• I loved him.

    He just walked away from me, after telling me he never wanted to see me again. I am seventeen, and he left about three years ago, when I was fourteen years old. I guess I’d better fill you in on the details.

    His name was Blake. My name happens to be Renata, but I go by Rena. I think that if I saw him, I might recognize him, but I wasn’t sure on that. Back then, he had dark eyes, dark hair and pale skin.

    “Rena, we need to talk.”

    I turned around, hearing that “tone” he had in his voice when he was angry or stressed. He looked pained, like he’d just had to make a very hard decision. He walked toward me and stopped right in front of me.

    “Rena, we . . . can’t—” it seemed like he was having trouble getting the words out, “—can’t be together anymore.”

    I was shocked. “W-what do you mean?” I asked.

    “It means that I’m breaking up with you,” he replied, his voice harder.

    He looked down at me and saw the tears in my eyes. His eyes flashed with emotion, but before I could identify it through my blurry eyesight, it was gone. “Quit crying,” he said. I looked down at the ground.

    “You’re the one who’s making me cry,” I said quietly, refusing to raise my voice at Blake.

    “Quit crying!” he yelled. I raised my eyes to his face and I saw regret there. “Get out of here,” he told me. “Get away from me and never come back. I never want to see you again, Rena.”

    After he had walked away, I had run inside my house, up to my room and pulled all of his pictures off my wall.

    But I still kept all of them.

    I had one hidden underneath my mattress in case I lost the one I had underneath my pillow.

    ****************

    I opened my eyes to see that it was still dark outside. I rolled over and buried my face into my pillow, determined to sleep at least ten minutes more. There was a knock on my door, and my mother called, “Rena, time to get up.”

    She sounded like she hadn’t wanted to get up either, and the only reason she had was because my older brother had probably banged on the door so loud she had no choice but to get up.

    He’s done that to me too.

    I pulled back the covers and told my mom I was up. As soon as I heard her walking away, I collapsed back onto my bed, and set my alarm for ten minutes. When the beeping went off, I got up again and changed into a black tank top and a pair of jeans.

    I wore a pair of black tennis shoes and walked into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my hair and teeth. When all of that was done, I walked downstairs and my mom gave me a look. “You’re down here later than usual,” she commented.

    “I slept a little bit longer,” I told her.

    She smiled and said, “I’ll be coming home a little late tonight, Rena. If you’re planning to spend the night over at Cameron’s or Kellie’s house, just tell Ace.”

    Ace is my brother. “Okay,” I agreed. She walked out the front door. Ace walked downstairs about two seconds later and said, “Where’d Mom go?”

    “Work. She said she’d be out a little late tonight.”

    “You know what that means don’t you?”

    “She’ll come home and beat us,” I said quietly.

    “It hasn’t happened lately, though,” Ace reminded me. His real name wasn’t Ace; it was just what people called him.

    “She’s going out tonight. She’s going to get drunk, and then ask a friend for a ride home. Then she’s going to beat us, Ace,” I told him.

    “Forget I even brought it up, Rena.” With that, he grabbed a banana and started peeling it as he walked out the door to go to school.

    I looked out the window a few seconds later and saw Ace standing there. “Don’t you want a ride?” he asked through the window.

    I grabbed my backpack and ran out the door.