I've always placed the beginning of the story at my sixteenth birthday. Now, let the record show, I was already anything but the golden child at this point. I had a boyfriend of which my mother did not approve – he's currently serving time for all sorts of theft, drug, and domestic violence related charges. I had let my grades slide to a nearly dangerous degree, and to top it all off, I was doing drugs. The only thing that I was addicted to at that time, though, was the nicotine that I got through smoking, not that I support that at all anymore.

Here's the thing, for their sixteenth birthdays, most girls want cars, shopping sprees, etc. I was not one of those girls. Me? I just wanted to see my dad again. Of course, this is what I had wished for on every birthday since he had left my mother and I, which meant for the past eight years. I was turning sixteen this year, though, and that was a big deal, right? I was determined that this year was going to be the year that he finally came to see me again.

My mother had tried long and hard to prepare me for the worst – or the inevitable, however you care to think about it, since it's the same thing in this case – but I was fiercely loyal. It can be easy to be loyal to someone you haven't seen in half of your life and have chosen to remember up to that point as being tantamount to a superhero. If you want to remain loyal to them, that is. And I did want to, desperately, foolishly so.

It was a crushing blow when he didn't show up that day for my party, or at all. He couldn't even be bothered to call me, it seemed.

My self-esteem hit rock bottom that night. I had stayed awake late, just knowing that he was going to call me. It was my sixteenth birthday, after all; he just had to contact me today.

I can still remember as clear as day rolling over in my bed and checking the time on my alarm clock. My eyes focused on the glaring numbers just in time for me to see them turn from 11:59 pm to 12:00 am. And that was when it first hit me just how little he now cared for me.

I was heartbroken. In fully acknowledging what I had truly known for a very long time, I felt deeply hurt - wounded, abandoned, and even betrayed by the man that I had wanted so badly to be able to trust, believe in, and count on to somehow manage to be there for me. It was then that I realized that for the past eight years, he hadn't been there for me, not once, and the only thing that I could count on from him was disappointment.

But I knew of someone who wouldn't disappoint me, someone who I thought at the time really loved me.

My boyfriend.

So without another thought, I snuck out of the house and stumbled a couple of streets down to his place. I knocked softly on his bedroom window, shivering because of the light drizzle coming down and crying because of an entirely different reason. He didn't seem too happy to have had me interrupt his beauty sleep, but he let me in nonetheless.

It was only once I was inside, away from the rain, that he noticed that I was crying.

"What's wrong, babe?" he had asked, pulling me close.

I had breathed deeply, taking in his scent of nicotine and cheap, knock-off cologne, then coughed and made a fruitless attempt at wiping my eyes before I spilled out my story from in between my sobs. I told him how my father hadn't called, had probably forgotten my birthday entirely, and didn't even love me.

Here my boyfriend, Matthew, had seen a chance to score some points and make another go at what he had been after for awhile.

"But I love you," Matthew had reassured me tenderly. "I just wish that you'd let me show you how much."

I had kissed boys before - after all, it seemed like everyone kissed when they were in a relationship, so that made it okay, right? - but I had never let it go beyond that first base with any boy before. That night, though, I had been too exhausted, emotionally, mentally, and physically, to fight him on it, and I just let it happen.

The story gets better, I promise! Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks! I'll probably post chapters of this in between chapters of my Criminal Minds/iCarly crossover, "When Things Happen," or at least that's the plan, even if I seem to have developed a bad habit of not sticking to it.:)