Dear Universe, ✔

12.

Ian's P.O.V

"Hey bud, how's that reading going?" Dad messes my hair as he walks past where I'm seated on the couch. I groan as I start brushing my hand through my hair in an attempt to fix what he messed up.

"It's brutal." 

I can hear him laugh as he grabs his keys from the dish beside the front door. He looks back at me as he opens the door and steps halfway out it."Dinner tonight, just us two?" 

"Yeah, sure." 

When the door closes behind him, I am alone in the house. Fieldan and her mom are out shopping and my dad is off to work. I should be using this time alone to read the book in my hands, I should be reading so that I can work my way through Mrs. Holloway's ridiculous list, but there's other reading material on my mind. 

When I had opened Annie's laptop and saw the blog on the open screen, my first instinct was to close it and pretend I had never seen it. The only problem with that plan, was I saw the word batting cages, and I got curious - so I scrolled to the top and quickly read the entire post. 

It was wrong, I know, especially since I lied to her about it afterwards and have been pretending for a week now that I never saw it. It's taken everything in me to not look up the blog and read every entry she has ever posted, I don't want to betray her trust like that, but what I read...it was more honest that she has ever been in person. 

Annie likes me, and she told an entire internet universe, but not me. I couldn't get her words about me out of my mind, I couldn't stop thinking about all the times she's held my hand or given me that smile that seems to be just for me.

I need to know. I need to know what else she's said and when this all started for her - because for me it started the day she actually came back to finish watching that show we had started the day we met. That day, when she spent the day helping me unpack and asked if we could hang out again, I had just thought she was being polite - I didn't expect her to come back the next day, and the day after that. I didn't expect to introduce her to my mom, tell her about my past, or feel the way I feel around her. 

I've actually never had a girlfriend, I've kissed a few girls and hung out with them, but I've never been official with a girl. It was hard to have a relationship when no one would talk to you and you were labeled a freak or a loser. I couldn't invite people over to my house because I had no idea when my mom would have an episode or what they would go to school and say about her, so I kept to myself after my freshman year and focused on school and taking care of my mom. 

Even though I've never had a girlfriend, I know that no other girl would have made me feel the way Annie does. Annie is different, she's rare. She's kind and patient, she's guarded but cares about others, she's beautiful without trying, and she's like me in so many ways that I can't help but think we were meant to help each other through whatever it is we're going through in our lives right now. Like we're meant to mend each other and grow together. 

For the past few weeks I've been trying to get Annie to talk to me about things like her past relationship with Drew, cheerleading, her parents, and her childhood. My plan is to get her to open up to me like I opened up to her, and that way I won't be tempted to read her blog because I'll feel as if I already know everything she has to write about. 

The problem with my plan though is that Annie has walls built higher than I can climb. Every time I ask her something, she either shuts down or gives me vague answers. I understand not being ready to talk about things, but I thought we were closer than this. 

I open my laptop and my fingers hover above the keys. I know the website and I know her username, all I need to do is type them in and I'm there - Annie's thoughts will be mine to read. I tell myself that it's not really an invasion of privacy if she has it on the internet for everyone to read. 

I tell myself that I need to know why she thinks I'll break her heart so that I will know what not to do. I tell myself that I need to know what she's afraid of telling me so that I can tell her it's okay. 

My fingers hit the keyboard and the next thing I know I'm staring at Annie's blog, which dates back to months ago - days before we had even met. From the looks of it, she updates sporadically with no real schedule, and at all different times of the day.  

I click on the first entry, and tell myself one last time that I need to do this, I need to read this - it'll benefit Annie and I if I read this. 

Dear Universe,

That's what I'm going to call all you internet readers, you strangers that get the insight to my crazy, fucked up, not all that interesting life....

--------------

 I finished reading Annie's entries a while ago and now I'm sitting, frozen in place and staring at my computer screen while I read and re-read that last post. 

Annie carries such a heavy weight on her shoulders and blames herself for so much. It's like every time something bad happens, Annie finds a way to make it her fault, always tying it back to one tragic moment that she wasn't to blame for. 

I'm not mad like she feared, I understand that this is something she feels she needs to tell me on her own time. I'm not going to treat her differently or pity her because her brother died, and I'm not going to start questioning her. No, the only thing I'm concerned about - is Annie. 

Annie is really struggling, and with so many things. She keeps everything bottled up and behind those walls she built around herself, so much so that I'm afraid she's going to break. She honestly can't see that her brother's death, her parent's separation, none of it is her fault. 

It's like Annie doesn't think she deserves anything good, like she's punishing herself and I can't stand the thought of her doing this to herself.

I don't know what I had thought I would find in these posts, maybe a bad break up with Drew or bullying. I never imagined that Annie was doing this to herself - that she was the reason she had no friends, sat alone at lunch, quit cheering even though she watches the squad longingly sometimes as the walk past or we see them practicing as we leave school. 

I can hear a car pulling in to the driveway and I glance at the time, I know it's not my dad but it also seems to early for Fieldan and her mom to be back home. When I hear the cars door slam, I close my laptop and sit it to the side before getting up and walking towards the front door to see what's going on. Before I can reach for the doorknob, the front door is thrown open and Annie is standing before me with her eyes red and puffy from crying. 

All I can think about as I look at her is everything I just read and when she wraps her arms around me, burying her head in my chest, all I want to do is take all that pain and guilt away from her. She doesn't deserve to feel like this, she's too good of a person to be dealing with all this.