You know who you are you just have to believe it.

But I know a lie when I hear one.

It was like we were all so busy trying to be happy or saying we were happy, but underneath there was nothing but bitterness, the kind that could only be bled out in ink, in unspoken word.

And you… do you know what you are?” “Stupid?” “Beautiful,” he says, his face turning red.

I have been smashed and put back together so many times nothing works right. Nothing is where it should be, heavy thumping in my shoulder where my heart now beats.

Things change. Stuff happens. Life goes on.

I love the me I am with him. I’m the girl who has Dave. I’m Lauren, Dave’s girlfriend. I’m someone better than Lauren Smith, who no one noticed till Dave came along. The thing is, that girl isn’t me and I know it. But when I’m with him, I feel like I could be her. That if something in me was just–I don’t know, shifted a little or something, smoothed down–people would think of me the way they think of Dave, and everything would always be perfect. I would be perfect.