After her mom died, Jess came to live with her grandmother. Her father traveled a lot with his job and his mother didn't mind having a grandchild around to keep her company.

Jess was climbing the tree in her back yard when I first saw her. She had a frog in the pocket of her overalls, dirt on her chin and twigs in her hair. I knew right then that this was the girl for me, when I grew up and got married, she would be the one.

Jess saved my life the first day I met her.

I showed her my favorite place to catch frogs – a deep, still pond surrounded by thick high, grass just beyond a tall wooden fence a few houses from her grandmother's.

We'd gotten some glass jars to put the frogs in and I had the brilliant idea to put the jars in my backpack so we wouldn't drop them and break them.

I was kneeling on the raised edge of the pond reaching for a long-legged croaker when the damp soil gave way under me and I fell headfirst into the water. I tried to swim but the tree roots were caught on my backpack, I panicked, kicking and stirring up the mud, the patch of sunlight that looked just beyond my fingertips clouded.

I remember thinking that this would be my last view of the world.

Hands closed on my arms and forced me deeper into the water and I struggled against them. A blow to my stomach paralyzed me and I sank, then suddenly I was propelled up. That gasp of moss flavored air was the sweetest thing I'd ever known. I crawled out onto the bank and collapsed on my side, coughing up dirty water.

Jess flopped down beside me; she was soaking wet with strings of moss in her hair.

"You saved my life." I said, sounding astonished.

Jess put her hand on my cheek and solemnly replied, "You can save me next time."

That was our first adventure but it certainly wasn't our last.

XxXxXx

Her father didn't approve of me and my mom wasn't thrilled with Jess so at the tender age of seven, we began our secret relationship. We had help - my dad and her grandmother, neither of whom saw anything wrong with a boy and girl being best friends.

Dad built a tree house for us in the tree where I'd first seen Jess and Gramma Traynor made curtains and cushions for it. Jess and I stocked it with comic books, action figures, frogs and a table made out of an old fruit crate.

The tree house was our sanctuary. We spent hours up there doing homework, reading comics and shooting at birds and squirrels with homemade slingshots. For some reason neither one of us seemed able to hit anything but the fence.

Sometimes we'd lie side by side on our backs in the sun that streamed through the windows and talk about what we wanted to do when we grew up. Jess wanted to be a ballerina or a teacher and I couldn't decide between being an astronaut or a lawyer like my dad.

When you're a kid, the days seem to last forever and childhood is full of adventure. We had five years of spending every free moment together.

XxXxXx

Two weeks before my 12th birthday, Jess' grandmother died. Jess found her on the kitchen floor when she got up for breakfast.

We heard the ambulance siren and I climbed over the fence but my dad called me back when he saw it pull up in the Traynor's driveway. Jess was sitting on the porch crying so hard she couldn't hear me calling to her.

I never got to say goodbye to her, that same day her father sent her to live with his sister in Encino.

Months later a young couple moved in to the vacant house.

The tree house stayed empty.

XxXxXx

I didn't see her again for 21 years.

I was headed out of the station and she was going in, we literally ran into one another. We grabbed each other by the arm to keep from falling and I'm sure the expression on my face mirrored hers.

I couldn't believe it was her, my heart flipped in my chest and then dropped like a rock because I thought there was no way it could possibly be my childhood best friend.

"Marty?" she asked, looking surprised.

"Jess?" I'm pretty sure my voice cracked and was about two octaves above normal.

It was like we'd never been apart. Once we got past the what have you been doing we settled back into the comfort of a friendship that had been forged for years.

There was no tree house for us anymore but we fell back into the habit of a covert relationship. Since my apartment would often be under the scrutiny of drug dealers and other assorted lowlifes, I spent a lot of late nights and early mornings at Jess's apartment.

I loved her. We weren't lovers, we were closer than that. She was dearer to me than any other woman I've ever known. People always assume that when a man and a woman spend time together that it's a sexual relationship and that's why we tried to hide it. I didn't want my reputation to tarnish hers.

We'd spend hours just sitting and talking about everything and nothing. You know how when you're so comfortable with someone that there are no awkward silences you feel like you have to fill with some kind of talk? We never had that, not even when we were kids.

She told me about her failed romances and I tried to convince her I was doing just fine in that department. It's impossible to fool someone who knows you as well as she knew me.

We talked about college and all the places we'd been and the jobs we hated and left behind.

One night Jess told me about her cousin who had been kidnapped, told me about the guilt she carried for being able to escape from the men who snatched them off the street and not being able to do anything to help the girl who was like a sister to her. She talked about the nightmares and the fear that men would come back for her and this time she would not escape.

For Jess the nightmare didn't end when her cousin's body was found more than a year later. A new nightmare overtook her in the form of her Uncle Paolo. Jess was fifteen when he started molesting her. At first it was just him sneaking into her room and putting his hands on her. She was too scared to say anything to anyone about what he was doing and he took it further when she was just weeks from turning sixteen. She got out of that house and away from him when she graduated high school as valedictorian at age seventeen.

This broke any trust she'd ever had. Never again would she trust any man to treat her right.

Except for me.

I swore that night that I would never do anything to hurt her, that I would give my life to protect her from ever being hurt like that again. Anytime anyone would ever suggest that we had a sexual relationship it always set me off into a rage. To me, Jess was pure, unsullied and would always remain that way.

She was broken but the breaks had made her stronger, stronger than I'll ever hope to be. At yet she seemed fragile to me, someone I need to protect, I had to.

Things… people had hurt her so badly and I never wanted anything dirty or ugly to ever touch her again but she… she always went head up against everything that came at her.

That stubbornness was what brought her up against the man who would eventually kill her. Trust that would once again be broken.