Just like Christmas Day

I, for one, never believed in love. I didn't even believe in hope. Did you know that fifty percent of all marriages end up divorce? Fifty percent. Wow, the odds are amazing, but I'm not surprised. My parents went through a horrific divorce. It happened when I was a kid. I was about ten or eleven years old, so maybe this was six or seven years ago. I was just a naive little child. I thought their marriage was perfect. I was pretty much wrong about that. It wasn't my fault. Sometimes, kids can't see the truth. They only see what they want to see. They only see the good things. I was definitely one of those kinds of children. I thought everything was fine. I thought we were all happy. I remember a certain Christmas Day when everything was just amazing and perfect. That may have been the Christmas I found out that Santa wasn't real, but it was still a perfect day. We were a perfect and very happy family. At least, that's what I thought.

My mom lost her job. We couldn't afford anything anymore. She took a new and very different job. She got involved with the wrong kinds of people. She got hooked on drugs. She got hooked on cocaine. It tore apart the family. She became deep into drugs and alcohol. She and my dad had fights. God, she made a lot of money but blew it all on drugs and alcohol. The fights started when she came home, late at night. I could hear the fighting. I was happy that I was a heavy sleeper. It was my escape. If I was asleep, then the yelling wasn't actually happening. It meant that everything was still good. That was just my naivety and my innocence. My dad left and went to stay somewhere else. He was still close by. My mother became extremely involved with the wrong kind of person. He gave her the drugs and the booze. He made it worse.

It just went horribly downhill and she made an attempt on her own life. It was scary. The Department of Social Services got involved. I was so afraid of being taken away. They asked about the hospital and what happened to my mother. I started to cry and didn't say anything. I would not be taken away. And I wasn't. They made visits and finally it stopped. My mother had to move out and my father moved back in. Eventually, he moved out again and she moved back in again. She didn't kick the addiction, though. She was still on fucking cocaine. They found that out and they took her away. She was jailed. I moved with my father and D.S.S. didn't want me to see her again. Who would have thought that drugs could ruin my life?

Drugs killed a relationship and killed my family's happiness. Well, that's what I always thought anyway. Until just recently, I believed that. The problems started before the drugs. They were always unhappy. They weren't made for each other from the beginning. The only reason they got married was because she got knocked up with me. They never loved each other like I thought they did. I was just so blind. I was a child. I saw my grandparent's marriage fall apart. I saw my aunt and uncle's marriage fall apart. I was a witness to it all. And as I witnessed every event, my belief in love died. The belief that people could be happy with each other went extinct. I became a lonely person, I guess you could say. I didn't get a boyfriend. I didn't get involved with people. I never let people get too close to me. I didn't want to hurt them and I didn't want to be hurt by them. I knew first hand that it was bound to happen. I didn't trust boys. I didn't trust myself. It seemed doomed in my family to have a failed relationship. How could I believe in love after seeing all of that happen? How could I have hope? I tried, but it was completely useless. Not after what I saw could I have hope. No one understood it, but you try watching three seemingly-happy marriages fall apart and then say with confidence that you believe in love and being with someone forever.

It was until I was sixteen, a year ago, when I got my first boyfriend. I didn't even want to be with him, but I was. He thought he could renew my hope in love. I laughed at him for such a silly thought. I didn't let him get close because I knew I was going to hurt him. I didn't give him a chance to try because I knew it was futile. I barely had feelings for him. I didn't believe in love. So, I broke up with him. I was single and that was the way it was meant to be.

Then, he came. I had known him for a few years. We were in the same grade. We never had the same classes until this year. We barely talked. Then, the year came when we were in all of each other's classes and we even sat at the same table at lunch. We had no choice but to become friends. I didn't even know how amazing he was until I got to know him. I felt bad because I didn't know him. He always made me laugh. He was so brilliant and I was so amazed and impressed by his intelligence. He was even kind of cute. Something happened in my life and I was going through a really tough time. It was emotionally exhausting. All of my friends betrayed me and turned their backs on me. They thought I was a horrible person. They called me a bitch and they acted like I was a bad guy. I had no one to talk to and no one to depend on. They all hated me. So, I talked to him. He was the only one who would listen to me. He was the only one who offered me advice. He was the only one who cared and didn't seem to hate me. I would have been in a bad place without him. That's when it started. That's when I started to get these weird feelings. I wanted to be around him. I wanted to learn more about him.

I had feelings for him. It was pretty obvious. I never thought I would feel that way or let myself feel that way, but it was an amazing feeling. Just thinking about him made me feel so good inside. I constantly talked about him and I constantly wanted to hang out with him. I just wanted him to be there. I remember the day I found renewed faith in love and the day that I realized I was in love. I was with my friends, and I was missing him terribly. I had only seen him the day before, but I just felt empty without him. I kept talking about him and I kept wishing he was there.

I turned to my friend and asked her, "I miss him. I just want him to be here. I can't stop thinking about him."

She smiled and laughed a bit. "Hey, I think you're in love."

I stared in utter disbelief. "What?"

"You're in love, hon."

"I am not," I argued. I crossed my arms. Me. In love. That was a funny idea. That would never happen. I would never let that happen. I saw what happens to people 'in love.'

"Hey, I know you have this thing against love, but that's what you're feeling," She said to me. "Don't you like it?"

I thought for a second. "It's the best I have ever felt. It's the best I have felt since that Christmas Day..."

"Exactly. It's not that bad to be in love, is it now?"

"But, what if the love dies? What if...it doesn't work?"

"That's just the risk you take, but even so, you don't regret the feelings. It just felt so good to be in love, that you can never regret it. You just can't wait until you fall in love again. You don't give up. You keep searching until you find that feeling again."

"It's not going to work out, I know it," I said, quietly and sadly. My friend smiled at me.

"Well, you'll never know until you try it," She said. "And you know you want to try it."

God, how right she was. I just wanted to try it. I wanted to love him and I wanted him to love me, too. And I wanted to try it and I wanted it to work out. She was right...

And so I tried it, even though I knew there was a possibility it wasn't going to work out. What can I say? I couldn't help it. I was in love.

A/n: So, now there's only one thing left to do: review. And I don't know if it's actually 50 percent. A lot of places say a bunch of different things. Thanks for reading. : )