Author's Note

========================================================== Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the pack as a whole. I would like to also thank them individually:

To Kat for being my friend and the other one third or my brain, To Brent for being kind to me, for caring about me when other people didn't notice I needed it, and for changing me for the better, Thank You, To Brian for listening to me when I needed to talk and for worrying about me when I didn't think I needed it

Disclaimers: This is roughly based on the events that happened between us all. This is a story about love, pain, and my life.

Copy Rights: All of the characters in the novel are original works. They all belong to me. =========================================================

Prologue

"So I am going to tell you the truth." The young woman said before taking a deep drag off her cigarette. Her faces showed the lingering traces of emotions but maintained its calm façade. She didn't like to talk about everything with many people. The pain from it all was still fairly fresh. The wounds of it all hadn't healed over completely. She didn't want to talk about it now, but the need to tell someone was too great. Not because she thought anyone would care. She in fact didn't believe anyone would care. It didn't really matter to her if they did. She needed to get the story out one last time and then she could put it behind her and move on. She wouldn't have to keep wondering about it all. She wouldn't have to keep wondering if things could have been different. She would keep wondering if they could have been happy together. Maybe if she got it out this last time she would be able to let go of him and what she saw in him,

"Now I know what you are saying, 'the truth is relative.' And it is." Her eyes were a deep red color instead of their normal honey-brown. She looked at her final audience trying to reassure them that she was only here to tell her story and not to sway their opinion one way or the other.

"That is why I can honestly say I am going to tell you the truth. To me, at least, my side of the story is the truth. Now I am bright enough to know that my side is not the only side and therefore is not the only truth." She paused to take another drag off of her cigarette. She stared at the glowing end, considering it, than released the smoke from her lungs. She didn't need the nicotine in them. She didn't even completely like smoking, but they tasted of him. So she kept doing it. She needed something that reminded her of the feelings she had once felt. She needed something that was just hers that she could hold onto. He hadn't given her anything physical so all she had to show were the memories, the pain, and the cigarettes she smoked.

"But I am not here to tell you their side of the story. I am here because this lesson needs to be passed on. The truth about love, friendship, betrayal, and the pain that inevitably follows must be told." They together had done a number on her. Things had been easier before he came into her life. She didn't feel the way others did. When she had emotions of her own they were always filtered by some form of logic. They were controlled and more then that they were always dulled. Then he came into the picture and all of it changed. How was she supposed to know then what she knew now? She couldn't have. Then again she wasn't sure if she had known if she would have stopped things. She still didn't know if the price for what she felt was too high.

"So I am going to tell you about a friendship that was lost to love, a love that was lost within a friendship, and a girl who almost lost herself during the whole thing." She finished the last drag off the cigarette. Any further and she would be smoking the filter. She let the butt fall from her fingertips and next to her foot. She rubbed it out with the ball of her shoe.

The night air on the porch felt good. She didn't know exactly how to begin. Did she begin with the first time she knew he was different? Did she begin with the first time she met the girl? Did she begin in a stereotypical fashion by saying 'Once upon a time'? This wasn't a fairytale. More then that there wasn't a happy ending, at least not yet. So she would do the only thing she could she would start in the most obvious place.

"It all started with a girl named Elizabeth."