A/N: This story is really personal to me. It's not exactly completely true-it's a possible/improbable future. But it is really close to me, so...yeah. Hope you enjoy.

I think we would be perfect, given enough time.

You—you've been here all along. You've watched me fall madly in love with enemies, and you've held me when they tore me apart. You remember everything I tell you. You even remember what posters I had on my wall when I was thirteen and you'd never even been to my house.

You got under my skin. First I hated you. I really did. You knocked me into the mud, stole my favorite hat, burned a book I particularly liked—and your face was terrifying illuminated in that firelight, I saw the person you'll probably become, and it scared the hell out of me.

I'm not sure when I started feeling the little flickers and sparks of pain when I thought about you. Maybe it was when you climbed on the roof at school at lunch and stood on the edge, with all the deranged animals in the school shouting jump, jump, jump. I was scared, and interested, I guess—who doesn't want to go home and tell their mother that they saw someone die today, and it was horrible, to watch the life fade from their eyes, oh god mom, it was so scary.

But you didn't jump. You looked at me, and your lips twitched, mouthing the words should I? and I shook my head, tiny, involuntary, I'm not even sure if I tried to or not. You smirked, let out a short little laugh, shook your head and climbed back down.

I think I might've seen you flinch at the resounding awwww from all the sick dramatic whore kids around us.

After that day, I started to think of you more, I'd guess. And not just when I was fighting someone and I needed an extra burst of hate to beat them. I thought of you more tenderly, I guess.

I can't say when we started hanging out. It just…happened, all of a sudden, and you'd give me piggyback rides to school, and I'd laugh hysterically on your back as you'd start to run. Eventually I started to hug you on sight every morning. You were about ten inches taller than me, though, you still are, so I'd just…bury my head in your chest.

Sometimes, if I took it at a run, you'd spin me around like a soldier would spin his girlfriend after returning from a war. Or that's what I always thought it was like. I started coming up with all this romantic imagery, and one day, I realized I was in love with you.

I think we were fifteen. It was a simple realization. It wasn't an epiphany, it didn't bring me sobbing or vomiting to my knees, I was just sitting and thinking about you, and it just came as an oh moment. Just an oh.

I missed you that summer, you were a gaping hole in my heart that I tried to fill with a cute guitarist and lots of late-night drives up to a place I loved where you could just feel the summer bursting out of the trees and the river and the stars.

I dreamt about seeing you every night, about the way you'd sweep me into your arms and laugh, and I'd say I love you, Z, and you'd say I know and laugh even more, and maybe you'd kiss me, and we would be perfect, we would be beautiful, and you'd hold my hand and lead me to whatever our first period was.

Of course, it didn't actually work out like that. I hugged you like my dreams but instead of I love you, I could only manage I missed you, and that was such an understatement that I wanted to hurt myself. You said I know, though. You're so predictable like that, y'know?

We texted each other under our desks during our first few periods, and your first few words snapped me to pieces inside.

I met someone over the summer, you wrote, and I could see the smile on your face all the way across the room. Her name was Grace, and she was a redhead. I'm pretty sure you only said that cause you knew how badly I wanted to be a redhead.

You said you danced with her, and that's when you fell in love.

And I pretended not to care, I pretended to be happy for you, because that's what friends are supposed to do, right? Especially good friends who touch each other at every opportunity and hang out all the time. I told you I was gay, which, strictly speaking, was half-true. I'm bi, but I didn't want you to know there was any chance for me to be interested in you.

God, this next part makes me feel like such a terrible person.

Grace died during winter break. She got hit by a car and I saw the wicked scars up your pale arms when you came back, I knew what you tried to do, and I just, I cried, okay? I had to. You're just so, you're so impulsive, Z, you always were, you always have been.

You pressed my head into your stomach and I felt so stupid I felt so horrible because I was the one crying when it was your world falling apart. I felt so selfish and idiotic, but the worst part is that I was a little happy that she was dead.

About six months and two suicide attempts (on your part) later, I tried to kiss you. We were standing on a tree in the middle of the lake near our school, water just eroding our feet, feeling free. You turned towards me, smirking, how great is this on your lips and it was a perfect moment, and I shouldn't have ruined it.

I leaned forward and stood on my toes and tried to kiss you, but I accidentally knocked us both into the lake.

Sounds cute and romantic, huh? It wasn't. It really, really wasn't. I knocked myself out on a tree branch, and when I came to, you were trying to push the water out of my lungs. You wouldn't meet my eyes, you wouldn't look at me.

It's not gonna work, you said, after a while of waiting for me to recover and be able to walk back. We just weren't meant to be. I'll still be your friend, though, huh shortie?

And I thought it was all over.

The next few months before summer were kind of a blurry haze of parties and failing grades and you holding my hair back in strange bathrooms and you telling me that I needed to get my shit together and my parents saying the same thing in harsher tones and you worrying about me and just being the good friend that I wasn't and then everything snapped back into focus because on the last night of school we fucked.

I don't remember it quite as well as I'd like to. You were so angry at me, or maybe you were just scared that I wasn't gonna live to eighteen, which was a concern of mine as well. You were yelling and I was yelling and I started slapping at you and you pinned my wrists against the wall and there was yelling and yelling and then hello, we were having sex against the wall.

You were so ashamed of yourself.

The last thing I said to you was come back, Z, I'm sorry.

That summer I dreamed about seeing you again, and from time to time I'd drink myself to sleep and think about fucking you again and how great that'd be, and how when I'd see you you'd spin me like you were returning from war, and we'd have more romantic moments but this time it would actually be romance, it would actually be attraction, and we'd go to a party for the first night back and you'd get me a drink, routine, and I'd say nah, I've reformed, I'm fine.

I got my shit together, for you, I got better. I quit my everything bad, I was gonna be one hundred percent committed to being a better person.

And then I rush into school, waiting to see you waiting for me with your mouth tilted and your arms the slightest bit open, just anticipating me tackling you. But you didn't look my way, didn't speak a word to me, only kept your head down and didn't think of me.

We would have been perfect, given the time, I think. Maybe it was my fault. It was probably my fault. I just want everything for my own, and you were certainly included in that. I'm sorry, Z.

I wish we had made it through.

A/N: Thanks for reading. All feedback is appreciated.