Chapter one

    As his lips pressed against mine he slowly used his body to push me down into the bed. I inhaled his sweet musky scent deeply as his tongue invaded my mouth. He tasted sweet like he had just eaten chocolate, which was normal for him. He smelt like his favorite cologne, the one I had bought him for our one year anniversary. Wait what was I doing?

    I pushed on his chest and he stopped kissing me. He pulled his head back and looked deeply into my eyes with longing. Those gorgeous hazel eyes were my weakness and he knew it. His mouth frowned and all I wanted was to pull those lips back to mine. I wanted to kiss him but it felt wrong. Why did it feel wrong? Didn't I love him? I could see the question burning deep in his eyes.

    " Please stop." I said weakly while trying to catch my breath. This was wrong but I couldn't figure out why. I tried to look around, we were in his room back at his parents house. I could tell by the smell of the dragons blood incense. Focus, I needed to focus. Why was I here?

   "What's wrong?" He looked concerned.

  "Why are you doing this?" I felt a lump in my throat as I remembered everything, and in that instance I wanted to cry.

   "Because I love you." He said confused. I shook my head.

   "No, I'm dreaming. I need to wake up." I said fighting the urge to cry still. He caressed my cheek.

   "You're not dreaming. This is real, I'm real and I love you." Tears started to sting my eyes and I shook my head. I closed my eyes and when I opened them I became aware of someone calling me and shaking me violently.

    " Letty wake up, come on we're going to be late for class." I sat up blinking slowly. Everything was kind of blurry as I rubbed at my eyes. I could smell the god awful musty scent that never left my dorm despite how much my roommates and I tried to get rid of it. I looked up at one of my roommates, she looked concerned. Almost like she knew without asking that I wasn't ok.

     "What time is it?" I asked rubbing my eyes again.

    " Eight" She said sitting on my bed next to me.  " I know your class isn't for another three hours but you were crying in your sleep and that was the only thing I could think of to get you to wake up." She looked like she had seen someone kick a puppy or something. I wasn't the happiest with being woken up so early but I knew she meant well.

     "It's ok thanks for waking me up. I appreciate it." I swung my legs over the other side of the bed. I tried to forget the dream. Nightmare was more like it.

    "You were dreaming about him again weren't you?" I looked down at the floor and nodded. My best friend looked like she didn't know what to say and for a moment was dead silent before she spoke again. "Letty are you OK?"

   "Teighlor please don't. I'm fine. Or at least as fine as I can be right now. I know you mean well but I don't really want to talk about the dream or him. I'm not holding my breath for him. I told you that I told him it was over for good and I meant it. I know I've said that before but this time I really do mean it. I just dont have the strength anymore to keep fighting to be with someone who wont even fight to stay with me." My best friend hugged me. She felt so warm and made me feel safe, like a sister would. She always did though.

   "I know, but I know you still love him and that despite everything you still miss him." She said softly. I nodded. It was something I wasn't proud of but would never deny either.

   "I'll always love him, I gave him seven years of my life. I miss the good times though, all the jokes and ways he would make me smile, the way he made me feel loved in those moments. I don't miss all the arguing and the make up break ups though, I don't have it in me to do that anymore." I felt like I was going to cry.

   "It's normal for you to still be upset. You guys broke up a month ago I'm not expecting you to be over him yet, no one is. I just wish you would ask to transfer out of your two classes with him."

    "I know but I've told you already we're half way through the semester, it doesn't make sense to try and transfer now. Plus I don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I transferred because of him. You know how he likes to talk and spread rumors and I can only imagine the rumors he would spread if I did." I could hear the exhaustion in my voice. I was always tired anymore.

   "I know but I feel like you're just torturing yourself. He has already started rumors about you because you refused to transfer" I sighed. She was right I was torturing myself. That dream was living proof of it. I knew about the rumors but I knew the ones he spread if I left would be worse.

    "I'll be fine but you should go, you don't want to be late." I pointed to my alarm clock that I never really even used. Teighlor hugged me again before leaving me alone in our room.

    "Alright text me if you need anything. Don't forget I'm getting pizza tonight for our weekly horror movie Friday. " I nodded and continued to stare at the floor. I know she meant well but I just wanted to be alone for awhile. I heard the front door shut and decided to get out of bed and get dressed at least. There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and kitchen in our dorm. Our other two roommates shared the second room. They were both really nice but it felt like they weren't here most of the time. I strained to listen to see if I was completely alone but I couldn't hear much over the sound of the air conditioner.

   Teighlor and I were like night and day. I loved black and dark colors, she loved pink and pretty much all things pastel.She loved country and some rock music but I liked rock, metal, darkwave, industrial, metal, goth rock and a few other genres of music. We liked all the same foods and movies. We even both loved anime and manga. That was pretty much where our similarities stopped though. We had met in seventh grade and it was instant friendship since the moment she let me sit next to her on the bus. She even smiled at me and offered me half her orange that morning. Everyone else glared at me but not her. She had a heart of gold and I told her that every chance I could.

     I fought to suppress the memory of the dream as I pulled on a black dress. How had I been able to smell and taste him so vividly?  I guess that's just something that's hard to forget. No I needed to focus on making myself not look like I just crawled out of a grave. It was hard though. I looked at my favorite stuffed animal and smelled it. No, it didn't smell like him anymore. He used to spray his cologne on it to help me sleep better sometimes. That was only when things were good though. I knew it was dumb of me to think it was my stuffed animal though, I had washed everything the day after we broke up to get rid of his scent.

    I walked into the kitchen and started making coffee after I decided I looked decent enough. I couldn't think straight anymore. It had been like this all month. I wanted to look nice in hopes my ex would see me and regret his decision but at the same time I just wanted to forget him and I couldn't figure out why. Well ok I knew why I wanted to forget him and move on but I couldn't figure out why I couldn't despite how hard I tried. He had been an ass to me and yet I still wished he would take it all back. Every day I hoped for him to change his mind despite what I told Teighlor. I was almost glad we weren't talking because I knew the minuet he said he wanted me back I would give in and go back to him, just like I always did. I was pathetic.

     "You're not going to eat?" I almost jumped as one of my other roommates Amber walked around the corner and noticed me practically glaring at my coffee. I shook my head and forced a smile.

    "Nah I'm trying to loose weight so only coffee this morning." Her smile disappeared.

    "Letitia there is nothing wrong with being a plus size girl. You're gorgeous." I didn't feel that way but I didn't say anything to her. I had this conversation with my roommates often so I had learned just to keep my mouth shut about how I really felt about myself when I looked in the mirror.

    "I'm not saying I'm not. It's just weighing three hundred pounds almost isn't really that good on my asthma." I said trying my best to sound like I was just more concerned about my health then anything. It wasn't a complete lie but it wasn't the complete truth. If I lost weight, if I was thinner, I would finally be considered pretty right?

    "I know but I don't want you thinking you aren't beautiful." Amber was just a few pounds less then me and believed everyone was beautiful in their own way. For the most part I agreed with her that everyone is beautiful in their own way, except for me.

    "I don't, like I said it's just to help my asthma some." I always lied about my self esteem, I just didn't want to be a burden to anyone.

    "I believe you. Skipping meals though isn't a healthy or efficient way to lose weight though." She handed me a banana as she spoke.

    "I guess a banana won't kill me if it makes you feel better." She stuck her tongue out at me and grabbed her back pack to leave. I placed the banana back in the fruit bowl once I heard the door open and close. I decided to head to the campus library to preoccupy the two hours I had before class since I desperatly needed a distraction and had already finished reading my last two books I checked out. I grabbed my bag off the couch where I had put it last night and checked myself in the mirror by the door one last time before leaving our dorm.

    Once in the library I headed to my usual corner where I liked to sit. Only my ex fiancé knew about it and it was the perfect hiding spot where we had on more then one occasion had one steamy make out session. No stop I needed to forget him I reminded myself. The corner was surrounded by bookshelfs in the fiction section which was in reality perfect for me because I loved fiction books. They allowed me to escape from the real world, if only for a brief period of time. As I rounded the corner though I didn't think that would be possible. My heart plummeted into my stomach and my blood froze in my veins as I saw my ex fiancé Mark lip locked with another girl....It had only been a month... 

    I turned around and covered my mouth to suppress the urge to cry. I didn't want to give that bastard the satisfaction. I started to walk away quickly but in the process tripped over something and fell. At least I wasn't in view of the corner I had seen him in.I thanked the gods silently that this part of the library was normally empty. Actually the library in general was usually pretty empty around this time of day. It wasn't until much later that there was a significant number of people in here to make me want to avoid it. I wasn't exactly a social butterfly after all.

     "Are you alright?" A deep voice asked. Looking up I saw a guy I had never seen in the library before, yet alone anywhere on campus. I sat back on my knees quickly trying to hide the fact I was embarrassed.

     "Yeah, just lost my footing." I said with a grin. He stretched his hand out to help me up but I ignored it and got up on my own. He looked concerned but quickly shook it off. I was probably being a little rude but I really just wanted out of the library right now.

     "I saw. I'm sorry to bother you but it's my first day could you show me where the administration offices are?" I looked at him confused. It was half way through the semester how was this his first day? Did he transfer from somewhere?

    "Uhm I'm kind of in a hurry but it's on my way so follow me." I finally said after a few moments. It wasn't a complete lie the fastest route to my first class from the library did go by the administration offices but I wasn't in a hurry. This guy made me feel anxious and I couldn't figure out why.

    "Thank you, I honestly never realized how huge this place was." I didn't look at him as I started to lead the way out of the library but nodded in response to his statement. The college was huge and it was easy to get lost. We left the building that housed the library, school store, cafeteria, the biggest student lounge and gym and walked to the building directly across the way. I walked into the front door and we were directly across from the administration offices. All science classes were on the top floors of this building. I stopped outside of a door and smiled my best smile.

    "Here you go. See you around." I quickly walked away before he could say anything. I headed towards the staircase and after reaching the first one I looked behind me to see if he was still watching me. Thankfully he wasn't. I decided classes today were not going to be a thing so I quickly emailed my teachers as I walked back to my dorm. I lied and told them I was sick to my stomach. Well maybe it wasn't a complete lie because I did feel sick to my stomach but it was because I had seen my ex with someone else and not because I was actually sick.

    Once back in the safety of mine and Teighlor's room I wiped off the makeup I had worked hard to carefully put on and changed back into my pjs. This was not a good way to start my weekend. I knew the minuet Teighlor didn't see me in our math class later she would know something was wrong. I didn't care though. I wouldn't lie to her about why I had skipped and I knew she would cover for me, this wasn't the first time she had to. To be fair I had covered for her a few times too. It was just what we did. I laid in my bed and stared at the ceiling, pulling my favorite stuffed animal to my chest for comfort.

     One month. He already had a new woman after one month. How could he? Was I so easily replaceable to him? I knew this wasn't the first time he started seeing someone after we broke up. Once when we broke up for two days the day he dumped me he went and fucked another woman then came back to me the next day saying he was sorry. Another time we broke up he tried to hook up with Teighlor. She denied him and he came running back to me. That's all I was to him. The girl he would go back to when he couldn't get anything else. He didn't love me. I was the idiot. I loved him with every fiber of my existence. I always forgave him and took him back. I always believed his sweet talk and lies. Now that things were over for good I was the one hurting and missing him while he seemed to completely forget I existed. That's how it's always been with him. He would never change and I needed to stop holding my breath and wishing he would.

    I still defended him to everyone though. I would always tell everyone that when things were good they were great and he never once laid a hand on me to hurt me. As Teighlor always pointed out though it didn't mean he didn't hurt me in other ways. Whenever we broke up he always blamed it on me. It was always somehow my fault, never his. Even if he was leaving me for another woman it was still my fault and he found a way to make me believe I really was worthless and like everything was wrong with me. I truly believed I had been a crappy fiancé to him. At least he was happy now and he had no difficulty moving on and forgetting me. I couldn't forget him and move on though and repeating what I had seen in the library in my head just made my heart sink in to my stomach and my blood turn to ice again. This time though I didn't fight the tears.