I will never forget you; not the sweetness of your lips, the warmth of your skin, the softness and longing in your eyes. Of course, you don't look at me like that any more. Now the only longing in your eyes is the longing that our past together never happened and that that section of your life would just disappear.

You have a girlfriend now. A girl you were friends with from kindergarten to junior high, but lost touch with. She never knew you during the part of your life that I was a part of. She's nice, sweet kind, a real Suzy Home-maker type girl. She wants to have 2.5 kids and a picket fence. She is in college and wants to get married. Right now, she even wants to get married to you. She has never done drugs. She's had sex but hasn't been promiscuous. She is your perfect girl.

Unlike me. I'm a constant reminder of a past you'd rather forget. A past where you drank, did drugs, had no job, and was a high school dropout with no intention of ever getting your GED. Abusive and living off your younger, abused, also high school dropout boyfriend's salary. Mine.

The only way I could support us both was to work two full time jobs and a ton of overtime. I was sixteen with no diploma from above 8th grade. I couldn't become a contributing part of society and no club, that wasn't seedier than I would work at, would take me on as a stripper or as a waiter and I was and am still not big on selling myself. Although I did sleep with the landlord so that he would rent me an apartment. Anyways, those three "jobs" are the only high paying ones a person with no diploma and no special skill or knowledge could get. Since I wouldn't take any of them, I was stuck at a record store and a retail store working two full-time jobs to keep you in drugs and alcohol. I shouldn't have. You hit me and cheated on me constantly. But I was in love. Hell, I'm still in love. If you came to me and asked me to take you back, I would. You wouldn't even have to ask.

But it's been four years since you left. I'm twenty now. I could become a stripper at a decent club. But I have no reason to. I can live on the money just from the record store job. Although, it's not great and I won't be able to retire, but I figure I'll be dead before I'm thirty. I don't live in a good neighborhood and there are gangs and drug dealers everywhere. I only live here because you wanted to have fast access to your dealers. But I don't move now, because of all the memories of you and me here, I suppose. And because if you ever wanted to talk to me a now, this apartment and phone number are the only way you could contact me.

But I doubt you'll ever want to though. I can't even cling onto that hope since I bumped into you yesterday. That's when I finally saw your wish to forget everything about us… about me.

I saw the beginnings of it four years ago when you got out of rehab and came to pick your stuff up and tell me you were moving. You said you would come by to give me the address and phone number in a few days but you never did. That was the last I saw of you until yesterday.

I had thought you were dead or something. I was so surprised when I saw you yesterday. I should have known something was different then. But it took me until we were sitting over coffee and you were telling me about your new life; your fiancé, your job, your AA meetings, your GED, your college applications about to go into the mail. I was not a part of your life. I hadn't been at all for four years and before that I was only a pliant body, a source of money, and a target to vent anger out on. It shocked me, although it shouldn't have. I hadn't seen you for four years and you had never bothered to contact me, even to say you were ending it.

Last night I had wanted to kill myself for the first time in years. But I didn't because I had known that I would botch the effort, and end up in pain, not being able to go to work, thus getting fired, evicted and killed inn an alleyway. Which would really actually kind of suck.

But I have to get over, get over…you. You aren't coming back. But maybe I could do what you did. Get my life back on track. Get a GED, go to college, do something that I might actually like with my life. And maybe I'll find someone to love who loves me back. But no matter what, I will never forget you. Ever.

Written yesterday in the time it took to listen to the Wicked soundtrack. Please review. I am probably going to make this a prequel of a longer story, but for now it's a one-shot.