I remember that summer like it was yesterday. It had been the best yet. My freshman year was about to start and we were going to a party. Nothing good comes from a party, that’s what every adult will tell you. But they’re wrong. Something amazing came from this party. He came from this party.

The music was blaring; the drinks were coming from everywhere. The dance floor was overflowing with people, and my friends and I were in the center of it all, in the middle of the dance floor, together. That’s when I saw him. He was leaning against the wall drinking out of a cup of booze. He was staring at me.

I nudged my friends and made them look in his direction. They did, and then gave me a mischievous smile and danced harder, if that was even possible. He sauntered over to us, not walked, that was too ordinary for someone like him to be doing. He came right up to me and without even asking, twirled me around, and led me off to dance with him.

After a while we went outside to talk. I was sweating like a pig and figured he’d just try to make a move and when I didn’t allow it he’d leave for some other girls. That’s not what happened.

He sat down and asked me my name. He said he was about to start his junior year, his name was Josh, he had a Jeep. He had two brothers in college, and his dad left his mom when he was four. I told him I was Casey, I played soccer had two sisters one a senior, the other had died in a car crash. I was about to be a freshman, but I had turned 15 in July.

After that we became inseparable. I started ditching my friends, and lying to may parents. We’d stay up to all hours of the night talking; my parents thought I was at my friends’ house, my friends stopped calling after a while. School started and my once straight A’s plummeted to D’s and F’s. My parents thought it was a stage.

I saw my friends in the hallway. They were gossiping about homecoming dresses. I walked up to Josh, he was a senior now, I was a sophomore. I hugged him and glanced at the homecoming table.

He looked my dead in the eyes and said, “You don’t seriously want to go to that do you?”

“No.” I lied, shrugging through my shoulders.

“Good,” He stated. “Because I’m taking someone else, this was fun. But now it’s boring, you’re getting to clingy, it’s my senior year and I just want to have fun. We’re over.” Then he walked away.

I looked over at my old friends. My eyes welling up with tears. I wanted to run over to them so they’d hug me, and forgive me. So they’d cheer me up, and we’d stay home eating ice cream instead of going to the dance. But I couldn’t do that. We weren’t friends anymore, we weren’t in eighth grade.

So instead I ran into the bathroom, skipping all of my classes, something not unusual for me. I had no friends, I only had his. He took everything away. I no longer had anything. I used to have everything, back in eight grade. But that was then, and this is now.