Prologue
I'd thought I was invincible. Nothing could scare me! I was the cool guy who never seemed to stay in one place for too long. The drastic changes in my life in my Junior year of High School only seemed to strengthen the belief so it could course through me in anger as I wished it to – it could turn me into the predator of only the most dangerous creature to stalk the shadows of death itself.
When I met her – the girl I'd never known I wanted – I thought I had it all. Rules were bent, lines crossed. That should have been a warning to me – it was. It was the warning I failed to heed. How I do regret it, not being able to realize as the core origin of my very existence was uprooted, leaving me vulnerable when I couldn't feel more resilient. How I regret failing to see what love could do.
Love is the most powerful force of nature. It can tear apart lives, yet bring them together. It can break all the rules, cross all the borders, break all weaker relationships. But, worst of all, love is like a drug. It takes everything that feels wrong – that sixth sense that tells you when danger is around – and numbs it. It fills in all the gaps to make you feel complete, leaving you unaware that you had any weaknesses in the first place.
That is why love is dangerous, yet so sweet. I didn't realize that I'd given myself away. I no longer controlled myself; she did. You see, when you love someone, you give them a full-time membership to your heart. They have the power to make you strong, sorrowful, the power to make you hesitate before leaping in with all four paws but to order you into the dead, most hopeless fight.
Worse above all things, though, is the most devastating power you invest in someone when you give them love: the power to break you. With a few simple words or actions, you could be writhing on the ground with no life left worth living, no reason to continue on.
It wasn't until I thought she was gone – until I thought that I had lost her, that the true power of love beheld me. I couldn't find the will to move, to eat, to sleep, to be who I was. Without her, I'd lost the half of myself I'd never noticed she'd claimed. I lost all my dreams and hopes and whatever had been important to me. I was broken and left alone, exposed to the treachery of love just as it was waving good-bye to me.
But still – the most obnoxious, agonizing, dreadful part of love isn't just when you realize its true power – Oh no! – It's when you realize what it has done to you.