I've never really been one to follow the rules. To me, lines are just suggestions (so coloring outside of them is perfectly acceptable), jumping off the top of the monkey bars can only aid me in my attempts to fly (because gravity is for pansies), and yellow means speed up (so you don't get caught at the red light like a loser).

I mean, don't think I'm some kind of bad-ass criminal on the FBI's Most Wanted list because I've broken every rule I've ever encountered. I follow the law (most of the time – there was that time last week when I ran a stop sign). I don't prostitute or rob banks or assassinate government officials or anything like that. I mean, really, I do know where to draw the line.

I just believe that (most) rules are just bits of advice for the wimps who like the quiet life. Rules are meant to be broken – that's how you make life an adventure.

But I don't make life that adventurous. There are some rules that I just don't break. Like, I don't steal people's boyfriends. And I never, ever go to bed without brushing my teeth.

There's another rule that I followed for my whole entire life – twenty-one years. The only thing is, well, I just broke it. I don't even know how it happened.

Okay, that's a lie. I know exactly how it happened. But I'll spare you the gory details.

Because, the thing is, when you have a best friend who is a guy (Christian O'Malley, in my case) and you are a girl, things stay casual. You know, friendly – but not too friendly.

Oh, but I got a wee bit too friendly with my best friend just about an hour ago, if you know what I mean.

And the incidence of too much friendliness did not just involve lips. There was also a bed mixed in there somewhere. And nakedness.

A lot of nakedness.

And you know what else? We were both perfectly sober when It happened.

Actually, we were both pretty somber when It happened. Christian's mom had breast cancer. She survived, but her immune system was weaker than my high school's cheerleading squad (and that's saying something). So when she came down with pneumonia . . . well, it was like fighting off an army of machine guns with a few pebbles. She died within a week.

Chris was distraught, of course. So right after the funeral, he sped away without a word. I left and immediately went to his apartment (where he lives since it's closer to his college), let myself in (as if I don't know where he hides his key), and barged into his bedroom.

(Yeah, that rule about knocking before entering is totally null and void in my book. My family eventually put locks on all of their doors.)

He was just sitting at the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. At first I didn't know what to do. Chris and I were never faced with death and depression. We were just always two sarcastic people who enjoyed each other's company. We never hugged or kissed each other's cheeks or held hands. We gave high fives and arm wrestled and, maybe, if he was feeling particularly bad about something, he patted my back consolingly.

I don't know how long I stood there deciding how I should comfort him. But then my brain was just like, He's your best friend, and he's sad, you moron. Go give him a damn hug.

That's where everything went downhill.

Mistake #1: Walked over and sat on the edge of his bed – while in heels. (I was obviously sending out the wrong signals, because obviously Chris thought I was saying, "Let's have spontaneous sex!" – which I wasn't.)

Mistake #2: Wrapped my arms around him – while wearing my perfume. (It was the kind Chris bought me for my birthday, so Chris probably assumed I put it on just for him – which I didn't, by the way. I just like the scent, so I kept buying it.)

Mistake #3: Let him cry silently into the crook of my neck. (He took this as a sign that I didn't mind the closeness. I probably should have told him to back off, because that action put me four feet over the line of Appropriate Best Friend Behavior.)

Mistake #4: He leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. Looked up and saw his startling midnight blue eyes searching mine. (His eyes are weapons. Never look into them again. He definitely hypnotized me into wanting him.)

Mistake #5: Nodded my head. (I let the hypnosis of his beautiful eyes penetrate me, so, too confused by the inscrutable look in his eyes and warm desire surging through every nerve of my body, I succumbed to his whim.)

Mistake #6: Kissed him senseless. (That was when I lost all of my coherent thoughts, except the one that loved the feeling of his warm hands stroking every inch of my body and literally needing him to be closer to me. I stopped caring that I was so far over the line of Appropriate Best Friend Behavior that I would need to take a rocket to get back to the side where everything made sense. Actually, I forgot that there ever was a line of Appropriate Best Friend Behavior.)

When I finally realized that I wanted to get back on the other side of the line (which was, admittedly, much, much later), Chris just shoved me farther away from it. Because while I was lying in his arms (which are very warm and comforting, by the way) and I was pretending to be asleep, he rubbed my back and said, "Allie? I love you."

So, being the totally composed, mature, and level-headed young woman that I am, after he fell asleep, I dressed, sneaked out to my car, drove for five minutes, pulled over to the side of the road, and started to bawl my eyes out.

Which explains why I'm still wailing into my steering wheel.

I mean, Chris is my best friend. I used to take my naps with him. We had sleepovers where we slept in the same bed. And when we were eight, we stayed up till eleven o'clock at night (it was a big accomplishment at the time) talking on my Barbie walkie talkies about our favorite Pokemon, the cards we had, and when the next episode would be on. We went shopping for backpacks together and played hopscotch and went bike riding through our neighborhood because our parents wouldn't let us ride alone. I've never felt anything for Chris other than friendship - not that I ever really thought about it. I always squashed any non-best-friend thoughts about Chris because, well . . . it's just not going to happen. I mean, I don't want to date him, or marry him or anything crazy like that. Besides, even thinking something like that is so against the rules.

And you know what else? I would never be able to marry Chris. I mean, my name is bad enough – Allie Calhoun? Ring a bell? Yeah, my mom named me after the character in Nicholas Sparks' book, The Notebook, because she wanted me "to be blessed with a romance as beautiful and everlasting as Noah and Allie's" (I hate to burst your bubble, Mom, but Noah and Allie Calhoun are fictional characters).

But do you know what my name will be if I marry Chris? Allie O'Malley. Um, thanks, but no thanks; I'd rather not be mocked for the remainder of my sad existence.

Just the horrible name factor alone should have told me that being with Christian O'Malley, my best friend forever, is an absolute no-no. But then there's also the fact that I'm cursed.

Yeah, that's right, cursed.

Okay, well, it's not official or anything. There wasn't some witch cackling away over her steaming cauldron while stroking her ever-faithful crow or something. But she was kind of a witch. My grandma, the one who cursed me, I mean.

It happened when I was thirteen. She was in a nursing home because her body was slowly giving out on her. With her brittle bones, rheumatoid arthritis in every joint of her body, lack of control over her bowel movements, and atrophying muscles, she was confined to her bed, looking like a sweet, little old lady, who was slowly losing her mind.

I mean she had everything going for her to contribute to her innocent appearance. She was on the short side, and, though it makes my insides churn to admit this, she was actually rather pretty in her day, so when she was sleeping – which was always when I wasn't there – she looked like one of those adorable little grannies that bake the sweetest chocolate chip cookies all day long.

But what no one realized (except for my family) was that her mind was perfectly intact. No one realized that little old Grandma Edith was evil. When she crapped in her diaper, she would bark orders at me, telling me to either ring for the nurse or wipe her ass for her. And if I didn't, she would pinch my arm really, really hard.

I never wanted to be near her. I especially never wanted to feed her her damned applesauce. Because she always complained, even when it wasn't my fault. Sometimes the applesauce was too lumpy. Other times it tasted like pears. Then she hated that I put too much of it on the spoon. When I put less, she accused me of trying to send her to an early grave (okay, so that part was kind of true) by starving her.

So one day, I had had enough, so I threw the applesauce to the floor and told her that no, I didn't want to feed her.

"And you think I wanted a little brat of a granddaughter like you? I don't know why my husband left you that inheritance. Sweet! Adorable!" she scoffed. "I don't know what granddaughter he was looking at! At least Teddy didn't have to deal with you during his dying days."

"Mom!" my mom admonished. Yeah, I still can't believe Grandma Edith gave birth to my mom either.

So then, totally ignoring my mom's efforts to get my grandmother to apologize, I replied snarkily, "Grandpa Teddy would still be alive if he'd been with me, because then he wouldn't have committed suicide just to get out of his marriage."

"Allison!" my mom shrieked. "Grandpa Teddy died of a heart attack!"

"So she says," I replied coolly, looking pointedly in Grandma Edith's direction.

"You nasty little girl," Grandma Edith growled from underneath her eighty blankets. She raised a wrinkled skeletal finger and pointed at me. "You don't deserve any happiness! You'll see! Alone and unloved, that's how you'll die!"

And then she went into cardiac arrest and died.

Okay, so she died like a week after she said that. I still think it's pretty ominous though.

But she cursed me. I know it. Because, other than Chris, I don't have any close friends. Not that I've tried to make friends, exactly. But what's the point in trying when I know I'll be shot down because of that stupid curse?

And so far, every single boyfriend that I've had has broken up with me. And they all decide to never look me in the eyes again and go very red whenever I try to initiate a conversation.

So if I start dating Chris, he'll obviously break up with me under the evil influence of the curse and never talk to me again.

And I can't let Grandma Edith be right. I just can't die alone and unloved, because then she'd probably just cackle her wrinkly ass off.

I won't give her that satisfaction.

Determined to win against the evil spirit of my grandmother, I sniffle, wipe my face on some crumpled Wendy's napkins I stole when I ate there last month, and decide to go to the person who I can always count on to help me.

"Mom!" I sob pathetically as I sit down next to her at the dining room table. "I hate myself!"

"What happened now?" she asks, sounding a little exasperated. I tended to do this either when my teachers requested a parent-teacher conference because I never handed in my homework or when I was feeling very guilty, both of which happened quite frequently.

"I did something horrible!" I say, burying my head into my arms.

"Did you and Chris have a fight again?" she asks patiently. I notice she still hasn't put down her newspaper.

There was a week in my life when Chris and I fought (I kept chattering to him about how Chad Nichols, the school's own Greek god, was flirting with me and how he was probably going to ask me out. Chris, I found out, can only take so much girl-talk, so he started shouting at me. I, in turn, started shouting at him, and we decided not to talk to each other anymore. Then I broke my wrist when I fell down the stairs – hey, I never said that I'm coordinated – and when I got back from the hospital, Chris came over to watch the Game Show Network with me and shout out the answers like we always did, as though I'd never told him that he was so stupid that my dad's ingrown toenail could beat him in an IQ test), and every time we did, I would go running to my mom, asking her to help me make it better.

So seeing me crying my eyes out on her spotless dining room table doesn't really worry her.

"Something like that," I whimper.

"What did you say to him?" she asks, setting down her newspaper.

"Well, I didn't really say much . . ." I trail off. Because I didn't. My mouth was distracted. Since his tongue was in it. And my tongue might have been in his mouth at some point, too.

"Then . . . Allie, what happened?"

I take a huge breath. "Mom, I crossed the line–" but then I falter. Because cross implies that I simply stepped over the line to ponder how the light was on the other side. No, I barreled over the line, and then I just kept on going.

Tears start to swell in my eyes again, so I cry, "Mom, I-destroyed-my-friendship-with-Chris-because-I-totally-ignored-the-line-of-Appropriate-Best-Friend-Behavior-and-now-I'm-going-to-die-alone-and-unloved!"

She closes her eyes for a second, processing my rushed explanation, and then opens them, and I'm almost overtaken by the insane anger at her for not giving me her bright azure eyes, leaving me with my dad's dark brown ones instead. But then I remember that she gave me her hair, the beautiful mane of thick, wavy, blonde hair that made her the center of attention in school. I finger one of my locks of hair absentmindedly, admiring the smooth texture, when my mom opens her mouth.

"Did you . . . kiss?" she asks gently.

I nod my head slowly, but she can see in my eyes that more happened.

"Did you sleep with him?"

"I don't even know why I did it!" I whimper, hoping that she doesn't hate me for the rest of eternity. God, I hope she doesn't think I'm a slut. Because, really, I don't go around sleeping with every guy in mourning. I don't go sleeping around, period.

"Do you regret it?" she asks, now stroking my hand softly.

I open my mouth, ready to say yes, but it just doesn't voice itself. Because, the thing is, I don't think I do. Regret it, I mean. Chris never made me feel used or cheap, just . . . loved.

Which totally makes sense since we're best friends forever, and all.

But it was still totally horrible! Not the sex. The sex was awesome. But the fact that I had sex with my best friend is horrible! Gah! Doesn't Chris realize that he can't go around breaking the rule about best friends?!

"Have you ever thought about Chris . . . in that way?" she asks delicately, afraid of scaring me off. It's a rare time when I examine how I'm feeling. That's probably why I'm so close with my mom. She understands that. My dad – not so much. He's more like me in the emotions department. He's just the funny parent.

"I can honestly say that I haven't," I sigh. Because it's true. I never thought about kissing him or holding him. He's just always been my best friend. "Mom, what do I do?"

"Who wants ice-cream?!" my dad yells suddenly. I hear him and Amanda, my sister, stampeding towards my mom and me. "C'mon, we can't mourn forever! We're – oh, sorry, Al."

My dad sees me, red eyes, runny nose, tear-stained cheeks, grasping onto my mom's hand and immediately realizes what's going on. He's seen it before, and the last – and first – time he stuck around, he ended up with his favorite shirt covered in tears and snot.

My mom rolls her eyes as he sneaks back into the living room with Amanda, and then her gaze turns soft again.

"I think," she says slowly, "you need to decide how you feel about Chris. And then, you have to tell him. If you don't love him in the way that he deserves to be loved, don't hurt him and hold on – let him go."

"But what if he doesn't come back?" I moan despairingly.

"He will, if it's meant to be."

"I screwed everything up," I groan.

"You don't love him," she says. It's not a question. It's more like she's confirming her own thoughts.

I stare at her with wide eyes. "I can't love him," I say fiercely.

As best friends, I'll always have him. But as lovers. . . .

"Why not?"

I stare at her, startled by my thoughts. Lovers . . . .

"I have to go. I have to talk to Chris," I say robotically, ripping my hand from hers and running to my car.

I'm in my car and I don't have any intention at all to go talk to Chris now. Or anytime in this millennium, for that matter.

I mean, what if he wants to start a relationship? He did say that he loves me after all. Unless he just meant best friend love. And we were just doing that sex-with-no-strings-attached thing before. Hm, maybe that could work . . . No! No! NO! God, I cannot have sex with Chris again. Even if I am a rule breaker. The best friend rule is one rule that I will never break again.

I stop at Starbucks to get a simple Mocha Frappuccino with whipped cream to calm myself when I see Chris in there throwing out a half eaten pizza pretzel. I hesitate (read: have a silent panic attack), unseen, at the door.

Just then, Jane Preston, a girl Christian and I were kind of friends with in high school, walks over to him, blocking me from view, and gives him a hug. I can hear her apologize about his mother's death.

Jane is really nice. Like, I mean, really, really nice. She never holds a grudge or gets angry. In fact, I think she only has two emotions – happy and sad, though happy is the predominant one.

I guess it would be okay if Christian goes out with Jane. I know she doesn't have any STDs. Except . . . I just don't think he should go out with Jane. I mean, she's not even that pretty. Yeah, she's okay looking and all, with her straight brown hair and brown eyes. But her hair is always kind of frizzy. And she has no fashion sense whatsoever. I mean, her t-shirts just hang off her body like limp boxes.

And you know what else? She's really tall. I'm pretty sure that if she wears heels, she'll be the same height as Chris (and Chris is like six feet tall). But that's . . . I don't know. I just don't think it's a good idea. Chris wouldn't be able to rest his head on top of hers. He can rest his head on top of my head though. I'm just saying that he should date someone who's my height, not me in particular, of course.

I see their lips moving but it's hard for me to tell what they're saying since they're speaking kind of lowly. I duck my head and walk over to the line to order so I can hear what Chris and Jane are saying more clearly.

"Hey, Jane, do you think I could ask you something?" Chris asks, as though he wanted to ask for awhile but just kept forgetting, and only now remembered that he was supposed to be asking.

"Sure," Jane chirps, brushing her bangs out of her eyes and sitting down with her coffee at a table.

"What would you think if you saw . . . me and – me and um –"

"Are you asking me for relationship advice?" she interrupts.

"Uh, sort of," Chris says, sounding sheepish.

"Can I help you?" the cashier asks me politely.

"Oh, um, just a tall Mocha Frappuccino," I practically whisper because I don't want Chris to hear my voice. Handing over the five dollar bill, I don't wait for my change, but I move closer to their table while waiting for my drink.

"Okay, let's just say that I did . . . stuff . . . with this girl, but I don't really know why that girl did . . . stuff . . . with me," Chris says slowly, as though the words won't come out. "This is really hard to explain."

"Are you talking about sex?" she asks bluntly, but sounding innocent since she's Jane Preston.

"Uh –" Chris stutters, turning red.

"Because sex is supposed to be about love," she says earnestly, perhaps even a little disappointed at him for not waiting until marriage. She can't help it. She is a religious freak after all.

"But I did it out of love!" Chris says indignantly.

I start to turn red, because I'm pretty sure that he's talking about me. Unless Chris loves lots of girls and has sex with them all the time.

God, if that's true, I will hunt all of those other girls down. Chris will never be with them again.

Not that I want him to only have sex with me or something crazy like that. He's free to date whoever he wants, as long as she's appropriate and nice and not a slut.

"So what's your question?" she asks, sipping at her drink.

He's looking kind of uncomfortable (he has to retain his masculinity, after all), but I guess he decides that the issue at hand is more important than his ego, so he asks, "How do you know when someone loves you?"

"I wouldn't know," Jane says with a sad smile. "No one's ever fallen in love with me."

"But you're a girl," he says stupidly. "Just, I don't know, guess."

"Well, if I was in love with someone, I guess I would just come out and tell him," she says thoughtfully.

"But you're not like her," Chris says, sounding far away. "She doesn't just come out and say things."

"So ask her."

"But what if she lies and says no? I don't know how to read her sometimes," he sighs, raking a hand through his messy brown hair.

"Well, maybe that means you shouldn't be with her then. Honesty is the best policy. . . But then again I'm really not sure," she says, looking worried. "Why don't you ask Allie? You guys are best friends, aren't you? Besides, she knows way more about this stuff than me."

"Yeah . . . yeah, I was actually hoping I'd see her here," he says, suddenly looking over at the door, as if expecting me to come strolling in. "You know what? I'll just come out and ask her if she loves me or not. Thanks, Jane."

"Bye, Chris," Jane waves as he leaves.

My hands feel icy, but I know it's not because of the cool drink in my hands.

My mom was right. I can't hurt him anymore. I don't love him in the way that he deserves to be loved, so I can't ever be with him.

I have to let him go.

Thanks, Grandma Edith. Thanks a whole damn lot.

When I die, which I'll probably be doing alone and unloved, I am so going to strangle her.

This is wrong. This is all wrong.

You want to know how I know? Because I just knocked on Chris's door instead of using the key.

Even Chris is a little surprised. I can tell by the way his eyebrows go up a little when he sees me. Because I never knock! I barge! That's my thing, barging through doors. And yet here I am, knocking.

"Allie," he says, "come in."

"Thanks," I say, sitting on his worn couch and feeling incredibly awkward. "So, how are you?"

"Fine," he says just as awkwardly. "You?"

"Fine."

I can tell that he's waiting for me to say something, but I just can't seem to be able to. I just keep thinking of how his hands were roaming all over my body in his bedroom, which is totally visible from where I'm sitting. Maybe I should've just sent him an email.

"So . . . what's up?" he asks, fidgeting by the door still.

"Nothing much . . . I think it's supposed to rain later," I add lamely.

I'm biting down on my lower lip and looking at the door to his bedroom when Chris bangs his fist against the wall and shouts, "Damn it, Allie, I wish you would be straightforward for once!"

I look up at him, startled and a little bit scared. "I – I don't know –"

"I think we both know why you came over here, and it wasn't to talk about the weather. And by the way, it's not supposed to rain later," he seethes. "What was that to you?" he demands, looking anguished. "Were you bored? Did you only sleep with me because you felt sorry for me?"

"No! Of course not! Chris –"

"Do you love me?" he asks breathlessly. "Do – you – love – me?"

"I – Chris –"

Chris stalks over to the couch and roughly pulls me to my feet. "Answer me!" he shouts harshly, shaking me by my shoulders a little. Then, much softer and apologetic, "Please."

"I – I don't know!" I cry, swiping at my teary eyes furiously. "Chris, you're my best friend!"

"We didn't do best-friend-like things just a few hours ago," he says with a twisted smile.

"You don't understand!"

"Then explain!" He searches my eyes, desperately seeking an answer.

"I – I can't lose you," I admit in a defeated whisper.

"Lose me? Al, how would you lose me?" he asks sounding bewildered.

"I don't want to die alone and unloved," I gasp.

"Alone and – wait, die? You're not dying, are you?" he asks, clearly alarmed.

I shake my head. And then, blushing madly, I explain the curse to him and how I know that it's real because I have no friends, and my ex-boyfriends always break up with me and never want to be my friend afterward, all because of that stupid curse Grandma Edith put on me when I was thirteen.

And then, to my disbelief, Chris is laughing at my quandaries. He's laughing like I just cracked the funniest joke in the world and he's not going to stop anytime soon.

"That's not funny!" I hit him on the shoulder angrily.

"Hey," he pouts, rubbing at his shoulder. He stops laughing, but I still see the twinkle of it in his midnight blue eyes. Then, finally, he turns serious and sits me down on the couch with him.

"Al, you're not cursed." I open my mouth hotly to protest, but he clamps a very warm hand over it. "You don't have many other real friends because you never tried to make new friends. But Jane Preston thinks of you as her friend I think," he adds as an afterthought, which doesn't do much to comfort me since she thinks of everyone as her friend. "Your boyfriends broke up with you because you always blew them off to hang out with me. You even invited me along to go on your dates."

I yank his hand away from my mouth. "That was one time!" I protest. "It was my first date, and I was nervous!"

"Allie," Chris continues, ignoring my outburst, "You always gave your boyfriends the impression that you –" he pauses to lick his lips nervously, something that I don't miss, "–that you liked me more than you liked them. They were embarrassed. They thought you were using them or just purposefully trying to embarrass them."

"So you don't think I'm cursed?" I ask in a small voice, while a joyous chorus starts rejoicing in the background.

"I think you were in a way," he muses after a few minutes. "Your grandmother made you paranoid, so you believed that you wouldn't be able to make any friends or be loved."

"So . . . I brought the curse on myself?"

"I think that was her intention."

"She made me curse myself!" I am so going to go kick her grave. "That evil, vulgar –"

"Al," Chris says, fully gaining my attention by simply placing a hand in mine.

I look into his eyes and gulp.

"Now that you know the curse is fake," he says nervously. "Unless . . . it was just a ploy so that you wouldn't date me?"

"No," I shake my head. "No, I wouldn't do that, not to you."

"So . . ."

"Chris, we're best friends!" I point out frantically. "There are rules for a reason! I mean, if I break the best friend rule and go out with you, then who would I talk to when we fight, if my best friend is my boyfriend? I can't complain to my best friend about how I'm angry or upset at my boyfriend if they're both you! And what if we break up and you hate me forever?"

"Al, you can break the rules, you know," he points out dryly.

"What?" I shriek. "I break the rules all the time! You can search my coloring books, I never colored inside the lines!"

Chris swiftly cuts me off (after giving me an eye roll that clearly said, you belong at the funny farm) by asking the heart-stopping question. "Do you love me?"

Suddenly anger boils up inside me. Why does everyone keep asking me that? Last time I checked, you don't have to be in love with someone to date them.

All my life, I saw Chris as my best friend. But every time I tried to picture him up at the altar, getting married, I always felt sick because beside him was always this horrible faceless stranger who was stealing him away from me. I never wanted to claim him as my significant other because I thought I was cursed, and I believed that by wanting him to be my boyfriend, I would lose him.

Now things are different. I know that, however juvenile and silly, my fear of being alone stopped me from ever thinking of Chris as anything more. I wouldn't allow myself to fall in love with him.

But now?

"Don't ask me that," I say fiercely. I feel him start to withdraw, but I hold tight to his hand, preventing him from moving away. Because I'm getting emotional, and now he's going to deal with it. Okay, so I'm getting angry, same difference. There's passion hidden underneath, honest. "Don't ask me that because right now, it doesn't matter. Everyone's been asking me the wrong question – do you love me? But what you should've been asking me is whether or not I want you, whether or not I want to be with you. You should have asked me if I want to break the best friend rule with you."

My anger is waning already. Now my voice is soft and I feel a little drained. Getting emotional when your emotions are moronic is quite tiring. "You should have asked me if I want you to be my boyfriend and if I want to be your girlfriend. You should've, but you didn't. But if you did ask all the right questions, I would've said yes.

"But since you only want to know whether or not I love you," my tone becoming teasing and airy, "I have to say that I honestly have no idea."

Chris looks at me like I just slapped him across the face and is silent for a heart stopping moment. Then he opens his mouth. "Since you answered my questions, I'll answer yours," at this I think stupidly, what questions? But Chris goes on. "If we fight, I'm pretty sure Jane would serve as a good best friend, since you're free of your curse and all," he smirks.

That would be nice, I realize. And I could help her with her horrid fashion sense.

"As for breaking up, that will never happen. And I would never hate you, because I've loved you for so long that I know there's no returning. Not that I would ever want to return, of course," he jokes before entangling one hand in my hair and placing one at the small of my back so he could pull me against his chest.

"Now, come here, you rule breaker, and help me break that idiotic best friend rule," he grins seductively.

I grin right back at him and wrap my arms around his neck. "Can you believe some people actually follow that rule? What losers," I laugh.

Then Chris and I are doing things that are most certainly crossing the line of Appropriate Best Friend Behavior (although this time, we are clothed, though I don't think it will stay that way very long).

But what can I say? I'm a rule breaker.

I bet it's only a matter of time before I kill someone.

I do love adventure after all.

Aw, man, I've been away for awhile! After I posted I'm in Love With a Kiss-Whore, I went to visit colleges, so that depressed me. Then I went through a brief obsession with Harry Potter, so I re-read the whole series. After that, I went through major writer's block and I was still depressed. Everything I tried writing didn't get past a few paragraphs. It's quite pathetic, really.

I'm actually getting an idea for a story longer than one chapter, but it's more like a faint glimmer in the far, far distance. Ugh, I really hate myself and my short attention span.

Well, anywho, I'm hoping that I'll be able to write one more oneshot before school comes crashing down on me, but seeing as I still have to do my summer reading, buy my school supplies, study for the SAT, and start college apps, I'm not so sure if I'll be able to.

Ergh, enough of me and my silly little woes. So, sorry for falling off the face of the earth for around a month, and, as always, thanks for reading!

See you later (but hopefully not too much later), alligator,

Emedea