The Hidden Life of Amanda Harp

I'll start going back to school when I don't look like I was just abused.

I almost bought a house yesterday, which is stupid because I'm not going to never see them again.

That's what two months alone can do to a girl.

That's right, two months.

I hired a lady to homeschool me and I paid her extra so she wouldn't tell my parent's. She's the only person I've seen.

And Chloe was right.

Distance does do something.

I keep replaying the crazy things we've done.

How he got me out of school for uno.

How we threw lunchmeat at the ceiling last summer.

The food fight on the beach.

Messy twister.

I keep thinking of the soft moments too.

How we were racing down the park one day and I fell and faked twisting my ankle.

Mike or Colter would have kept running till they won and came back and checked on me, but Connor didn't. He stopped and came over to me.

"It's okay. We can both win."

And then he picked me up and ran with me.

We crossed the finish line at the same time.

Originally I was going to pull him down and win myself, but I couldn't. I wanted him to carry me. I realize that now.

When he set me down, he brushed my hair away from my face.

I felt terrible for trying to make him lose that I faked a hurt ankle for three weeks.

I paid off the doctor to lie and say I twisted it and for me to ice it.

I remember when we had three legged races. Me and Connor were always a team.

I fell down and he almost crushed me, but he saved me at the last second and started apologizing like crazy, insisting that it was his fault we lost, even though we both knew it was mine.

Even as kids, my purple crayon fell from my hand and has Dad was walking past, he stepped on it and it broke. I was four then, and I cried.

Connor was in the middle of using his purple crayon, but he gave me his anyways.

I realized that I used to stare at him when he was shirtless.

If he noticed, he didn't say anything.

I'm eighteen now. My birthday was three days ago.

I spent it eating cake with my teacher.

I have straight A's right now and a 4.0 GPA.

I want to go home. I miss Mike and Colt and Mom and Dad. I miss Connor.

I read online that sometimes it's not the person you miss, but just the memories of them.

This isn't the case. I miss his smile, his loud laugh, his horrible ideas.

I don't want our first kiss to be our last.

I know how I feel about him. I love him.

I love him a lot.

I look at the shut blinds.

I've hardly stepped outside in a two months except for going to the recording studio to record a song I wrote.

The media is wondering what the fuck is going on and it's so bad the guys went on Letterman and explained I had mono.