Let it first be said, that I am naturally an unhappy, angry person. I have absolutely no idea why, but I am. Whenever I do something wrong I destroy myself in the mental realm, seventeen years of that have taken their toll on my heart, leaving it hard, brittle, and bruised. But the worst was yet to come. It all started when I saw him, first day of school. He made my heart flutter, some of the protective shield I had set up over years of self-abuse in the mind, cracked. Who was he? Why did he make me feel this way? For the next six months I watched him out of the corner of my eye, giving him a hug now and then, and running away right after. Little by little, more of my wall crumbled. In the sixth month, I auditioned for a musical the school was putting on, just to get those few hours of watching him. There was a school dance where the girls asked the boys to go with them. I thought to myself ‘this is the perfect opportunity to get closer to him!’ so I spent hours perfecting my first letter, being creative, individualizing the message. I even put a wax seal on the envelope. Then he said no, someone else already asked him. That’s okay, he’s a nice guy. He’ll go with the girl he already said yes to; I didn’t do anything wrong. A couple of weeks after that, I had to stop going to the musical rehearsal. I was angry for a while, but I got over it when I saw him the next day. The month after I was expelled from the musical, my feelings for him grew stronger every day, but for most of it I just watched him out of the corner of my eye. Since I was on stage crew, I still had a job to do for the musical. The wall around my heart was almost gone; I realized what my feelings were. I had a crush on him; no… those words aren’t strong enough for what was going through my head. I was in love, utterly and totally in love. So after a dress rehearsal, I gave him a hug like I normally did, I mustered up every gram of courage I had left, and kissed him on the cheek. I said goodbye and ran to get in the car to go home. I’d done it! I got what I felt across! I’d never felt such relief in my entire life. The next morning I did it again, and that night, I wrote him another letter, pouring the whole of my unconditional love into every word. It was delivered, but before he even read it, he turned me down. My heart was pierced with a poison laced arrow, it fluttered for ten seconds, then crumbled into sand and stopped. I was disappointed, I’d let my mind get carried away again. The only thing I wanted was to share that feeling with him. But deep down, I’d always known he’d say no. At first I thought I was going to be okay, that I’d accepted it. But every time I saw him that night, tears threatened to spill. Before the show started, I told him to read the letter. I was probably the last person he wanted to talk to; it would probably make things worse, or weirder between us, if there was anything between us now. But I needed him to read it, and he did. I walked away and sat in a different part of the room for him to finish. When he did, he came over to me and said it was a nice letter. The tears that had been threatening me burst forth; he was so nice about it! I couldn’t be angry with him no matter what he did! I buried myself in his costume; the colorless blood of the tears that were held up in my shattered heart ran freely. He apologized to me for making me feel bad. Apologizing to ME? I was the one who made HIM feel weird! I told him I was sorry, when he heard my crying voice he held me out to get a look at my tear-drenched face. We continued on like that for a few minutes until I’d calmed down a little bit. I asked him if I looked bad, he said no. I told him that he made me feel normal, like an actual person, nobody made me feel that way, EVER. He explained that I would find someone even better than him-I doubted it when he said it and I’ll doubt it forever-he said when people found out what kind of person I was-he thought I was a great person which I also doubt-they would want to get to know me better. I wanted to say that nobody wants to get to know me; my wall only came down for him. Nobody cares about me in a genuine sense. Sure my parents love me, but that is a different kind than the whole-heartedness kind I wanted to share with him. My wall began to re-create itself, thicker and nastier than ever before. I wanted to be furious, I wanted to scream, and I wanted to hit him. But whenever I gazed upon his Adonis-like face, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My absent heart still beat for him, stronger than it had for anyone and stronger than it had at the beginning. So instead, I gave him one last hug and told him to go be great. The next day, he performed as the lead character in the musical. Before the show started, I told him to go be great again. I guess that even a broken heart still beats.