Her

24

AZA

Here's the story of my first time falling for a girl, told in an overdramatic way because I love being dramatic, but also because the whole thing did feel very dramatic, to me at least: When I was sixteen, I fell for a girl. Her name was Melissa. She was eighteen, two years older than me, charming and independent. She was blonde, tall, and gorgeous. She looked like an angel. So of course, because I'm the luckiest person alive, she was a devil.

We met in a bar. Ky wanted to go there, and he left early with Cass. When they were gone, a girl joined me, the girl who'd been catching my eye all night long. She just sat down next to me, looked me in the eye, and said you're beautiful. It was like a movie scene, and she was like a movie character. She was that one girl. I liked how confident she was, how outgoing, how fascinating. I liked everything about her. Fifteen minutes later we were in the bathroom, and I had my first time with a girl.

I thought I'd never see her again. The next day I went to the bar again. So did Melissa. I had my second time with a girl. After that, a lot of times followed. We would see each other a lot, whenever she wanted to. What we did together? Sex. And drugs. Both these things were wrong, but at that time they just felt fucking right. I took a lot of drugs with Melissa, but the best drug, the one I was most addicted to, was always her. She was always independent, wild, full of energy. That was the thing about her, she never gave, just always took, took, and took. I gave her all my energy, and she took all of it. I was an addict and she was the drug.

I told her a lot of things about myself; she rarely told me anything about herself. I thought she was careful, hesitant, thought she would open up one day, thought I should give her time. I didn't mind. I didn't realise that she'd never open up, didn't want to, wanted to make me feel important, special. I did. Melissa was the cool girl, the one you want to make laugh, want to impress, want you to like you. She was liked and not liked.

Cass and Ky didn't like her. They said she was a talker, a flatterer, I said she was charismatic, charming; they said she was self-centred, I said she was independent; they said she was secretive, I said she was private. I didn't tell them a lot about what we did together, but they could tell. They didn't approve. They saw the devilish side in Melissa; I saw the angelic side, wanted to see it. It took me some time until I stopped seeing it. But eventually I realised what she really was like. She was a talker, a flatterer, she was self-centred, and she was secretive. She was a fucking bitch.

Last time I saw her was after not hearing from her for days. She just showed up out of nowhere, like she always would, like when I first met her. I asked her questions, she didn't give me answers, we had some quick, wild sex, then we had a fight. I found out she had slept with a guy. I was hurt, jealous, pissed. She laughed, then stopped laughing. I told her to get out. She said she was sorry, but she didn't feel sorry. I got mad, so she got mad too. We both said hurtful things, but because Melissa meant more to me than I did to her, because I was a fool on a drug named Melissa, her things hurt more. She was competitive, so she won. I lost. What I lost? My heart, and - I realised after about a week - 300 pounds. Melissa was a devil and a taker, and she took everything.

The 300 pounds I never got back, the heart I did. The whole thing only went on for several weeks, but it took me months to get over her. Now I'm here, seventeen instead of sixteen, pink hair instead of brown, disbelieving, uncertain instead of believing, certain. I don't know who Phoenix is, what she is; is she an angel or is she a devil? She looks like both, warm freckles and smile, cold eyes and skin. A devilish angel? An angelic devil? She can act like both angel and devil. So what is she? I know - or I like to think - she'd
never steal my money, not only because she already has more than enough herself. But, to be honest, what I'm so much more afraid of is that, as dramatic and cheesy as it sounds, she'll steal my heart. And I mean my whole heart. Because, fuck, I think she already has part of it.