Rated R for Romance

Prologue

He was always there; in my dreams at night, as a phantom among strangers on the street, the invisible boyfriend who never came over or bothered to call.  At night as I lay in bed, I’d wait for him to come.  He’d come through the open window with the warm June breeze, creeping in between the sheets and wrapping his arms around me, his breath warm and sweet on the back of my neck.  He would resurrect from among my day dreams and fantasies and haunt me; his image was seared upon my mind and clung to me like a fog - thick, relentless, and heavy.  From the moment I saw him, I knew he would be a part of me forever.  Back in high school, I had been the kind of girl that was so opposite of his stereotypical date that I never let the mere hope of ever being asked to go out with someone like him pass through my head.  I was still not his type of girl at all: I was innocent, pure, and naive when it came to romantic relationships.  He was a burning ember in the dark night sky, a flame that craved fuel, a hot and dangerous individual.  But that’s why I loved him.  When we had last parted he was eighteen and I was fifteen.  I tried to make myself let him go, I tried to forget about that way his smile made my knees buckle and my trembling heart palpitate.  He had never belonged to me; well, for that matter, he had never belonged to anyone but himself - but then, it happened.