Note: This chapter might be a bit confusing. It's mostly about Jillian's past, so a lot of it isn't happening now. It's kind of… heavy, too, I guess.

So many thoughts were running through my head, but one was in a clear lead. He was racing across the track, looking humble and completely cute as he dashed across the finish line. I immediately pushed all thoughts of studying and other boys out of my head and focused on Neil.

"Jillian's gonna join us tonight." It sounded casual but maybe there was something more to it? An eagerness that was jumping out of his mouth, the "I Can't Wait" feeling that a young boy felt on Christmas Eve, unable to fall asleep, as drowsiness overcame him but his eyes flitted open every time he heard a noise and he wondered, "Could it be? Is it really him?"

It seemed arrogant to compare Neil's improbable crush on me to a boy's joy of receiving presents only once a year, as if I was the best thing that could ever happen to him, but honestly, that was how I felt so where was the harm?

Who was I fooling? I knew the harm in it perfectly well. I knew exactly where the harm lay. I could shoot an arrow at it with incredible precision, slitting it wide open. I had experienced the hurt quite well, thank you. Firsthand. Thank you Chet Danbury – or rather, his girlfriend Chris. Thank you very much.

It had happened last year. I was a junior. The compromise of finally reaching upperclassmanship but also being dwarfed by seniors ran through me. I was proud and arrogant but lowly and humble. It was a terrible place for me. I didn't bode well with non-specific areas. I was an extremist, mostly. I could handle being the lowest of the low. I was good at it. Quiet, charming in my own way. The kind of girl who could mix in with the trees, or the pavement, or the ugly beige of high school hallways. I flitted in between people, moving from nothingness to nothingness, as a freshman and a sophomore. Most people would think this was humiliating or degrading. But the truth was, I was happy. While with my friends I was loud and boisterous. I was charming in a completely different way. If you knew me you liked me; if you didn't, you wouldn't notice me.

I thought that once I was finally able to be an upperclassman, the real me, the loud and boisterous me, the me who didn't go unnoticed, who received smiles and some second looks from guys, sometimes, and maybe even a rose on Valentine's Day – maybe it was that girl's time to shine. But I was wrong. I had miscalculated the intentions of the seniors. In previous grades, I hadn't dealt with them. But now they were in my classes, friends with some friends of friends and undeniably linked to me, but not by friendship. I was uncomfortable. I forgot who to be and I wasn't anybody. People say that junior year is their best year but that certainly wasn't the case with me.

Two things happened that year: my mom died, and I fell in love.

I mean, there were other things, too – unimportant, trivial things that looking back I don't care about. I won the school spelling bee. My first article was accepted into the school newspaper. I dyed my hair purple, and even though it only lasted for a week, for those five days I was radiant, happy as could be.

Then my mom was diagnosed with leukemia.

We found out after she fainted in the grocery store and was taken to the hospital. My dad showed no emotion but I cried for hours. I cried because I didn't know what was wrong, then I cried because I did. My dad didn't shed a tear. I wanted to lash out at him for that, for not wanting to save her, for not caring. But some rational part of me knew that he did. That he did love her, that he did care for her. That was why he stayed by her bedside all of that first day and all of that first night. He stayed awake the whole night without a drop of caffeine. I didn't know how he did it, but part of me did know, I guess. It was the grief. Knowing that if you close your eyes, the seconds could tick by without you being aware and in one of those seconds she could be gone, flitting away like a butterfly leaving the prison that was her cocoon, and you would never see her again.

"Six months," the doctors told us. "Six months."

I told myself that in those six months I wouldn't smile. I wouldn't laugh. If someone told a joke I would claim it wasn't funny. If someone scored a winning goal I wouldn't cheer. And if someone mentioned my mom… I didn't know what I'd do. Thankfully it never came up.

My plan was succeeding for about three months. My mom got worse and worse. The doctors tried to help but they knew it was futile. "If we'd diagnosed it earlier…" they kept saying. "If we'd known…" I tried to blame it on my dad but it was hard at first. I guess I got better at it over the year because soon I was blaming him for everything.

Then, about three months into the diagnosis, I met Chet Danbury. He was the definition of cliché, you could say – football star, blonde haired and extremely good-looking. He wasn't too bright but he was sweet.

I hated myself for liking him. I hated myself for smiling when he was around, for laughing at his lame jokes, for wanting to touch his hair even though my mom's was falling out. But he made me happy. He really did.

In the month that followed, I talked to him every day. We didn't date, and he didn't kiss me, which I thought was disappointing but I always knew in my gut that it wouldn't have been right. I thought I wanted him to, but I never really did. But that didn't stop me from being in love with him.

I didn't tell him about my mom and he never asked about her. He never came to my house to meet my parents and I didn't want him to.

We were hanging out after school one afternoon, talking and laughing and watching the cheerleaders fall from their pyramids like someone had blown up a building from the inside. They landed softly on the mats and even though it looked like it hurt a bit I had no sympathy for them.

We parted that day with a simple "goodbye" and "I'll see you tomorrow". I lay awake at night thinking of him. It was a typical day, but that's not to say it wasn't magical as always.

That morning I met Chet at our meeting place before school. But he didn't have his backpack with him. His hair and clothes were rumpled and he had tears staining his face. I instinctively hugged him and asked, "What's wrong?"

Chet looked at me. There was such sorrow, such pain in his eyes. "My mom..." he mumbled weakly.

I clenched my jaw. "What happened?"

He was whispering now. "A drunk driver… she didn't even see it coming…" he gasped and I forced away his words so they didn't reach my ears but I managed to hear him say his final words before he burst into tears: "…she's gone…"

I couldn't say anything. I backed up, looking at him, looking at the guy I had loved for a month now and had still not told about my mom. My mouth opened but no words came out. "I'm sorry" bounced along my brain and throat but didn't leave my lips. It wasn't true. I was angry and selfish but it wasn't true.

"Do you even care?" he asked me, his voice loud. He wasn't yelling, but he would reach that level soon, I knew it. I still couldn't say anything. "Do you even care!" There it was. I didn't move. "You have no idea what I'm going through and you can't even say anything!" I stood there and stared at him. "I hate you!" he yelled at me. I crumbled to the ground as my legs gave way beneath me. He left me there, then, a look of disgust on his face, tears streaking down his cheeks. I was on my knees on the cold, hard pavement, but I wasn't crying or beating the ground with my fist. I was just sitting there in Chet's and my misery combined.

He started dating Chris the next day. She shot me looks of disgust and anger and hate whenever I passed her but I kept my head down low. Whatever communication Chet may have wanted to keep with me was cut off by her. She said that she wanted Chet to be happy but I didn't think that was right; I think she just wanted Chet for herself. I hated her. I hated her perfect hair and nails and her perfect life and I wished it was her with the deadline for her death and not my mom.

I told my mom my troubles. I cried over her frail body as she lay there, helpless in the face of my heartbreak. I didn't even know that she was listening until she died, two months before the doctors said she would.

"We misinterpreted the signs," they said. "Just didn't realize that she had so little time to live." But I knew that wasn't true. I knew that if I had come in there smiling and happy, she probably would have lived a year longer than she was supposed to. But I couldn't live a lie, not even for my mom.

When my mom died, word got around school. I knew that Chet heard. He approached me more than once, almost as if to apologize, but I didn't need him to say sorry. In truth, I didn't know what I wanted from him. But it didn't matter, because he never said anything and after a few weeks of this, he never approached me again. I knew Chris was behind it but I was too depressed to care.

So yes, I knew the pain of heartbreak. I knew the consequences and I knew the causes. But that didn't mean I could control my feelings, I knew that too. I knew it well enough not to try to act against them. And so I accepted that Neil might not like me back, but I was ready to admit that I liked him.

Okay, maybe not to him. But to myself, at least.