It's amazing to look back and see the girl I once was, and compare her to the one I am now, you wouldn’t even know I'm the same person. I was once surrounded by friends, trusted, loved, and important to a lot of people. I had people fight over who was my best friend, people look upon me with jealousy of the 'wild' life I lived, friends asking how I always had guys interested in me, never a dull moment. Now I'm closed off, no one is my best friend, I hardly even have close friends, and no one, wants to be me, not anymore. Reading that seems like I was simply humbled, the problem is, I didn’t even know what I had, until I didn’t have it anymore. I wasn’t cocky or selfish when I had it all, I wasn’t even aware I had it all. I took it for granted. Allow me to backtrack for clarification. After me and Chris hit it off there was endless talking, getting to know each other, flirting. We'd hangout at shows, sometimes outside of them, but nothing happened for a long time because he recently turned 20 and I was 16, almost 17. The band had a pact that they wouldn’t date under 18 because one of them had a thing for under-aged girls, he was 23, this was bad for their image so they couldn’t have two of them dating younger. I understood this, but we both knew we were interested in each other. Prior to my meeting Chris, I dated Dalton, the classic long-haired, clad in black, quiet-and-mysterious, bad-boy type. All the girls wanted him, a few got him before me, but I'm the one he broke hearts for. He caused a lot of bad decisions on my part, and we ended in a burst of flames. When I met Chris, I had gotten through my brief heartbreak over Dalton and had him crawling back to me, but I had found a better option. Dalton wanted me back, I wanted affection, I wanted Chris more, but if I couldn’t have him yet, I could use Dalton to pass the time. I talked in length about our options with Chris and we came to the conclusion that we'd have to wait, he knew that I had other options, but that he was my first. I took Dalton back, mostly because I was bored, which was why it didn’t hurt that he cheated on me. Even while dating Dalton I was always talking to Chris, which drove Dalton crazy, that and I wouldn’t sleep with him. In the end the combination is why he cheated on me, which is when I dumped his sorry ass in the most satisfying way, and continued on with my life. Chris was furious when he found out Dalton cheated on me, he said it was his loss because 'he doesn’t realize the value of diamonds when they're in his hands'. This was not long before my 17th birthday, I'd been telling Kayla for ages that I wanted Chris to come up and kidnap me for my birthday, but she kept telling me he couldn’t come. I didn’t get my hopes up, thinking she was telling me the truth, until the end of the day when I was cleaning up the classroom I aided in and a horde of my friends came in with smirks and their cameras rolling. I stood confused until he walked in, screaming I ran and jumped on him, he picked me up and spun me. The rest of the day was easily the best birthday I've ever had. A bunch of us piled into my car and we just drove around, dropping people off, listening to Chris excitedly DJ with my aux cord. I don’t know when I fell in love with him but I know I don’t remember ever being as happy as I was that day. My friend Corbin was in the car, and I remember him just looking at me and saying, "You look so happy!" never having seen true happiness on me before. After everyone was taken home we went to my elementary school playground, we just played in the dark and swung until our friend Nicole, who had something for Chris, met us there. We talked for a while but soon went back to my house because Chris had never seen Mean Girls. Back at my house we put in the movie and cuddled on the couch. He gave me my present, I never asked for anything but him. While I didn’t get to keep it, it was still amazing. I got to look through all of his lyrics for songs he'd been writing, something I'd wanted to do since I found out this folder existed and something he didn’t let others do. After I read them all, discovering that many quotes from me and about me were featured, including the one about the value of diamonds, I promptly passed out on his chest. I awoke to him laughing at the movie, and watched the end with him, as much as I wanted to kiss him that night, I didn’t have the guts, and he resisted his own urge to do the same. But as soon as he left we were texting about how much we just wanted to be together. For the next three days we discussed in detail the pros and cons of it and eventually couldn’t take it anymore, neither of us could stand the thought of being with someone else. The first words out of my mouth the next morning were directed at my mom when she woke me up; "guess who's dating Chris?!" It was the start of a crazy, bittersweet, life-altering time in my story.