What is love? No one could give her a satisfactory answer. Not the movies, or books, or family, or friends. No one. And that didn’t help her much. She wanted to know if she was in love or maybe it was just her teenage hormones trying to kill her on purpose from their over, over… over what? Their overdrive? Something like that. There was definitely a phrase for it, but she was way too lazy to think of it. Or maybe she was just too busy. Busy trying to figure out if she was really, truly in love.

She was a fool, she knew that. Whether a fool in love or just a fool, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted the answer, despite thinking about it constantly for days, weeks, months… spending every free second wondering about it. Which was better? If she was just a fool, that made her sound stupid. But if she was a fool in love, at least she had an excuse. But that excuse could possibly end up as her untimely death. Or maybe just a really big broken heart spattered all over the floor. Either way, she didn’t like the consequences or implications. They both sounded terrible. She cursed herself for getting into this mess.

Where did the mess come from? She honestly couldn’t think of an answer. She remembered how, probably mere weeks before the Incident, she was telling her mother that she would never ever fall in love during high school. “What’s the point?” she said. She asked her mother if she really thought that she was one of those girls who would just fall in love (whatever the hell that means) and forget about school and college and friends and family and the rest of it. Of course not. She answered her own question with such conviction, that it left no doubt in her mind. But her mother knew better. And told her so. Her mother told her that this wasn’t going to be the end. She told her that one day, she would inevitably fall in love with some boy and become all obsessed with him. That he would become the only thing she cared about, he would become her world; that she would forget about school, and wouldn’t listen to her own advice.

The girl replied that that was ridiculous. What kind of fool would throw away their puny lives for some stupid boy? She would never do something as stupid as that. What for? It made no sense. She would never daydream all day about some stupid boy. She had better things to do. Like school and friends and reading and a whole bunch of stuff like that. That is what she told her mother mere weeks before the Incident.

And she kept telling her mother all these things, with such a conviction that it left no doubt in her mind. But her mother smiled an all-knowing smile. She told her daughter that she would be eating her words soon enough. “You’re starting high school,” she said. “And high school is a whole new world. You’ll meet a whole bunch of stupid boys, and you will probably become fixated on one of them. You’ll see,” she had said.

Her daughter merely laughed. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “Mom, do I really look like the kind of girl who would do that? I have better things to do. I have school to focus on. I won’t have time for some stupid boy.”

And her mother just shook her head. “You’ll eat your words,” she repeated. And her daughter replied, “You’ll eat your words mom. I will never fall head over heals for some boy.” And she said it with such conviction, that it left no doubt in her mind. But her mother only shook her head. That is what the girl said mere weeks before the Incident.

A few weeks later, she fell head over heals for some boy.