[AN:] This is just something I wanted to test out. Consider it a trial, and possibly an error. That will be up to the audience. It'll be alternate universe, but it is also 100% based upon my life. I'll be changing the names of the people in the story to the Faking It cast. With that said, I'm not entirely sure what person in MY life will become what Faking It character at the moment, so just roll with it. I'll try my best to model my actual friends after the Faking It characters as closely as possible. Be gentle. It's been a while since I've let anyone in to my roller coaster of a life.
PREFACE
From a young age, as little girls, we're taught to protect our hearts. Our parents try to warn us that one day we're going to meet a boy who is going to promise us the world and then fail to follow through. They do their best to prepare us for the hurricane of feelings that the relationship will bring. "It'll be okay," they swear it, and you believe them. What they don't tell you is that as time goes on and things continue to change with age, the hurricanes increase in proportion, thereby turning in to tsunamis. The pain becomes immeasurable, it suffocates you, and you feel like you're drowning in a sea of emotions. There's no life jacket that comes with it, so you have to learn how to swim. Maybe that's where the phrase sink or swim comes from? The good news is that your relationships won't always fail, because one day there will be that one person who clears your skies and offers nothing but sunshine and a hand full of pretty flowers. Until then, you're left to trek across terrain that challenges your mental state.
We all know that being in love is one of life's best highs. If we're lucky enough we get to experience it with more than one person. I know you're thinking that this is heading towards your typical love story. For the most part, that's exactly what it is. It's a tale of two people who meet and create memories that last a lifetime. It's nothing short of ordinary to anyone standing on the outside, but it doesn't change the fact that it once made you feel extraordinary. It's that rare kind of love that forces you to write about it because it's the only way to release the building pressure residing in the empty body cavity that once held that vital, blood-pumping organ we call a heart. It makes you want to scream when words fail you, cry when the burden becomes your cross to bear, laugh at all of the stupid inside jokes of the past, and celebrate that for a brief moment, a fleeting moment in time, you were theirs, and they were yours. Mostly, it just makes you miss the hell out of that person. So you become a shell of yourself, and you're on autopilot for the masses, and no one knows that you're self-destructing in silence thanks to the smile you so cleverly mastered.