This Love | ✓

Prologue

Can anyone ever say that their life has gone exactly the way they had planned? I for one definitely can't.

Now that I think about it, it seems funny how I felt like I had no control over my life all through middle and high school. I had no idea then what was waiting for me during my gap year.

If I'd known that on my trip to visit my ex-stepmother, Claire, in Los Angeles, I would come close to losing whatever hold I had on my life, I wouldn't have spent so much time fretting over my frizzy hair, crying about being bullied, and brooding over my messy family situation. I would have taken things slower. Enjoyed life a little more. Laughed harder. Loved deeper.

If I'd known that the first time I would ever let myself fall in love, it would only be to have my heart broken brutally, I wouldn't have rejected my high school best friend when he confessed his feelings for me. Of course, even if I had dated him, we would've had to separate after graduation. He went away to Australia for university. But maybe then, I would have had a taste of heartbreak, and that might have prepared me for what happened a year later.

Back then, I kept telling myself that I didn't believe in love. While most girls in my class went about dating and having nightlong chats on Facebook with their boyfriends, I stayed single and refused my best friend when he confessed, via email, that he "really, really liked" me. He had actually italicised the words.

Completely taken aback by his online revelation, I had told him — in person — that I wasn't interested in dating him or anyone else.

"Chris, I'm so sorry," I said, crushed by the look of disappointment on his face.

He stared at the classroom walls in silence, refusing to meet my eyes.

"Please," I whispered, outstretching my hand to grab his. "Say something."

I felt like I had been sucker-punched in the gut when Chris shrank away from my touch and muttered, "Just forget I said anything."

Before I could react, he stormed out of the room, leaving me completely alone.

After that, our friendship was never the same. I couldn't tell him everything anymore. Our daily conversations dwindled to occasional "hello's" and "how are you's". And then, even that stopped when Chris started dating a girl from another class. Four months later, I overheard her in the school bathroom telling her friends that she had dumped him the previous night. I had tried, several times, to approach Chris about the break-up, but he simply refused to speak to me.

I would like to say that I dealt with the loss of my best friend maturely. But I would be lying. At the time, it seemed like my whole world had collapsed. Because of my said refusal to date, my classmates constantly bullied me. The fact that my teachers liked and favoured me didn't help, either.

Before I lost my best friend, being bullied wasn't very difficult to handle. Just the fact that there was someone not laughing at all those nasty jokes about me was comforting.

After Chris abandoned me, everything just went to shit. I was isolated and the bullying got worse. I could never forget the sound of their teasing voices, mocking me and calling me names.

Stupid. Loser. Bitch. Weirdo. Freak. Prude.

I used to be able to take it because I would just turn to Chris, and he'd tell me, "You really are beautiful. Inside and out." Those words would make it easier for me to forget all the bad ones.

And then he wasn't there to tell me that anymore.

This one time, during lunch, the girls and boys were huddled together talking about their first kisses. Chris was sitting in the circle too, talking and laughing like he was having the time of his life.

Suddenly, one of the girls noticed me sitting several feet away, eating alone. Giggling and pointing at me, she called out, "Nobody is ever going to kiss you, loser!"

When I looked over at Chris, he just raised his eyebrows at me and shrugged. Almost as if to say, They're making this joke about you only because you rejected me. That was when I realised that I was truly alone. Nobody was going to pat my back and tell me I was beautiful.

I told myself that I would not cry, and I did a good job of keeping it together until the school day ended. But when I got home, and Claire asked me how my day had been, I broke down and cried until my eyes were red and swollen.

A bittersweet memory, it was the day that I fully realised I had lost my best friend, but it was also the day that I had bonded with Claire. I hadn't yet accepted her as part of my family, and our interactions had been superficial at best.

But that day, when Claire sat me down on the couch and stroked my hair as I tearfully narrated the lunch incident, I decided that I liked her. She clasped my hands in hers and said, "You listen to me, Leena. Those girls are just jealous of you, and those boys are mad because they aren't good enough for you. You're a smart, beautiful girl, and one day, a very sweet, very handsome boy is going to kiss you. You just wait."

So, I waited. And funnily enough, a very sweet, very handsome boy did kiss me. What Claire didn't mention was that he was going to break my heart into a million pieces.