The next day at school, however, I didn’t get to see Ashley at all. We usually ate lunch together and she’d hold my hand.  After school as I walked through the parking lot with one of my friends, she told me that she’d seen Ashley and Kyla kissing in the hall.  I remember almost fainting, and then I began to freak out.  You have to understand that when I like somebody, I become dependent on them.  It is not a good quality; I’m quite aware of that.  But I just need you to realize that by this point, everything I did and everything I said was planned out so that it would make Ashley happy, regardless of how it might hurt me.  I’d put far too much of myself, emotionally, into our relationship to not be in shock when I heard that she’d kissed another girl. 

Also, by this point, Ashley had given me my first kiss.  She made me bold, in a way.  She allowed me to become comfortable with who I was in public.  She told me, after she kissed me, that I would never kiss her in public.  One night after a softball game in the parking lot, I kissed her. She said I’d never kiss her in front of people during the day. One day after school by my car, I kissed her. And after that, she told me I would never kiss her during school. The next day at lunch, I kissed her.

Which led to another dramatic scene.  Kyla had lunch with us that day, and she saw me kiss Ashley.  That evening she told me that Ashley had been kissing her every day after first block and that she was confused because Ashley had told her that she liked her, but then was kissing me

By then I’d become accustomed to Kyla’s lies and I disregarded what she said.  That day, for the first time since I was 12, I felt myself become happy.  I was happy because for once, I didn’t care what Kyla was saying.  I didn’t care if what she said was true, because Ashley did still like me.  She had to. She’d have told me if she didn’t.

The next week, Ashley got to lunch late.  She came with her friend, and her friend sat on her lap after she sat next to me.  I didn’t think anything of it because the two often sat that way.  The only thing that threw me off was that Ashley still held my hand.  Usually, because of the awkward seating arrangement, she wouldn’t.