"Yes!" I almost yelled out as I climbed into my house through my window. When I'd first started doing this, I was twelve; now at 16 it had become one of those simple easy everyday kind of things. I always left my window unlock and opened a crack and to my delight my mom on a cleaning rampage had only twice closed it. This may seem ridiculous to you, but to me it was part of life. There was no way my parents were going to say, "Sure honey, it's 10pm on a school night you go over to Nick's house." Or "11:30 movie? No problem, just be back before sunrise." Right… very doubtful, actually there is no doubt. It just wouldn't ever happen.

Anyways, the "yes" did not refer at all to my window situation. Win had just kissed me, well maybe made out… "snogged" I do believe they called it when I went to London. I never liked that… "snogged" it seems to me to be the word for pigs kissing and I don't think Win or I are pigs. Oh Winston… yes that was his name. It's a horrid name, but somehow it was his and he was dreamy. Ha, I'm such a dork.

I would like to tell you I have many morals and I am so pure it would sicken you. To me, I'm not. To everyone else in this town, I am. Truly to everyone I am, sure I snuck in my window because I was out too late on a school night with a boy but come on who hasn't done that? And at first the window sneaking out was to go hangout with my friends that were girls but now it's boys. I have the "strict" parents and the "together" life out of all my friends. Not that I mind or it's a bad thing. My parents unlike many here are my real parents and this is their first marriage. I'm one of those "crazy" straightedge kids, and I'm also from a "crazy" Irish-Catholic family, so additionally I go to a private catholic school.

It's kind of sad actually, to look at everyone and to know well to know everything that their parents would never suspect and the teachers don't realize and what other people envy. For example take my best friend, Melinda. She is gorgeous. Utterly beautiful, sadly she has an older sister equally as pretty. Her sister is also an extremely talented actress, singer, and dancer. One of those "triple threats" to the world of theatre. The sister, as we call her, is also smart, kind, and nice… she also dated all of the best, most popular attractive guys not only in our town but at our school which takes on kids from about 20 other towns. Insane, I know. Due to this fact of her sister's seemingly perfect existence, Melinda has always had to compete or so she thinks. She gets her hair changed constantly… probably every two months.. sometimes it's permed, other cut, others colored. Always beautiful but she tries. The saddest thing is what no one can see, the cutting, the eating disorder, and the utter self-loathing so that she feels as though sleeping with guys will validate her. She just wants to be loved and told she's perfect, yet the only people who seem to do that are guys who end up using her.

Guys, they sicken me. I'm not a man-hater obviously. Just most are so low and shallow. Win, for example, is well the third guy I've ever kissed. I'm very careful. Besides Win kissed me. The first guy was Nick. Nick is… that boy. The first love, who broke my heart, shattered my spirit and made me question who I was. We don't talk about Nick, it's one of those unwritten rules. But I can give the basic breakdown. In ninth grade, it was my first year of high school at St. Stephen's… along with everyone else in ninth grade. But most of us had attended St. Margaret's Middle School, and prior to that St. Mary's elementary school. Yes all of the schools were basically connected. Nick though had just moved, into my actual town. See we have bus stops and car pools depending on how far away you live from the school. The school is located about 20 minutes away so in reality it's not that far but for some reason it always seems like forever. I think perhaps it's because you have some friends that end up living on the other side of the school making them be over an hour away from you.

Anyways, Nick was at my bus stop and he was new. You could tell, he was standing with an older girl and a boy. Later, I would learn that it was his sister and her boyfriend. Basically to shorten this story, everyone in the world fell madly in love with him and he dated around, but for some reason always sat with me on the bus. Even if, like when he dated Melinda, the girl he was seeing was on the bus. It was just different, we were different and amazingly close. Then, well then it happened I got what I thought I wanted. At Christmas, he got in trouble and couldn't come to this party my two other best friends Amanda and Lauren were throwing. Right side notes, my best friends Amanda, Lauren, and Melinda. I'm not actually sure who is the bestest we are all this kind of group but back to Nick… it always comes back to him, bastard. So this trouble was basically that his dad found Nick's bong. I know, I know… a pothead. Real good there Camille, you are a smart.

Well at the party, I got quite kind of sad and Paul, the other boy that had been new and everyone who hadn't fallen for Nick wanted, left his current girlfriend who happened to be Lauren and talked to me which basically ended in this, "I'm going to talk to him Millie, I know you really like him and I think you'd be good for him." Well, apparently I was because a few days before the New Year's Party my cellphone rang with the ID screaming, "Nick", he talked and I listened until he finally said, "So ummm I have something to tell you, I think you might already know. Paul said he talked to you and you were upset, and well do you know where I'm going?" I played dumb, "Umm no?" In truth Paul had called the day before claiming that Nick liked me sooooo much he was afraid because he had never actually really cared that much. Heh, funny to imagine these two jocks boys on the telephone. So yes, Nick ended up saying what to a 14-year old girl is joyous, "I like you, I like you a lot."

At the New Year's Eve party, he kissed me. That was my first kiss and we started dating, he was my first real boyfriend. We dated almost two years… our break-up was the dumbest thing ever and was over the world's stupidest fight but basically it's over and ended in November. See, he moved again. He moves a lot, according to him he's never lived anywhere for more than three years. So I suppose when the summer before junior year rolled around, it was time for him to go. He didn't want to or so he said and he cried, he did seriously he didn't want to leave me. Since he had turned 16 in May of sophomore year, he could drive so he said he would come see me every other weekend since I would only live three hours away and he would stay at one of his friends house. It seemed perfect, but nothing ever is.

In November, he came down I hadn't seen him in a month since homecoming in September which for some reason was stupidly always put the weekend after Labor Day. He couldn't get time off work, I had out-of-state soccer tournaments, homework, friends, etc. But November he came, he hadn't cut his hair since homecoming so it was longer but that wasn't what bothered me. It was his phone. I always played with it, it wasn't as pretty as mine but it was still cute and I loved going through seeing what texts messages from me he had kept and what pictures he still had and really I was such one of those "I'm so in love" dorks.

Since forever, I had never seen him have another girl on his picture ID besides like his sister and it wasn't that I was exactly the jealous type, I mean he would have pictures of our friends at home but actually setting them as his ID was something different, I mean that took time and I mean why have them photo Ided if they didn't call you often enough to see it. But there she was the girl he had gone to his homecoming with., you see the weekend of my out-of-state tournament for soccer was his homecoming weekend. He had been really upset when I said I couldn't go, I mean in reality I don't actually know if my parents would have allowed me to sleepover Nick's in the first place or have wanted him driving me home late, but I think they would have accepted after I cried and complained for hours. But due to this, and since he was the "new kid" he had been asked out many times though he kept assuring me he said "no", one girl though was a cheerleader (barf of my shoes) and they actually had classes and were friends, plus she had just broken up with her boyfriend when he went to college so when she asked him and Nick knew I couldn't go, so he checked with me saying she just needed an escort and me being the trusting girlfriend and trying so hard to not be a control freak, that I truly am, I said yeah have fun. But then I clicked to open the picture to see her dress, and below it said "Crystal speedial 5". Yeah real smooth Nick.

I may have over-reacted but come on, I knew him. I checked his calls… a whole bunch from her so I asked about it. He never used to care when I'd go through and be like "Ha, what did Tammy want?" Or "Oooo Lauren called you…" Or "Nicky poo, Jasmine's number said you talked to her for a half hour! I thought didn't like the phone! Do you not love me?" Usually he just laughed, mostly because usually I was kidding… atleast with the teasing but asking why someone called was me, I'm nosey and controlling deal with it.

For my lovely asking, of "Hey Crystal is your speedial now eh? You guys talk a lot?" I got a muffled, "Oh what yeah." I tried asking more but he sort of ignored me, saying, "Mill, you know I love you." I seemed to not care because at that point I noticed a call from her for two hours. Now that is long and maybe that alone would have gotten me mad but it was the date, back in October there was one night I had never talked to him. It seems dumb but we talked every night, I honestly couldn't sleep without talking to him. I only remembered the date because that night I had scored the winning goal against one of our rivals and wanted to tell him and was really sad when his phone rang and rang. I though perhaps he'd been called into work, and the next day when I asked him he just said, "Oh yeah, I got in late." Busted, asshole.

I never know if he actually cheated on me, I flipped out and told him I hated him. He cried and begged me not to do this. I calmed down for a bit, we talked and I thought maybe it'd be okay but the next morning he said "we needed a break." Apparently he couldn't take me not trusting him, yeah well he proved me right when on our break he kissed her… "It isn't like how I kiss you, it was a peck." And then he ended it, our break lasted three days. We agreed to not tell people, which of course he lied about. He told his older sister and Paul.. and obviously Crystal who he thought he was going to start dating until she ended up dating her ex again. But for him it worked out fine, he now has a beautiful new perfect girlfriend who he loves "so much" and apparently he hates me because I was "controlling and anti-social". Dickhead, Not that I'm bitter… or anything.

So now Nick and I don't talk, I hear about him from Paul time to time or some of my friends are girls. Amanda is probably the best about it, she barely ever brings him up unless I do. So maybe Amanda is my bestest. Returning to school was hard, everyone was use to me being this happy girl with the "perfect" relationship. But it was even harder because some people completely took his side and lots of girls started calling him because even though he was far away, we had cars and could drive. Though, I wasn't allowed to drive more than a half hour away, see very strict parents, the other girls could and some did. They took his side because… well I am controlling. It's my flaw, controlling, perfectionist, and lack of patience. I think wanting it to be perfect without wanting to wait… leads to my ultimate taking over.

Anyways, we don't speak of Nick. Nick… well it's too painful. If I know he's coming up, Paul is nice and still tells Lauren that he'll be around so I don't have to run into him and his new girlfriend who sometimes joins him, that way I stay locked up in my room all weekend. I'm pathetic but it's true.

So after him, I went on a thing. James who to this day I hate seeing around school, kind of hit me with that "I understand, I care" and he was a cute soccer playing senior so of course I went out with him a couple times. We made out and… now I regret it completely. I can't just kiss without reason. Which was the nice thing with Win, sure this was the third time I'd sneak out in two weeks to hangout with him after my curfew (which is unfairly set at 11pm on weekends and 9:30pm on weekdays), but he hadn't kissed me the first time, just pecked me the second, and now well we'd actually kissed. Awh, Win… he is quite nice.

Glancing at the clock though told me, instead of pondering Win and his intentions to me, it shown 2:30am. Yeah waking up at 6am for school would be a blast now. Did I even do my chemistry homework? Shoot, well guess I won't actually be sleeping for awhile.