She could picture him in her mind at a moments notice. He made her smile like no other, simply by being himself. He wasn't the nicest guy, in fact, he was a tool 90 percent of the time, but something about him drew her like a fly to honey.

She fell asleep last night, holding a mental pictre of him, as he ws in Algebra Two. His hair was longer in this mental image. He ran his hands, hands that fixed countless cars and held her tight for one night, through it, and it stayed in adorable dissarray.

The way he bit his lip when he was concentrating, something even he might not notice. His deep tone when he cursed a problem under his breath. The slightly high laugh that belied his speaking voice. She knew them all. Perhaps too well.

She often asked herself if she was only seeing in him what she wanted to see; everyone does it. She hoped not. It was her firm belief that all humans had good within them, all except herself; she just couldn't find any good within herself. Pot, chewing, Vicoden during football season, alcohol God only knows how often. He had a string of bad habits as long as her arm, not the least of which was that he hit girls. He ad n aversion to the concept, none at all.

One more thing wrong with her. A mis-wired bit of grey matter. Maybe it was her past, but bruises, curses, and blame; they were all she had had, and now they are all she wants. Abuse is not abuse to her; abuse is love. She knows it's not really, knows that its wrong, but can't overcome the feeling that a recepticale for anger and misdirected love is all she is good for.

She would give anything to know just what it was about him that drew her so; if she knew, she could try to sever the tie. she didn't though, and thus assumed that he must have good qualities that she somehow subconsciously recognized and strived to release.

He knew of her affection, likely her first mistake. He did not return the affection though. Like so many seventeen year old boys, he simply wanted to get laid, and despite all her problems, she was no wh**e. He joked with the boys, a group she desperately tried to tap, sometimes using her as a butt for their jokes. She knew he sometimes took advantage of her, for answers in math, history, and English, and in getting girl's numbers. But she also knew that he treated her in a way different than all other girls, so far as she had seen.

The other girls he joked with, put in mock choke holds, insulted, argued with. she knew that most of those things he did weren't exactly desirable, but better than being ignored. The worst part was that he hit the other girls. She had seen him hit them; she had seen the bruises he left, but she would have done many things to earn a mark of such disaproval, of acknoledgement. Those bruise were more lusted after than his affection.

She didn't know what was wrong with her so that she was treated so differently from the other girls; it was possible that he actually returned the affection, but that was a sure set-up for more dissapointment, so she discounted it. Maybe she was to different, to broken, to see as anything more than millions of cells stuck together in a complex pattern. Or maybe she wasn't pretty enough...who knows? All she knew was that she was treated differently, that for some reason he would "abuse" the other girls, but pay her no mind. The one item that she had been bestowed with, that she had learned to equate with affection, was kept from her, just out of reach.

I know, for I am her.