• She was 15, and it was her birthday. In a matter of hours she'd be as old as him. Her reason for living.

    He was 16, and he wasn't interested. But he knew she loved him. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, she was perfect. Yes, she was everything any guy ever wanted. But she was popular, so to him she was petty, selfish, and vain.

    She wasn't what he thought. She wasn't the what the others were. They treated him like an outcast. He was different. She didn't care. When they looked upon him with scorn, she looked upon him with love.

    He mistook it as pity. She didn't love him. She felt sorry for him. Okay. Maybe she was kind of nice for feeling bad. But he didn't need her. He didn't need anyone. He was only here with her because of his all manners mother. He didn't want to be at her party. He didn't care about her.

    She saw him underneath a tree outside. She knew why he was there instead of inside. He was avoiding her.

    But he wasn't avoinding her as much as them. They were the reason he was treated this way. He didn't want it anymore. He wouldn't stand for it. He was going to stop it. Somehow.

    She walked to where he was sitting. She sat beside him, and didn't care what he said about it. She looked at him. He looked back at her. She admired his deep green eyes. He loved her hazel ones.

    They sat together like that for quite some time. She took his hand. He didn't reject hers. She laid her head on his shoulder, admiring the stars that one could only see on a night with no clouds.

    He didn't know what he felt then. Whether it was love. Her pity. Kindness. But he did know that she wasn't what he thought she was. She was what that missing part of him was for. She was what would fill him.

    She had known it all along though. That they were meant to be. She knew it in her heart before she even realized it in her head. They would be together forever. Wouldn't they?

    He began to see her in a different way. She was his now. Not theirs. But he loved her enough to let her be with them. He knew she needed them too. She wasn't an object. She didn't belong to him.

    She was walking home from school. She didn't see the car coming, faster than the limit. She didn't see her friends running across the street. She was too in love to hear the horn, getting ever louder, until it was too late. They took her to the hospital, but she didn't know if she would make it.

    He ran as soon as he knew. He didn't stop. She was hurting badly. He might never get to see her again. He walked into her room. It wasn't good. She had been hit. Hard.

    She knew he came in. She smiled at him and held out her hand for him to take. He took it without delay. He leaned down to kiss her, and she leaned up. She had to push him away. She couldn't breathe well.

    It was weeks before she was out. But he waited. She returned to school on the last day. She ran to him. He picked her up in his arms and kissed her with a fierce determination.

    She spoke to him in a soft voice, "The doctor said that I am better, but will never be how I was. I love you, but I don't know if you will still love me. I am different now. My brain was hurt. I don't know if I will ever be the girl you loved again."

    He looked down at her. Tears began to well up in his eyes. "I will love you always. Nothing will ever seperate me from you. The doctor says you are different, but I don't think so. I still know that deep inside, you are you. And I will always love you. No matter what."

    That night they sat hand in hand in her backyard. They looked up into the sky, clear as can be. She lay her head on his shoulder and drifted to sleep in his arms.