s Day. I liked him so I agreed to go, after the movie he asked me out and I said yes. It was the perfect relationship, and we were inseparable, nothing was able to break us apart. He was my life and I was his.

Our relationship was all fun and games until a year later. He started hanging out with drug addicts and people who were really no good for him or his health. He stopped hanging around me every weekend so that he could go get high and drink with his friends. I wanted nothing to do with this so I stopped talking to him as much as I had been, but we still continued to date. It killed me to see him choosing drugs over his family and me so I told him that I needed to talk to him. The next chance he got he came over and we talked. I tried to start the conversation off nice and easy before I broke out the news. Before I could start into the real reason I asked him there I could tell that once again he had been drinking. At that moment I lost it and I went off at him, and within 10 minutes we were both yelling and shouting. I could tell he was getting more angry at every sentence I yelled but I never in my lifetime thought somebody I had known and been dating for so long could slap me. Especially not a guy but to my surprise he had no problem with it. At that moment I yelled at him to get out and quickly ran to my room. Within a few days I broke up with him and immediately ordered a restraining order.

The next month I started 8th grade, everybody had heard what had happened and it was the new “talk” in school. I thought things would mellow down but to my surprise nothing got better actually things got worse and worse. Most of the girls in my class had gotten prettier and smarter when I returned to school with my usual messy hair and old tennis shoes. Most of the people in my school started calling me names and telling me I was ugly. I was bullied all through 8th grade, up to the point of trying to end my life. After that I stopped loving people I distanced myself from everybody and made sure that nobody could ever hurt me like that again. I wanted nothing to do with anybody so I completely shut down I stopped talking to all my friends and family and just stopped all together. During the summer I still shut everybody out and my parents decided that it was time for a change. I came to my new school and met Tiffani, she was the first person I opened my heart up to. She made me smile and just simply made me happy. I started to open my heart up to people again until December 7th when my best friend since 3rd grade took her life because of a boy. Once again I shut down and stopped talking to people once again. This time I knew I was done with giving people but I met more friends that I became really close to like Tessa, Hannah, Maya, Hope, Serenah, Sonia and Breann and they made me feel like I was really important. Later on this year I met Anthony who made me trust people again. He asked me out and I was really hesitant at first I didn’t want to open my heart up to any guys. I wasn’t ready for another heartbreak but I said yes and now I know that not all guys are going to hurt me or break my heart. These people really changed my life because without them I don’t know if I would be here anymore the teachers here support my decision instead of judging me for them like in Whitefish, my friends here treat me like I matter and that they love me even though I’m the freak that I am, and of course my boyfriend who shows me that he truly loves me. So that is what I love. I truly love everybody in this school because they are caring and proved to me that life is worth living. I couldn’t ask for better people in my life and that is truly what I love.