I Knew A Boy

I knew a boy. His name was Zack Baker. He was three years older than me, and in the eleventh grade. I knew he knew who I was, because we were friends. Not the kind of friends where you can completely rely on each other or share your deepest secrets, but friends. We were merely acquaintances who talked on a daily basis, or a most daily basis.

But I felt more for him than I had for any other boy at that point in my life. he didn't know it, but Zack meant more to me than even I could fathom. And it all came out of nowhere, during lunch period when he and I and our two small groups of selected friends ate down a secluded hallway. We had shared merely a passing glance and our eyes connected, and I knew, just flat out knew, that this was the person I could see myself marrying, raising a family with, growing old with. I had never even kissed Zack, hadn't even hugged him for as much as I knew. I was just young and naive, just fourteen. What could a high school freshman who'd never been given the chance at a relationship possibly know about love? What could I possibly know about love? How did I know I really wanted to grow old and die with Zack Baker? Well, I didn't. But I still knew the thoughts that went swimming through my head at the mere thought of him, the dirty impure thoughts that no mother would want her daughter to be thinking. But I thought them, I dreamt them, I wished for them every day. But Zack Baker would never belong to me, nor I to him. Because as I had my eyes set on him, he had his on someone else. Someone close to me. Someone I cared about and thought I could confide anything with. Someone who would make a treacherous move and possibly lose all respect I had toward her. Someone... someone like my sister.

My sister. God, my sister was perfect, at least in my eyes. I always looked up to her, always admired her, always wanted to be just like her. It annoyed her. She hated the fact that little sis was always around, that I always wanted to go places with her. And for as much as I admired and respected her, I envied her. To me, it felt like she was the favorite child with my mother. She always got the new things. Always got the new clothes, and I always got the hand-me-downs. There was just something about wearing pre-owned clothes that left a bad taste in my mouth. And she had the looks. Day in and day out, I had to hear from the boys in my grade about how hot my sister was and how much they wanted to fuck her. I wanted that. I wanted to be wanted. By anyone. But no one wanted me.

She had the boyfriend, too. He was a senior, and he had pretty, dark brown eyes. She was goddamn lucky to have gotten someone like Nick. He put up with a lot of shit when my sister was a total bitch to him, and treated me like the sister he never had. I always wanted a brother.

I was so jealous of her though. I'd come home from school and see his car in the driveway, and when I'd enter the house I would hear them. Not like they ever tried to be quiet when mom wasn't home. But I had a sick and twisted little mine. I'd creep up the stairs and down the hall and sit outside her room, listening. And then my thoughts would travel to Zack Baker. I wanted to do what Ashley and Nick were doing. I wanted to do that with Zack. Boy, did I ever. I had to be the most perverse person in the world, sitting outside my sister's room, listening to her have sex, thinking of a boy who, for all intimate purposes, could care less about me. But I didn't really care. I knew I was fucked up. But I didn't really care. There were a lot of things I didn't care about at that age. Zack Baker was not one of them.

Zack and my sister were friends as well; closer friends than I could have ever dreamed of being with him. Nick hated how close Zack and my sister grew in their junior year. He hated Zack and hated Zack's friends - he deemed them as the scum of the earth, worthless pieces of shit. But my sister liked Zack and she didn't care. I didn't care what Nick said either, because I liked Zack and I liked his friends too.

Looking back on the events that were to follow my inescapable infatuation with Zack Baker, I don't know how I will be able to cope with it. Writing this all down to be locked away forever seems to be the only way to escape it. I held it all in, all of the hurt, all of the pain, all of the feelings of betrayal and depression, for two full years before I realized the time had come to finally tell someone. So I did. I told one person. And another, and another, and every time I did I felt the pain lessen bit by bit. But I would always cry, because all of those bottled up feelings had left their marks chiseled deep within me.

I thought that maybe if I told enough people, the weight of the memories and of the events that had taken place would lessen. I'd hoped that I would be able to spread the burden, find others to help me carry it. I thought I had found enough people, but I hadn't. Because to this day, when I think of all the things that happened between us all, I still cry and I still break down and I still feel all of the emotions I'd tried to hide from for so long. They are still here with me, and I don't want them to be. So now, as I write this, I hope and I pray that once these words touch the pages, they will stay there, and I'll be able to put them away, far away from me. Because it's been four Goddamned years since all of this took place, and I can't let it go. I can't. And it's driving me further and further down the road I don't want to travel on. I don't want to go back to that dark place.

This is my last chance for sanity. This is my last chance to build up the walls that Zack and my sister had so successfully torn down.

I knew a boy. And if I don't let his memory go, I fear I will lose myself forever.