Let me start with a letter to each person reading this. An introduction before the introduction I guess you could say. If you are one of the people written about in this book, here is a thank you for giving me some type of inspiration, don’t skip to your part. Read it and learn about everyone who came before you and everyone who came after. For everyone else reading this, here is a thank you for your 10 dollars and for your attention until you get to the end. This is not a book for poetry or fiction, it is an account of real life on account of all the fake bullshit life tends to dish out. And although you might find a poem or two hidden in these pages it is nothing more than my breathing as a result of kissing numbers 7, 9 and 18. I have tasted milk and honey and frankly it left disappointment on my tongue. I’m into life, I make love to unpredictability and fuck with chance, I’m obsessed with the idea that you can die at any second completely unsatisfied with the way you have lived, and for that, here is this. And if no one else will tell you the truth, because no one ever does, let me be the first. I am typing this on an iPad because I’m too lazy to pick up a pen and to the left side of me I’m in the middle of rolling a gram because being sober is worse than being stoned. You can say this is a book, and a book you paid for at that so there better be a fairy tale happy ending with fireworks and sunsets. There might be, you’ll have to get to the end to find that out. But come on guys, I said I’d be honest and honestly, is that ever how life really works?

Sincerely yours until the end of this,

                       N

As a kid I didn't just run with scissors, I sprinted. And instead of playing with fire I set a match on my bed and watched it go up in flames. I was stuck sleeping on the floor for months, I think I liked it more than the comfort. Considering that, you'd probably expect me to be a complete weirdo. Maybe I am. But now, instead of scissors and fire I play with boys. Let me fix that, I play with dangerous boys. Boys far more painful than a cut and much prettier than any exothermic (look it up) reaction.

I read a book about the art of killing a girl. So in response, here is this. The art of dying.

 Every account of every boy in this book is true, and there was those few girls but we'll get to that later. Don't think that after this you'll find some great life discovery, you won't. I am a mess and each one of you reading is simply contributing to the global warming inside of me. But for your entertainment, and your money, here I am, my heart wrecked, my mind spilled. I don't claim to be something I'm not, don't call me an author or an artist. I am just a girl who happened to meet 18 wrong people at 18 wrong times. But if this book gets you to put the goddamn screen that you live off of down for a few minutes for a couple of days than I am sincerely happy because we are living in a world where influence is controlled by media likes instead of people, so if you, shitty reader can't seem to find influence in your own everyday people, then find influence in mine.

 I'm about to tell you about 18 wonderful people but I am also about to tell you about yourself. Are you number 1? Are you 7? Are you a combination of 3? How about 17? The simple fact is that this world is basically filled with large groups of different versions of the same people and like I said this book is not for morals or lessons but maybe you'll figure out which group you fall under after you read about yourself.

Every account in this book is my fault. I blame no single number for the way they have impacted me and I believe a person’s actions are simply a reaction to how they have been treated before. It’s true, I fall madly in love way to fast. I can remember the name of every boy who ever laid a finger on me, but that is my fault. Because when I was younger my dad left and I couldn't remember much from when he was around, so now my brain is hardwired to remember it all. I am a complete cliché but hey you paid for this book you're reading right now right?

Anyways, let me stop jumping ahead. I'll explain everything by the end of this piece of shit book I promise.

But then again, promises are sometimes better off broken.

I was 10 years old when I first saw my dad hit my mom. Harsh right? I was trying to figure out some metaphor or simile to sugarcoat the word hit but I had nothing. I think that's where my obsession came from. I saw my mom wake up the next morning and love him like nothing ever happened. After that I decided love meant pain.

3 years after this I met number 1, we'll call him winter. He came like a snow storm in the middle of summer and would continue to walk back and forth unexpectedly into my life for the next 2 years.

 If I have not mentioned I am a shit writer and my mind spills everywhere so if you've made it this far just deal with me, let's rewind a bit.

 4 months before my dad left he hit me for the first time, I can't remember but it was probably because my mom wasn't home. His belt left my legs covered in bruises and I ran away that night. If you're thinking I’m being a spoiled brat for this, you're probably right. But regardless, I left and slept on a park bench a few blocks from my house for the weekend. I came home Sunday night without either of my parents knowing and caught the bus to school in the morning. I never knew if they went looking for me or not but I guess they figured I was okay when I got off the bus after school and emptied the fridge. I can't remember speaking another word to my dad after that, but I do remember a few months later I was halfway done with the dishes when I heard him punch a hole in the wall upstairs and then leave with the door still open, I walked over and closed it when I heard his car start. He never came back, I guess he got tired of my mom’s skin against his fists.

 This is where the good shit happens.

I met winter late December. He smiled and I could have easily mistaken him for spring.

 This is where my life starts to go downward.

I had a "boyfriend" at the time. He was a twin. He was sweet and liked to look at me like I was a candy shop. Unfortunately winter was his friend.

 Chase, let me say sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, but winter was a forest fire and being as young as I was, I fell in love with the flames not knowing the damage it does.

In a way I've always held a grudge against the twin, if he would have never introduced me to his friend I would've never picked up on all the bad habits.

Before you get confused let me tell you what's about to happen. I'm going to make a stupid mistake of falling in love with my boyfriend’s best friend, he's going to end up finding out and leaving me. I’m going to end up meeting 3 other boys in between winter because he kept fucking leaving, one of which is #7. Okay here we go.

As far as middle school girls go, I wouldn't say I was "unpopular." I had a group of the cutest boys in the school as friends and everyone was relatively nice. I met chase and his twin brother the first week of school. The other girls were crazy over them. Anyways, I had a Halloween party because in my tiny little mind, I was the shit. Needless to say I had all of the "cool" little middle school kids packed into my house playing shit music and spin the bottle. This was my first taste at being "popular." After sitting on the cuter of the twins lap for half an hour and having an awkward kiss on my backyard trampoline while my mom was upstairs in her room, we were dating. If I were to say so myself, we were a power couple. I guess I got greedy.

Chase, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry for what I'm about to say next.

 He introduced me to his best friend and I was hooked. It was like a drug addict trying crystal meth for the first time. The kid himself was a fucking mess. Complete pot head that probably lost his virginity before I even knew what sex was.

 Technically, I never cheated. That sounds like a really shitty thing to say right? Technically, like technically nothing asshole did you cheat or not?

 I never touched him but in the year that I was dating the football player twin, I was telling winter how much I loved the snow. That's exactly what it was too, snow. Cold. Freezing actually, but so mother fucking pretty. Chase found out and left me although I was never exactly sure if he knew the full story, so Chase that is it.

 I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt you if I did, you were always so nice, and you remind me of the last person I write about in this book in so many ways. We're friends now, awkwardly.

But back to this. Nick... uh ... I mean winter, was calling me his the next day and I loved it. It lasted 3 months.

It followed by complete MIA and endless texts and calls from my part asking what I did wrong. Secretly, I was so addicted.

 So here's where that went, we were sitting in class one day, being that it was a small school me, Chase, winter, and every other person that could have mattered sat no more than 2 rows of desks apart. I wasn't going to just sit there for a month wondering why the hell it got so hot when it was mid-December. So I turned around and said something along the lines of "are you ever going to text me back or what you ass hole? I ruined everything for you" and instead of words he flipped a desk towards my face and walked out of the room. We went to the principal’s office and were both expelled the next day. There was winter. There was my obsession. Pain, and that boy knew just how to cause it. We left it at the desk and didn't speak again until February.

 In between that time I met a friend online, Albuquerque, James, keep that in mind, it'll come up later.

Back to winter, he texted me "come over" and I damn near ran to his house. That's how he knew he had me. In retrospect I probably should have said no, maybe then he wouldn't have thrown me around like a rag doll for the next 2 years but I never did mind the pain. When I got there he didn't say a word, but he kissed me with alcohol spilled all over his lips. Not sure if it was the booze from his tongue or his hands around my neck but it was my first time being drunk. I'll tell you man, some good poems came that night. I still had no idea of the blizzard coming for me.

For the next few months we were back on. Holding hands at school and kissing goodbye. I wrote him letters of how beautiful his eyes looked when he stared at me. They kind of reminded me of a lion stalking a deer before attacking. I guess that's what I was to him. He broke my heart again, leaving me for some slut who grew into her body a few years too soon.

 I met another online friend, New York, Mathew. He'll come up later in the story with James. As you can tell I spent a lot of time alone on the internet or buried with a pen when Nick (winter) would leave.

 I was starting to catch on to it though.

 I spent days on end crying in my bed staring at the drawing of us from my birthday. He spent his days fucking his slut and sending me videos of how hard she made his dick. I sent him back pictures of my notebook hoping my words would make him come back. I told you, I'm a shitty writer.

I changed the way I walked to classes only to pass him in the hall hoping I'd catch him turn his head, or even a glance.

Never came.

In class I paid more attention to him sleeping then I did to the teacher.

That summer was the worst. I was so close to being over him. Unfortunately he wasn't done with me yet. I got a call from my dad one night that followed with a lot of cursing and my pillow black from mascara and eyeliner. I'm not sure how he knew to text me at the exact moment he did. Maybe he's a mind reader. Anyways my dad hung up and 6 fucking minutes later my phone lit up again. It was a link to a song from no other than Nick mf Ramirez.

 "Objects in the mirror" – Mac Miller.

If you have not heard it yet put this shit down and listen. If you hate it, stop reading my book because I hate you. That song became my healing for every person I've ever wrote about in here. It was my band aid when I picked a scab that I shouldn't of and it is the soundtrack to every word you're reading.

I sent back "I love you...” that followed by him saying "you're fucking mine." 2 hours later I snuck him into my room at 3 in the morning. We talked about everything. He told me I wasn't even a spec in this universe. I told him he was my world. That turned me on.

 I smoked weed for the first time. He told me I looked cute high. I told him god isn't real. He told me nothing is.

"What about love?"

He mouthed, "Nothing"

He smiled after that and it reminded me of a serial killer starring at his victim's body stained in blood lying cold on the floor. Fuck I was so turned on. We spent the rest of that night making out while his fucking hands felt every inch of me. I lost my virginity that night. I lost my innocence when I met him.

I'll save you the details of this fucked up relationship we had going on for the next year after that, basically it consisted of a terrible beating, passionate sex, drugs and conversations about hell. I got really good at makeup during this time and got into boxing. It was ironic, I still couldn't defend myself against him. For a year I sold drugs to pay for all his bad habits. One of which included fucking girls that weren't me. I put myself through this pain and let him love me and then leave whenever he wished for that whole year.

I followed my cousin’s boyfriend at the time on Instagram. He was 3 years older than me and would later become number 7 in a book that you my lovely reader, just so happened to purchase. 5 boys will come before him. 5 boys were practice for him. 5 boys could not compare to him. A month later he and my cousin broke up, I just never unfollowed him, I probably should of...

       Anyways I sold my drugs and gave Nick the money. I got caught selling and landed myself in a world of trouble, he had all my money so I sold him my soul. My mom and all my friends told me he was trouble and begged me to walk away from it. I couldn't. Needless to say, his mom wasn't a fan of him either. She kicked him out after he refused to go home for a month. He came to my house the day before he got on a plane. He kissed me and we had sex for hours. I wish I would have known then that that'd be the last time I saw him.

I wouldn't have played nice.

He went to Washington with his dad and met a bunch of girls who smoked pot and fucked him whenever he wanted.

 Here's a part of this story no one knows, well assuming my friends are the only ones actually reading this shit.

 I told him I'd run away with him if he came back to me. He said he would. I saved money for months and bought him a plane ticket back. I thought he was seriously my world. He was supposed to leave some shitty early morning, ya know, sneak away from his dad’s house and catch a flight back to Houston and from there we'd catch a train and leave. He seemed so down. Until she went down on him.

 He basically said "screw you, I'm fucking some red head who sells drugs that I never have to pay for."

That was the last time we spoke.

I burned every god damn thing I had of his except one.

His shirt.

A grey one with some dumb lettering. In the small chance that nick, winter, fire, rain, high, drunk whatever the fuck you are today is reading this I want you to know that I kept that shirt for no other reason besides the fact that it is comfortable. Not because I use to dance around in front of you wearing nothing else. Not because the first time we fucked, that's all it was, fucking, because you never loved, you gave it to me to wear after you left cum all over mine. Not because the first time you left I was wearing it with ripped jeans soaked in tears. Not because you said I looked like the prettiest girl you've ever seen in it. Simply because I liked it. Okay you asshole?

Yea it was stained in a lot of memories of you, but it is just a shirt and I've washed it since then.

 I wrote poems about the way your hands felt and painted pictures of your eyes. I drank and did every drug you could think of. I was a mess. It was my first heartbreak, what do you expect? You are hells fire and you are winter at its coldest. And although we don't speak anymore I doubt you've changed, you grabbed me and I was wrapped in snow so cold it burned. You tore and ate away at all my beautiful leafs and left me with a sky so grey I thought I had imagined the sun.

See for 3 years I saw the word in only black and blue and when people asked, I'd say I was simply your canvas and beauty is in the eyes of the fucking beholder, right?

 Let's go online for a second. James. My author. I wish I had more to say about you but you were a story and I lost the book after the blurb.

I've got to say I think about you more often than you'd expect if you can even still remember my name.

Albuquerque found a spot at number 2. Like I said a few pages back, I met James one night scrolling through Instagram laying in my bed crying over a drug addict. His looks initially didn't catch my eye. What did was the fact that he was a twin. Hm. He was pale, tall, short haired and took pictures that reminded me of a skater. I don't know how he showed up on my suggested list it's not like I knew a single damn person in Albuquerque.

I was around 14, days away from freshman year when, after months of being mutual friends, he dmd me asking if I went to the same school as him.

I was like "no I'm most definitely from Texas." And that followed with an awkward 2 hours 45 minutes of "read" until finally I got a "sorry I got busy but oh lol what's your number?"

We talked that whole night. Here's where my interest for goofy guys starts to show. He was a dork. He called me off an iPad and I can still remember 2 minutes into the FaceTime call he yells at his twin something along the lines of "Mathew shut up I'm on the phone with a pretty girl."

Pretty.

 I hadn't been called that since my first encounter with a twin. I'd have loved him if our conversations weren't limited to the maximum of 5 times a month due to the fact he was 906 miles away, a 13 hour and 11 minute drive.

 He was into anime and Tumblr and photography. Couldn't have been a better match for me. Sometimes I wish I never gave him my number, that way I wouldn't have been faced with the torture of never getting to meet this kid. He'd send me mini stories that he'd write and show me pictures of the beautiful mountains in New Mexico. I couldn't get enough of it. It was all so beautiful, I told myself I'd have to visit one day even if James had long forgotten my name. (This is still on my bucket list)

 He'd talk in a shaky voice like I was an alien or like I was a girl he found kidnapped after 3 years in a lunatics basement. I guess in some ways I was both.

He fixed me. I didn't write at the time. He didn't hurt me enough to write about but he is number 2 because he started my longing for adventure. I didn't realize this until years later when I stumbled on his Tumblr account and saw some beautiful brunette wrapped in his arms.

Don't get me wrong James, if you're reading this I'm so happy for you. If you're reading this I also want to say thank you, you and all the matter you were made of made me hate being so stuck. I won't spill any secrets before you get there but in my life now I am very stuck and I've come to think of you often. I wish we still spoke, even as friends. I now know there are beautiful people in gorgeous places and I long to meet many. Unlike most numbers involved in this shit book, you, number 2 are one I hold no animosity too. In fact I adore you in a few ways. We don't speak but from your Instagram posts of you backpacking and ice skating with your girlfriend you are almost everything I want to be.

I want to wander and get lost and be found.

You're a work of art on your own. I hope one day I'll get the courage to leave and maybe I'll see you somewhere. You of all people deserve the most happiness.

With all the time you people spend on the internet I hope a little bit of it is spent finding people like James. I know maybe he shouldn't deserve a full number in this book partially because I hardly know him enough to write a few pages but I think Albuquerque, if I ever met you, you'd be the full number line.

 See none of my writing is ever about you, but many are about the sky, about the rain about the sun and the grass and all the ways to get from place to place, these stem from you and the things I learned from your simple pictures and phone calls and posts.

A desire to experience.

 I'll leave it at that and catch a flight to New York.

 For a long time I was stuck wondering if he should even be included in this book and if so, what number?

 I decided Mathew, you are number 2.5.  I include you as evidence in the study of James. There are people all over the world I wish to have the pleasure to meet. You are one. You are not a poet or a writer, but you are an artist, a painter, a musician with really long hair that I always found myself wishing to run my fingers through. Unlike James, we still talk. I feel like I've met you before, like you're an old friend. Albuquerque created my need for exploring, you New York, with your pretty time square lights, simply grew that need. There are beautiful people waiting to be found. You, Mathew are one. Thank you for being my friend and giving me advice on boys who live hundreds of miles away from you.

I honestly think that in some point in my life I will meet you and we're going to laugh and listen to music that has no lyrics and you'll show me around a town I've never been too. I can't wait for that day old pal.

 Let me run it back to those popular group of middle school boys I was referring to earlier.

Brandon Russell, Avion, Logan, and Brandon Wallace (you'll have your own number later on) I fucking love y'all. Combined y'all are number 3. In middle school I didn't realize how big of an impact the 4 of you had on me. It wasn't until freshman year when we hardly spoke anymore that I understood. These boys taught me the meaning of family. They raised me because my parents were too busy hating each other to teach me anything about growing up. They showed me what friendship was like and they taught me how to be tough. They prepared me for every difficult task I've ever faced.

Brandon Russell, when I was in 6th grade, struggling with my father, you lost yours in a motorcycle crash.

I still can't tell you how sorry I am.

You were an amazing fighter with a few attachment issues. So when you met Bry it's no surprise you let her take every piece of you, well every piece that wasn't buried alongside your father. Loyalty, you taught me loyalty. You showed me that life deals you shit hands but you don't fold. To this day you have my back and I have yours. I am not one to judge the decisions you make for yourself now. Lord, if there is one, knows I've fucked up too many times to count my sins.

I write about Brandon Russell to show that when it comes to people you have to put your all in because one day you might have a handful of regret and a dead body.

I watched you for years after that, giving your heart to many girls. I watched you ask each one to fix something much beyond their capabilities. Maybe that's the reason now you go to strip clubs. Those girls have to give you attention and all the wrong types of love, at least for the time you're paying.

I am so sorry for everything wrong in your life but if you ever need anything, I'm here. You taught me that.

 Avion and Logan, the 2 of you toughened me up. We were so fucking cool. We went out every weekend together thinking we were the shit. I think if it weren't for them I'd be stuck in bed crying almost every night. They taught me to fight, they also taught me that life is a joke. When I was 14, nick was trying to drown me, but the two of you easily kept me afloat. For everyone in my life right now who tells me they like my strength and my jokes, you can thank Avion and Logan.

I wish I still talked to them but I'm so proud of who they are and what they are becoming. My mom loved them so much. They basically lived at my house and my summers were spent with them. They hated nick, I should have listened. They taught me that keeping a smile on your face is one of the most important things. Life wasn't meant to keep you down and you can't let others take away your happiness. I write a lot about being sad in this book, but I am not as sad as I make myself out to be, this is solely because of them. So at nights when nick would break my heart and make me cry these two boys would replace it with laughter. That in itself made me tough. But physically, thank you guys for teaching me how to play football. In 8th grade I was the only girl on our school football team, I owe that one to the hours Logan and Avion spent teaching me how to throw the damn ball. I liked how I was one of the guys with them. They dated some of the prettiest girls I've ever seen and now Logan found himself one who beats the others and I'm so happy for him.

Avion is a football star and I'm so proud to have known him.

 We ate watermelon in my garage and caused trouble everywhere else, I'm laughing just typing this because I almost forgot, and I hope y'all haven't.

 Brandon fucking Wallace. I have much more history with you than the other three, I'm not too sure where to start.

In 6th grade you wished you were the one I was flirting with at my stupid party instead of that twin.

The twin was your friend though so what could you say?

And when I began my secrets with winter you wished it was you. Again, winter was your friend as well so you held your tongue.

As far as right now, on this page, I am only talking about us as friends, I'll get into the details of us being anything more than friends a few pages later.

Of the 4 frankly you were my favorite, you were my best friend. We were fucking unstoppable. And for the record I had always had a crush on you, but we treated each other like siblings.

You always had problems finding girls who liked you as much as you liked them. I knew you like the back of my hand and chase and nick were both jealous if I say so myself.

In 8th grade me and Brandon Wallace got caught stealing a pair of sunglasses from a class field trip. This story still cracks me up today. We thought we were so slick. Basically they told us we had to leave and when we got back to school the next day we found out we'd have to stay in this dumb in school suspension room until the year was over. On the last day of school we flirted in that empty room and I still remember that day very well. You were wearing a blue shirt and looked at me a different way than you had usually. It made me a bit nervous, but we spent that day talking and laughing louder than ever, did you realize then that I was into you? We didn't speak much after that until a year and a half ago, I'll bring that up later.

 Ali Martinez, you make number 4 on this dumb list. You were my first taste at what having a girl best friend is really like. We met in 6th grade and we're bound by the hip. I'm not too sure how we worked the way we did. I was artsy and you were down right hilarious and weird. We stayed at each other’s houses every weekend and my mom basically thought of you as her 3rd daughter.

 I can't exactly remember how we met, but I do remember in 5th grade we had a class together and some dumb kid had cupcakes for their stupid birthday and you smeared the whole damn thing on your face and had to sit out at recess. I never said anything but I thought it was fucking hilarious.

The next year you were throwing soda at me in the middle of the street as we cracked up laughing and watching movies gawking over the cute actors. I met Chase and we were all pretty close. Soon after you started dating his adopted brother, Andy Romero.

 Let me stop for just a second to say that Andy, I'm so sorry you were always on the back burner of the twins. You got caught up in winter the same way I did. I heard you got high every day with him and his friends. I use to tell Chase all the time to stop picking on you so much. Now you've really grown. You have a pretty girlfriend and you're a person not a shadow. Remember that.

Back to Ali, it was cute. My best friend was dating my boyfriend’s brother and during summer I had a secrete going on with winter that only you knew of. I couldn't of had a better 6th grade year.

7th grade rolls around and it was boring as fuck. Same thing same people but same us so it wasn't to terrible, until I fuck everything up.

It was late in the year and I was sleeping over at your house. You and Andy were broken up by then. I was on the phone with Chase and then hung up and called Nick. He was with one of his friends and wanted to come over. So you snuck out with me and we sat in your driveway at 2am to hang out with these two potheads. Your neighbor came outside and the next morning your parents wanted me to leave and not come back.

 This was my first taste at adults disliking me other than my father. It hurt because it was yours. I still feel terrible for getting you in trouble, I didn't mean to. I screwed up a lot of good things that I had trying to protect and hide my secret, one of those things became you.

We stayed friends but the sleep overs stopped.

You made a new friend. A girl. She was weird and wore the same black jacket every day to school but she hung out and smoked and drank with older kids and I think you liked that. For a long time I tried being friends with her too, mainly for you. Going into 8th grade I found out she was into girls, and she just didn't like me.

So I lost you. I still look back and think that if I had never gotten you in trouble we would still be best friends. But maybe not. She was weird like you. I was not. So I went the rest of 8th grade year pretending to have mediocre relationships with superficial girls. My group of boys kept me afloat during this time.

The middle of 8th grade year was also when Chase found out about nick. My life went from perfect to a mess. A wild fire. The flames were kind of exciting but I missed the comfort of the forest that was now going up in smoke.

It was funny, I was with Nick and there was always this pesky girl trying to get in the way and steal him. Her name was Bianca. 3 years later she'll be my new best friend so expect to hear her name soon enough, but for now, in this part, she's simply annoying.

So to fix it, I smoked. A lot, like I said before, all thanks to winter. Everyone hated me besides my 4 brothers and I don't blame them.

 Ali, you hated me, that's what hurt. I wanted to cry every time I saw a video on Snapchat of you and her together watching a movie that we've seen before. But I was little and life went on.

 Freshman year we had a class together, it was awkward acting like I had never met you. I get the tiny little goofy sides of me that hardly ever show from you, my best friend I should have never lost.

Number 5, Christopher Ogden. Although you came before anyone I've written about so far I wanted you to be the last person I speak about before I hop into freshman year.

Not that we aren't still friends just that you kind of hated me for a few years.

In third grade I was hanging upside down from the monkey bars, you came up to me and asked why I was doing that. I think you said something about my cousin, who your sister knew. I found out you lived across the street from me and we became kind of close. You weren't like any other guy friend I had. You were more like a dream or a fantasy or simply something I'll never be.

 Since I met you, you have been number 1 in our class ranking. You have a brain of a genius. Colleges are literally drooling over you right now. In a way I always figured maybe if I hung out with you a little more I would be a bit smarter. Dumb huh?

You come from a beautiful family. I wish I had that.

Christopher, you see guys, has never once cussed, smoked, or drank and how could you not look up to this? His morals are set so high, I couldn't even get up there if I smoked 10 blunts and hit a dab afterwards.

We went to this stupid dance together in 6th grade before I even knew a twin. Thinking back our parents probably made us go. But I still remember putting on this ugly black and white stripped dress with a blue flower in my hair and you had your hair spiked and gelled up.

We looked funny in pictures especially because I was so much taller than him. I'm not sure why but for some reason I was nervous that night. I guess that was the first time I got the hint that I was in the presence of someone going to be great.

You're awkward and shy and a bit goofy but I'd assume the smartest people are. I hope the fuckers reading this shit weren't expecting something cute to happen like a dance or a kiss or something because if that was the case you can stop now, fuck outta here with your happy ending bull shit.

We remained friends for a year or 2 after this, I'd walk over to your house or you'd walk to mine and play videogames or watch TV.

I started becoming very caught up in the wrong type of people nearing 8th grade and mainly freshman year and began to let them influence me. Not a surprise considering “influence” is in the title.

You hated that. I can see why. I'm not sure you hated me but you have this thing about surrounding yourself with the right people and at the time I just wasn't one of them.

If you were an author you'd be one we study in English class. If you were a politician we would learn your name in government. But you want to be a plastic surgeon, so you'll go down in the medical class’s textbooks.

Looking back now, if you were still my friend at the time I got caught up with drugs and horrible lies and horrible people you single handedly probably could of saved me from all that, but I hold no grudges towards you. I wasn't my own friend at the time either, how could I expect you to be?

 It's weird because although we are complete opposites I've always had this thing in my mind of us getting married. Before you read this and say "ew," let me explain. See I can't imagine us dating but I wouldn't mind calling you my husband, not that I sit here every day and fantasize about you and shit, or that I have this huge elaborate crush on you. I just feel like we balance each other pretty well. You're smart and witty and although I am not those things, I am outgoing and wild. So think about it here for a minute business partner, friend, Chris, if in some crazy reality we were to get married I have the pieces you're missing and you have the pieces I am. So to put it in math form to show you I'm not completely dumb, I'd assume we are like 2 pieces of a whole, and the sum of the whole is greater than the parts. Right?

Anyways to this beautiful mind with the beautiful family and the beautiful house and the beautiful cars, let me say thank you. You are unlike anyone I have ever associated myself with.

After freshman year we became friends again, I had to beg and beg but finally it worked. You're a bit more outgoing than you were before. You've grown into your Quirkiness and you're on track to do amazing things and I am so glad I am your friend so I am able to see things play out for you, I wish I was more like you Chris.

So there's the story before the story, the wind before the storm. The good time before the murderer runs out of the woods in the horror movies. 

A good majority of the people I've numbered so far are still involved in my life today, one will get renumbered but they are not the real numbers. They are not the deadly ones, let's get into reality.

Nick left to Washington right before freshman year started and I never saw him again. But the habits were still there so no surprise when High school started I was hanging out with kids two or three years older than me, selling as many drugs as I could get my hands on and getting high with strangers.

 I thought a long time about who would start this.

Who would be the first real number, the first wave of thunder, the first person to die, or in my case the first to kill a piece of me?

I decided to start number 6 as Zhanna. To this day I wish I never lost you.

The only girl to break my heart. She was my best friend, my real best friend. Scratch that shit Ali was probably my first best friend, this girl was my long lost sister. My twin.

I lost a very big piece of me when I lost you dude. And the people I lost you over weren't worth it. You know that dumb saying "you don't know what you have until it's gone." Well I knew what I had, I just didn't think it could be lost.

You were not dorky or weird or loud or funny. You liked coffee shops and painting and poems and meanings, I was all of that. I'd use your back as a canvas and you'd love the way the brushes felt. I made a masterpiece on a masterpiece.

Before y'all think otherwise, I was never into her the way it sounds. I do believe although, that our minds could have easily been made to meet. We did everything together. She showed me music that I can't go to sleep without listening to every single goddamn night. She was danger and I was adventure. Sleep overs weren't sleep overs considering neither of us ever slept. We talked about the stars and the universe and the way people lived in piles of cement. We talked about life and death and the meaning of lyrics to songs no one’s heard. I was a mess. She cleaned me up.

When Nick left I was scattered on the floor, all the dirt he made me into. Zhanna didn't put me back together, she recreated me. I was not dirt or a spec in the universe, I was a planet, made of oceans and mountains and grass and tears and smiles tied together by a heartbeat, a mind, and a best friend to feed new ideas to this new world.

Although I admit I was still polluting myself with bottles of pills, bottles of alcohol, and dime bags of weed. I'm not sure if Zhanna ever minded. She pretended like my problems were nonexistent, everyone else made it a point to try to "fix" me to try to "help" me and to try to "save" me. I hated them for that. She accepted whoever I decided to be. I loved art and she liked to dance. I loved thoughts and she had a mind full of them. I loved adventure and she was down for anything.

The summer after freshman year would be the last few times me and the beautiful dancer spent together so i’ll touch on it a bit later. It's one for the books I promise, haha get it guys?  I’m going to stop now to get into number 7.

Seven is supposed to be a lucky number, so was it luck when I met you, Ethan? Before I start let me give a very big thank you to the unforgettable number 7 for giving me the title to this book that you have in your hands. Thank you for writing poetry with me that would later give me inspiration for all of these simple words. Everyone before you is simply leading up to you and everyone after is nothing more than the resolution. My utter downfall. So if any of you guys were wondering, 7 is the most influential number on the number line.

I never expected someone like you to ever like me back. You probably never did, you should have been in theater with all the ways you acted like you loved me. I was your audience and you had me captivated. This whole book could have easily been about only you and all the ways you've stomped and morphed me into who I am. In fact I considered making it all about you, but I have a life now that doesn't involve spilling my heart out to a US marine. So here's a few pages and I have a feeling even after everything I write, not a single god damn person will really get the idea of who you are.

See, nick was a storm and everyone's experienced a little rain so they get it. But you, you're a gunshot. You have to live through it in order to understand it. That is of course, if you live through it.

To this day I write so many goddamn shitty poems about you, so to start off this number here is one of many:

I wrote to a boy who never loved me

It went something like this,

When I first saw you I knew I was screwed

I couldn't take my eyes off of you

You hardly looked at me

Screw me though baby

You’re so damn gorgeous

Love is a line in the middle

You were always on top and I was below

I asked you what you believed in

You told me nothing

I was dumb for not including love in that nothingness

I wanted you to want me

But you were an ocean

And I was only a puddle

Stay

You look so good in my bed

I asked you to touch my heart

You went down on me instead

Then told me to stop making everything into art

Your voice was like hearing the Beatles for the first time

Over and over again

I just wanna hold your fucking hand once again

I thought hands were only hands

But yours were somehow drugs

Leaving every inch of me high when you left

You knew you had me

You said I looked so cute when I begged for a kiss

I guess you got tired of my begging

I was a rillos wrapper that you left at a park

You were the shit I smoked

You were the drugs I took

The book I wrote

The ocean I run to

The story I wish I could fully tell

The wish that never came true

I am me because you are you

I wonder if you even remember my name

I wrote to a boy who never loved

Correction, he did once.

But I was not her

He went to a mental hospital

I wish I drove him that crazy

After that it was all a game

His eyes were so cold when we met

I saw him sober maybe once

Love was so nonexistent after her

I wanted to marry you. Fuck I wanted to marry you so bad. I was never even your girlfriend though, ironic huh?

You never even knew my middle name, you barely knew how to pronounce my first. But your name stings.

Ethan August Meyer.

 The most beautiful name I've ever heard, arranged so perfectly, it sounds like waves crashing on the sand of a stupid gorgeous beach.

But I didn't have to say that, you knew it already. You touched me like I was silk, like I was gold, and for you, like I was the last god damn bottle of painkillers in the whole world.

You called me "monkey paws" one time as you stared at my hands and I guess it stuck. I hated that name but it made you smile so I didn't mind it. I'd kill to hear you call me that again.

You taught me the meaning of life and you taught me the meaning of death.

I didn't realize at the time I was just too young and simple minded for your complex ways of thinking.

My mind became my mind because of a boy with a middle name the same as a month. August became my favorite time of the year. I'll give you a spoiler, there's one other person, scratch that, thing, in this book that has had the same effect on me as Ethan. It's an abandon building, the second to last thing I’ll write about in here. I sadly tore it down because I could never give myself the capability to fully love again after Ethan and Jordan combined. I'm still so apologetic for that.

Back to Meyer. You became so sweet, you took me on dates, real dates, around real people, it all felt so real. We sat at tables surrounded by 100 different stories while we were making our own. Dinner dates and movies with you became a bigger adventure than trips around the world with someone else.

You know how people say you see a white light right before you die and your life flashes before your eyes?

These were those moments.

Every kiss every word every phone call, it was all the death of me.

Or was it a recreation of who I am and a death of who I was?

Either way I don't see why I'm attempting to write about it right now because nothing I could say could explain.

I want to clear up something for one person reading this book, one person I wish I never messed up with. No names, he knows who he is. Hi you. You're a number later on don't worry we're getting there. I want to apologize, I told you I'm a not a girl to love, he is why. I don't think you ever understood why I hated dates. I think you thought I could never love you. You could have easily been my reincarnation. You could have topped the marine. I couldn't let you. I had to hold on to the last breath I had. You wanted to spoil me and show me off and take me on dates to places I'd have to wear a dress too. I told you I hated those kind of dates, I told you it was overrated and dresses weren't my thing. I told you I didn't want to be surrounded by a bunch of fake people living their fake lives pretending to like the cliché background music and expensive meals. That is partially true.

But Ethan would tell you the full truth. I fell in love with going to these places with him, looking around and imagining all the lives and stories around us, he did not only make me fall in love with him he made me fall in love with everyday people living their everyday life. I was fascinated with the realizations that in those moments all of those people, faces I'll never see again, laughs and memories who left with the bill, all worked as one. To others we were the background noise, and to me sitting across from him at the table, we were the main event. It's a great realization to have. And when he looked back at me with the moon in his eyes staring at me in a black dress like his favorite color with maroon lipstick I couldn't wait to smear all over his neck riding in the passages seat on the way home, I was beautiful. I was everything he created.

He was God.

We made memories I was afraid to forget so I burned them into every part of me.

 That is why I don't like dates.

I knew you could replace those memories and engulf me with new ones. I was afraid of that. A scar doesn't hurt as much as a fresh wound does, remember that. I should've let you, so instead of every day dates you took me to abandon places and beautiful forests, and left new scars in different places. But your type of girl wasn't me, you wanted a girl who had never been hurt, I was on my last breath but enough of you, I'll see you later in this book.

My last good day with Ethan Meyer was spent a week before my freshman homecoming. It was pouring rain and he drove to my house. No one was home. We laid in my bed for hours. He used his tongue to write poems on my body. He pulled my hair and called me gorgeous.

I prayed for more.

We talked, the same way me and Nick did just a year before. His hand sat on my ass and I ran my fingers through his brown hair and stared at his green eyes. He looked like a mess.

 I fell in love with messes partly because I was one.

I knew I never met him sober. I knew every time we spoke he was more wasted than I was, except for those few months I didn't need drugs.

 I needed him.

I won't hide who you are or sugarcoat it in metaphors and similes, there is no hiding who you are. You fucked 4 girls in one night and then laid in my bed when you were done because you could never quite sleep right after she left you and you could never quite sleep right after doing terrible things to me. You kissed my body like you had never tasted anything so sweet. You treated me like your little sister but fucked me like a goddess and I could never understand how that worked.

I also knew the reason we barely saw each other was because he had 5 other girls to worry about. Each more important than I was. I realized this one day when you were in my bed, Ethan. Your phone rang and you declined it and then looked over at me and for a second a flash of remorse passed through your stoned face. You knew what you were doing to me, you felt a little bad. But then I saw your mind drift to your first love. She killed you, so you killed me. I don't mind that you took your revenge for her out on me, it was an honor.

Anyways back to this afternoon, you brought me a rose and asked me to be your date. No one else existed in my life at this time, you were it. You were all I needed. If I had known that'd be the last afternoon spent pretending to be yours I would of asked you to stay the night. I would have asked you to touch me just a little longer. I knew it wouldn't last. I wish it did... I need to interrupt this book to give Ethan a poem... Ethan, are you reading this?

For the boy who couldn't sleep

I tried so hard to understand you

I didn't realize trying to figure you out

Is like trying to find a speck of dust

In the middle of space.

Fucking impossible and dangerous as hell

I know you weren't sober when you told me you loved me

But it's okay.

Inhale every girl you've ever touched and then blow their image away.

I... was surely sober

But now I think I could drink to your name

I didn't know why you'd stay up till 4am

Was it because you were afraid

That the image of her would tear away

At your eyelids as soon as they shut?

If it was, then I get it.

Because I can't fucking dream without praying first that I won't see you in it.

It's not that I loved you

It's that I could breathe when I was with you

I knew though.

I knew I wasn't the only one getting even the least bit of oxygen from a soul so divine

I know your thoughts, sober or not, sadly didn't consist of me at 4am

You left, although you were always kind of gone

And I guess I found what love, should be?

Not complicated or high or sleepy or shareable

The type of love that u show your mom

The "not so one sided" love

The "I can sleep because the cigarette ashed image of you isn't burning a fucking hole in my brain" love

The "I already knew you were going to say that" love

The "he's gone but you're here" love

And yes this love is easy and it's real

Not some fairly tale I dreamed up about a boy who was too far for my reach.

But fuck man

Don’t you find more beauty in a hurricane than a rainbow?

Because that fucking storm is real

And it's deadly

And it destroys everything it comes across

And it doesn't sleep at night

And it surely doesn't let you sleep at night

And then...

And then it leaves

And all I'm left with is a goddamn rainbow

And isn't everyone in some way completely amazed by that shit?

And you're fine. Don't get me wrong

You're fine.

But you're left wishing that god damn rush never ended

You’re left wishing the storm never passed

Ya know?

The "I could feel my heart beating when you touched me" love

The "destroy me because I'm yours" love

The "who the fuck am I kidding I'm not yours” love

The "lay in my bed and leave me breathless. Tired. And soaked" love

The "I don't care if you’re not sober just tell me you love me" love

That fucking type of love

The reckless type

The "I'll never know you but I gave you every piece of me" love

The "holy shit please don't die out there because a fucking piece of me, a piece no one but me can see, might just die out there to" love

The "thank you for writing words with me when I had nothing else" love

The "I hope you can sleep now" love.

You taught me something that day, something I've used on other people quite a bit. I told you that you are so fucking special. You smiled. You hardly ever smiled. And then you told me to close my eyes, I did as you said, I always did. You held my hand and after a minute of silence you asked me to describe the way your hand felt. With eyes still closed, I whispered the words cold, rough, and comforting.

 He told me to open my eyes and then said "okay I believe you. If my simple hands simply don't feel like just hands to you then I must be special, but if you find comfort in the coldness you must be wreaked." He wasn't wrong. He was special and I was the aftermath of two trains colliding. I've used this hand thing on a few people, try it readers. Ask someone to describe your hands. Are they just hands to them? Are they ice? Are they warm like the beach during summer?

Ethan's hands always felt best in between my legs or wrapped around my neck.

A week later, the day before homecoming to be exact, you left me. Don't worry Ethan, I don't hold anything against you. Thank you for telling me you were leaving due to the fact I was too young. We both knew that wasn't why. You had got what you wanted out of me, you took my heart, no replacing it or putting it back together. You left me cold. Thank you for keeping me warm for the few months before that.

Before I get into the next number let me tell you how the rest of this played out. I went to homecoming alone. We talked off and on, we still wrote beautiful poetry. I could never get my words to sound the way yours did, even writing this, you could do it better.

Later on freshman year I got caught selling drugs so I had to move schools, maybe it was a coincidence that I was transferred to the same school as you. So I spent sophomore year with someone new, passing you in the halls from time to time, did you ever catch me staring?

You were a senior and at the end of my sophomore year you were deported with the marines. Thank you for making me feel beautiful even if it was just for a little while, thank you for sitting in a car with me at 3 am when I couldn't stop drinking to your name. You knew you were dangerous, you still are. You took everything I thought I learned and threw it away only to give me completely new thoughts, people tell me they fall in love with my way my mind works and I guess I owe that one to you.

 Thank for your service?

Well there. The rest of this shit should be easier now. There you go. That's how I was created. I was birthed at his lips. I was taught by his fingertips. I was murdered with his words.

Dear Ethan August Meyer, please kiss me now that I am older.

Number 8 is short and sweet. He came after Ethan, big shoes to fill so I wasn't upset or disappointed to find that the glass slipper didn't fit.

Brandon Claxton, you were a sophomore and I was a freshman with a bad habit you didn't know about, and a broken heart you just couldn't fix. If looks could kill, you'd be Ted Bundy. To this day you are still one of the most attractive people I've ever encountered. You look like you should be on a poster at Hollister. Funny enough, I saw you working there the other day.

Beautifully tall, tan, blued eyed with combed over hair and more ripped than my heart when Ethan left. I'm not sure what you saw in me. We were so different. I couldn't get inside your head, you thought I was pretty and nice.

I was far from either.

You were dorky, a charming kind of dorky I must say. You smiled and laughed nervously, you rode a bike and stumbled on your words. You twitched when I touched you, because well I don't think you had ever been touched before.

Do you think of me ever?

I was almost your first kiss, remember that? You snuck over to my house at midnight and sat on my living room couch with me and listened to all my sad music that Nick, Ethan, and Zhanna had left me with. You didn't get them, I never wanted you too, it was cute the way you laughed at the songs.

I was high that night, you thought I was sober, I'm sorry. You awkwardly rested your hand on my thigh and at the end of the night I asked you to kiss me, you looked like you wanted to, you looked like your insides were shaking and sweating. Did I make you that nervous?

Anyways, I let you ride your bike home without a kiss. I should have leaned in and done it for you.

A week later you brought me flowers and chocolates and met my mom. We sat miles apart from each other on the same couch and watched a movie. You left and my mom asked why you were so weird. I still have yet to find the answer to that, but in my opinion you are not weird, you just needed to find a girl who was awkward and sweet.

That wasn't me.

I had to leave you a few days after because well, I ran out of chocolates and I was never good at keeping flowers alive.

I wished you the best, I'm sorry if that hurt.

I'm not going to lie I've seen you online in pictures now, you're hot as fuck and yet I still see that same charm in your eyes. I wonder Mr. Claxton, to this day, have you ever let another human being touch you and kiss you?

Are you alone right now with your cats reading this? If I had known you before Ethan, maybe I could of been who you needed me to be, maybe if I wasn't hiding 5 grams of weed, 3 Xanax, LSD, a bottle of Adderall and enough alcohol to drown my liver every night under bed, maybe then this part of this book wouldn't be so short.

I never wanted to disappoint you with the truth about me. So I smiled and laughed a little too loud when we were together, and you, sweetest boy I had ever met, fell for my acting. I'm so fucking sorry. But If I was a play, the tickets were sold out.

I promised myself not to hurt another person after you. This promise, like all the ones number 18 made, was broken at the end of 17.

I'm sorry I tried to use you to get me back on my feet. And I'm sorry the end result was only bringing you down with me. I hope this explains why I left. You deserved better, and better just wasn't me.

I went to school in a mind different than my own every day, my grades tanked and I was selling pills and weed in the school's bathrooms and under desks. I was almost sure my family forgot my name at the time. Maybe they just didn't care to speak it.

My cousin introduced me to a few other kids, I should have learned my lesson considering I picked Ethan up from her. I met number 9 through this group. Jose Soto. My sister and your sister are friends so let me not get into too much detail about this relationship.

It was never even a relationship. It was an attraction, a secret, whatever the hell you want to call it. I found you as a way to kill time, and a person to kill my lungs with. Although I admit, you made me realize nighttime is much prettier than daylight. You thought all my friends were cute, they were. So what was your interest in me?

I think you were a bit torn up too. You dated a beautiful girl who had a beautiful voice and amazing taste in art you lost her and I guess you were filling time too. I don't blame you.

People use people, that's how the world runs. You'd get nowhere without the use of someone else. I hope I got you somewhere.

We snuck out many times. At 3am you'd come over and we'd sit outside in front of my house on the sidewalk curb. We smoke and drank. You didn't have a problem with that. You held the blunt for me some nights as I laid on your lap and watched the stars.

We talked about people, you were also two years older and you told me life is shit. I couldn't argue. You told me it was cool that I was into poetry.

I used my house key and carved into the sidewalk

"Two messes sat above the galaxy

We became nothing more

Than the remains of a supernova"

We kissed

Your hands were around my throat

You asked me if it hurt

I asked for more

You smelt like raindrops and booze 3am simply smelt well when it was spent with you.

There are little pieces of me that wished I knew you better, but the realistic part of me knew that wasn't a good idea.

Jose was good company, to most people he was quiet or an asshole or a distant friend. For a month he was oxygen to me. I learned from him that even quiet people have a mind of a million thoughts. He walked me home from school one day, one of the few days I had seen him with the sun still out. He kissed me and toppled over me on the same couch where Brandon Claxton was too afraid to even lay a finger on me just a few months before.

Other than that we spent our time on the sidewalk curb. He showed me songs like "erase me" by Kid Cudi and I showed him songs like "objects in the mirror."

Let me tell you a secrete Jose, you looked so attractive when you were crossed.

I was into watching your liver and your lungs and your brain cells die as mine did the same right next to you. And we played that game every night. I saw your eyes light up a little whenever I'd get close to you, laugh, whisper "kiss me" and then pull away as soon as you tried.

The moon, Ethan's eyes, whatever you want to call it, looked good on you, or maybe it was just the lamppost that we sat under shined a little brighter for you, for us.

Once again I found myself high as fuck (on actual drugs not a person this time) for a few hours feeling like the main event.

Nick, winter, made me feel like a spec and he was the universe. Ethan, god, made me feel like I was nothing and he was the world. You, Jose, made me feel big in a small world. I'll make a comparison like this one more time, my factory, the ending, made me feel small in a big world. Thank you guys, for at least making me feel something.

Jose I don't really remember why those nights ended, correct me if I'm wrong but I think you, or was it me? One of us wanted to start a relationship the other just wasn't capable of.

If these high times would of happened in daylight he would've simply been a decimal in this book, but since he taught me that the best secretes, the best times, and the best people are stored during the night, and since he made me feel whole and gave me drugs that made me feel like I was in a black hole, for a few whole hours, here you go Jose, a whole number, wholeheartedly for you.

Not to mention I owe you for all the times you smoked me out and all the music you showed me.

       Christmas was coming up, Andrew, were you my gift?

Andrew Ruiz, number 10, my shortest relationship. I mean this in the nicest way possible, fuck you.

For a long time I asked myself a question: is it better to want or to be wanted? Number 10 you made this question clear. They are the same thing. You want because you long to be wanted and simply, especially in the world now, everyone wants to be wanted. Beautiful boy, I fucking wanted you, I wanted you to want me.

It was all a lustful interest that lasted about 2 months and cost me 150$ on a pair of shoes, can I get those back?

Andrew Ruiz. Basketball player, everyone loved you. I'm not exactly sure how I got you. And I don't exactly have very much to say about you but you are included in here for the 2 things you taught me. One is the art of wanting and being wanted, two is the simple fact that you should never give more than you receive. After you, I learned that I have that issue.

 You gave me a little bit of attention and I thought that was enough to give you all of me. I have to admit, kissing you in the backseat of your friends car one night was pretty fun. Taking pictures with you in front of the movie theater Christmas tree was even better than hearing you call me pretty on the phone each night.

I was down to watch basketball all afternoon for you, basketball is so fucking boring.

Looking back I'm not sure what everyone saw in you, yeah you had swooshed back brown hair to match your brown eyes and your tan skin and you were the perfect height to rest your head on top of mine while we were standing, but frankly that was about it.

I think the only risk you ever took was fucking a girl that was rumored to have chlamydia. But I stayed wrapped around your arm because you were prettier than any trip any type of drug had given me. Not mesmerizing or breathtaking, just pretty.

So to you, my pretty boy let me give you some advice, date the pretty girls that don't break hearts and who wear a different $200 necklace each day, date the cheerleaders that don't mind watching a ball being dribbled across a court. You know, the ones that look immaculate in a prom dress and beautifully dumb on a Friday night date. Don't go for girls like me. You'll end up in books like this and I'd have been $150 richer, thank you for leaving me 2 days after you got your shoes.

I guess Christmas is simply the time to give and not receive but on the bright side Andrew, I saw a picture of you the other day on Instagram, you look much better now than you did when your tongue was down my throat.

Number 11 the fullest story I could give of Brandon Wallace. Like I said, you were my best friend but underneath that I had always liked you. You're going to read this and I'm going to be embarrassed as fuck.

Freshman year I damn near lost your name in between the older boys and the drugs I was on. But you lost mine too, right Wallace? In between all the pretty Barbie’s and baseball games at your new school.

So when summer rolled around that year I was happy that I found where your name had been hiding in my mind. To everyone else we were opposite. We hung out with different groups of people and went to contrasting schools considering mine was known for parties and yours was known for stuck up rich kids, frankly after middle school you simply became above me.

That was of course until I told you how I felt.

I made a friend one night at a party, her name is irrelevant, but we sat on a bed of a truck and smoked so much we got the stars high too. She went to your school and she knew you. She was gorgeous and y'all had a thing that didn't last long.

An hour later I found your number buried in my contact list I sent you a message that went something like this:

"I've always fucking liked you

Ok?

There

I admit it, you beautiful baseball player

With your summer skin and your laugh that silenced a room.

I never wanted to ruin our friendship

And I knew I was never good enough for you

But I like you a lot. We were Bonnie and Clyde

I'm sorry I'm high."

L O fucking L

You told me you liked me back, I didn't realize what a player you had become. I didn't realize you had your first kiss that year, I had always hoped it was with me. And writing about you right now drags my mind everywhere.

We went to Denny’s one night with a girl named Michaela, we flirted and held hands under the table and she never would've guessed anything, even after knowing us both for years. Still no kiss. That'd also be the last time any of that happened.

I'll skip ahead just to finish this story off but I met a football player when that summer ended (he'll be here later), fitting considering I had always seemed to look better sitting in football stands rather than baseball.

So now I'm here regretting that night at Denny’s, because now I know I won't be your first kiss, not your second or third, or fourth or fifth and if I had realized that then I'd have stopped my car and kissed you under the trees.

If I had known that back then, then you wouldn't have found a spot as number 3 in this shit.

I could have made you fall in love with me, maybe I did.

Deep down we were so alike, I never needed drugs with you, and I never needed to feel high, you gave me a rush on your own.

You made me laugh louder than anyone before you ever did, I thought there could be no one after you that could make me laugh like that either (I stood corrected when I met 18) and unlike most people in this book, I never even seemed to get a chance at bat with you, or maybe I did and I just struck out, you could have been my home but I never understood baseball so I ran the other way. Maybe I'll pitch you another text after this gets released, maybe we'll slide to Denny’s at 10pm and eat pancakes with chocolate milk. Maybe I'll catch you around Brandon.

Hey guys, stay with me here, okay?

I know books are boring so here's a question to think about: if you wrote this, who would be your numbers? You learn by experience, so who's yours?

Number 12 is not a person, it is a summer.

If you're reading this book this is where some of the more interesting things happen because I became sober and I became aware of a lot of things. It started with my best friend and a summer that I wish lasted a lifetime but that summer was cut short with a death of somebody I loved. I’ll start first with the death of my beautiful friendship, the same friendship you guys read about earlier.

 If there is anybody in this book I'd say I missed most, Zhanna, you'd be it. We went everywhere. The zoo wasn't just the zoo with you. Our minds were wired the exact same and we found adventure in just about everything we did. We went out of town and the road trip alone with indie music and deep talks was enough for me.

It was never about where we were going with her, it was about all the things we could talk about until we got there.

Zhanna single handedly gave me hope in humanity.

I loved her.

Earlier I mentioned our minds. She was the only one who knew mine. To everyone else I was a druggie, a mess, a poor lover. I was always afraid to show people the way I thought because, well, people judge. Hard. But after Zhanna left I didn't give a fuck. I stopped being the person everyone expected and became the person only she knew.

Y'all ever listened to Hozier? Any song at all by him really, his small little album is the only thing Zhanna left me with. We listened to him all summer and now that album is stained in all her memories.

The beginning of summer is incredible, in fact, I'd say it was one of the best summers I've ever experienced, if this horrible mess  a few weeks before school started never happened. Keeping up?

I hit Zhanna's mailbox with my mom’s truck and ran. It seemed she never really liked me much after that. I tried, I tried really hard but it just wasn't the same between us.

She made a new friend out of Brandon Russell's ex, Bry. I made new friends too, 2 girls who I thought were so annoying back when we were younger. They became lively and entertaining, the shitty part of this is that Zhanna never liked them much. I'd like to think she was jealous, I'd like to think she loved me enough to actually be jealous of the two of them, but I'm not sure what it was. She kind of asked me to pick who I'd rather spend my time with and when I said Bianca and Nikita she could no longer be mine. I regret all the little things that ended our relationship…

The beginning of this summer was lovely, the end was hell. I lost Zhanna but found number 13. If this was the only unfortunate event, this summer would not be a number. But this painful number 12 was not done taking people I loved. 12, why’d you take her from me? Did you know I was supposed to go visit her that weekend? Did you care? Did it cross your mind before you took her that I hadn't seen her in almost a month? Time is a bitch, fuck you. Was it funny to you my dear summer? Did you enjoy giving me the time of my life towards the beginning and then snatching it all away at the end? Get to number 18 guys, he does the same thing. But for 12, the reason I include a summer as a number, is because this was the same summer my grandmother died. Before this tragic event, right after I lost Zhanna, I met number 13. I’ll end 12 because frankly that bitch took away my two favorite people and I have nothing left to say about it, but i’m not done talking about my grandmother, yall just aren't there yet.  

Number 13 could have been much longer than what it was but he was covered in his ex’s perfume and I just couldn't get that smell away from him.

Isaiah Martinez. This gets a little messy, in between 12 I met a friend of Ethan August Meyers online. He was cute and I really wanted Ethan's attention, maybe fucking with his friend would get it.

We texted and talked on the phone and he went to the same school as Ethan, Pearland, the same school I'll find myself at a month after Isaiah left me for someone else.

I didn't think I'd find myself actually falling for him as fast as I did.

He was nothing like Ethan, not even close, he was a sweet kind of weird. He had a voice fit for a freshman not for an upcoming senior, but I found it kind of cute.

I didn't think he had the capacity to hurt someone. He didn't break my heart but he did leave me feeling a bit empty when he told me his ex wanted him back and she was simply better than me, funny that now she's into girls. Irony huh?

I called Isaiah "bug", maybe to replace "monkey paws" but even Ethan's best friend couldn't replace him.

Isaiah, I'm not mad you left me, you're with a gorgeous girl now, not the one you left me for, a girl who seems like you in many ways. Y'all are in college and I love seeing pictures of the two of you so happy together. You were sweet to me, that’s all I got for you, I wish I got into your mind a bit more but it’s okay that I didn't. Everything worked out the way it should.

I'd imagine you being a very good friend to have so maybe after this book we could be friends but if not I don't mind, you told me you wanted to work in the chemical plants, I told you that you are capable of so much more, I still stand behind that.

There is one thing although that puts you in this book besides being the best friend of the marine I fell in love with. You Isaiah, were the last guy I got to tell my grandma about.

Thank you, I'm glad I got to tell her I was with a nice respectful man before she was kidnapped by 12.

Hey grandma, you're not a number but I do have to take a second to include you in this. I know you're not reading it, I'm glad you're not. If you were still alive I probably wouldn't even be writing it, I'd be too embarrassed of what you would think.

Your death caused me to kick the drug habit I formed, I wish you would have seen me sober just one more time before you left. I knew of all your grandchildren I upset you the most by my constant yelling and screaming with my dad and the fact that I use to be the favorite until I stopped visiting because when I would visit my eyes would be bloodshot and you'd tell me I was breaking your heart.

I know the feeling.

I'm about to sound like a real piece of shit here, I was, but death fascinated me.

So when I heard you had a heart attack I was hoping you'd be revived or some shit at the hospital so I can ask you how it was. There is a selfish secret that I rarely share with people. I'm so sorry. I had never had anyone close to me die, I didn't think it would ever affect me even if I did. But your death made me want to find the deepest part of the world, hide there and rot away.

I looked in the mirror and told myself I was a terrible person for months after this. I got to the hospital at 10pm and the rest of the family were sitting in the room crying their eyes out. For some reason I couldn't, tears wouldn't form. I sat there still listening to the beeps of the machines around us, the other lives who were dying in that building too.

Finally I grabbed your hand and it was cold, like one of those real looking plastic dolls. I lost it when I felt you. I broke down. I hated myself for being mad at you.        Why'd you have to die like that?

I screamed and I hated every fucking person around me at the moment. I wanted you to tell me what darkness you saw.

You see, you never consider actual death much until someone close to you croaks up and dies.

It was a concept I only knew by Ethan's kisses. But even that was simply a metaphor. This was real and you were gone. And grandma, I miss you, I wish I knew where you were right now.

I can act hard and poetic and fearless in front of everyone else but here I am, scared of where you went. Scared of where I'll go. After you left I tried to be religious, I learned it’s easier to let go of someone when you're telling yourself they're in a place called heaven.

So why couldn't I lie to myself?

I smiled this fake ass smile every time someone came up to me and asked if I was okay and proceeded to say something about how a man named God has you now and that your spirit is still around.

       So how come I've walked in side your old house and outside on the swing set I use to love and have yet to feel shit?

Where the fuck are you at?

I grew to hate the way people are controlled by education and religion. I grew to hate the way I used drugs to avoid the way I was feeling. So that summer when you died I finally felt the need to stop disappointing you, I stopped with the drugs but I continued to sell. I should have stopped with it all.  

       Grandma I miss you and now I'm 17 and all this shit is behind me and I all I want is to see you standing in front of me one more time, I want to see you smile when you look at me because I have cleaned up. My mind is still terrible but my hearts a bit fixed. I drink when I'm sad but that's not often. I work harder in school now, I'll be a senior next year, I'll graduate grandma, and I’ll go to college.

Please be proud. I'll do it for you.

I still can't bring myself to say that she's in a better place and it hurts when I think that one day I might share the same darkness she's watching right now. I hope I'm wrong about that.

I told myself before I started this book I wouldn't talk much about religion I'm sorry if you guys don't care to hear my opinion.

I do crazy things now but I don't do them to die I do them to live, like stand on the edge of an abandon building and jump off cliffs much higher than I've been in years, I like road trips and midnight drives alone in my broke down blue car when I sing along to music and think of all the times me and my grandma use to make cookies in her kitchen when I was little.   

Back to the book, back to drug dealer me, I was asked by my mother if I regret everything I've done the night I got caught with bongs, pills, weed, and enough cash to buy Ethan Meyers car, I stood there blank faced and whispered "no."

There's a stupid saying that ran through my head in that moment, it goes something like: "in life you regret more the things you didn't do than the things you did."

 So the way I saw it I supplied many sad souls with many different drugs to kill their sadness for at least a night.

I was a hero.

My mom didn't see it like that and I wasn't allowed to go back to Brook for sophomore year. I guess she figured if she took me away from my friends I'll be away from the trouble, she was partially right although in this time I became closer with 2 new friends, "mean girls" from that school.

They are still my best friends now.

Combined Bianca and Nikita are number 15, but if you can count you'd have realized I skipped a number.

14. I hate your name. I'd rather not say it actually. I could have started with you, I could have ended with you, but I include you now because Naya, you were most you after your grandma died and you became sober and you were forced to go to a school named Pearland.

I've said a lot of shitty things about decent people in this, so it's only fair to include myself.

I hate that I couldn't find you until I lost someone I loved.

I did horrible things. I was a coward for years and if I had never gotten caught I'd probably be dead by now.

But instead, I am a very sad poet, a complete cliché. I write about 7 and he hasn't so much as remembered my name in years. I work as a barista at a coffee shop. In the middle of writing this book I got my heart broken by a football player who's the last number in this, right after the building that tried fixing me. I'll stop jumping ahead.

I used my Aunt's address and had to transfer to a school named Pearland. Honestly I basically lived with her for a little while so I'm sure my mom was happy. I was not. I only knew two people that went to that school, Ethan and Isaiah. So I went on Instagram to try to make friends with anyone I could find linked to the stupid school. I found Jordan on the "suggestions" list. I should of kept scrolling, but this is my number not his so let me stop avoiding that fact.

I had to work so I got a job at a coffee shop. Starbucks, as a barista, and on Friday nights I close by myself so instead of listening to drunk souls I find peace with sad ones who liked to pour their heart out between extra hot soy lattes while I wipe down the espresso machine.

I listened to them talk about their jobs, their love life, their parents, and their dogs. I listen and smile and nod and ask if they want more sugar. When they leave the confessional I'm left alone with the coffeehouse background music that sounds nothing like in the restaurants with Ethan.

Sometimes there’s a teenager doing homework at the back table alone checking their phone every 10 minutes for a message that won't come. I know, because I do the same.

When I started this book I was in the middle of rolling a gram, it'd have been the first time I smoked since the last time I've told y'all about, but it's still on my counter, and now I'm 14 terrible people deep sitting in a quiet library scheduled to work in an hour.

No background music, no sad souls.

Just me and a few words. And after work I'll go out with Bianca and Nikita and I won't smoke but I will get miserably drunk and fall asleep screaming the names of every Influential Number I've met.

 Afterwards I'll wake up hating myself, eat frozen yogurt for breakfast and then do it all over again.

You see Naya, you are formed from people, not religion or science. You are solely the creation of every scar marked by every reminiscence found in this book.

You preach world peace but you are at war with yourself.

On the outside you crave danger you have a need to jump from planes, bungee jump and swim with sharks but that's only because your heart could never be that bold.

Because inside you are a coward and you get hurt easily so to make up for that you're a firecracker at first glimpse.

By this point in your life you're regretting many things but you're a hard headed wreck and you refuse to admit that you'd take anything back. As far as advice goes, I have none for you because you wouldn't listen, trust me, enough people have tried. You can't even listen to yourself and everyone reading this is probably thinking you're a poetic whore.

Your life is a paradox and you fuck boys who never grew out of playing games.

You hurt yourself and call it art. News flash, you are not art, you've been left 13 times and each time you were replaced with somebody better.

Get over yourself.

I like the smell of espresso beans in early mornings and I like the taste of hard liquor at night. Both are strong in their own way. So why aren't I?

This book comes with no morals or life lessons. I am a coward who wants to run away. I'm scared of fucking dying, I'm terrified of it actually. But in reality, up to this point, 14 god damn people have taken a turn at stabbing me, myself included.

 I'm scared of nothingness but forever also scares me too, so one morning I sat in a desk home alone, rolled myself a blunt and started this shit. Not because I care if anyone reads this but maybe after this

I won't ever die

But I also won't have to be here forever.

I have this dream almost every night where I sneak through my window and run away. And I drive until the road is only dirt until I find a city with pretty mountains, pretty water, and pretty people to replace all the ugly memories that I'm trying to bury inside a book.

Currently I'm sitting in a history class, learning about the war and my mind drifts to the marine I loved. What is he thinking while they are teaching him to use a rifle? Do they know his heart is more deadly? And then we bring up government and I think about Christopher, does he know he could easily become president sometime in his life? We learn about the airports and I think about Nick. Would he have literally killed me if he hadn't missed his flight? Woodstock is a day spent with Bianca and Nikita and the location of all the states on the American map are Mathew and James.

And I sit in the back of the classroom writing all you terrible people this and come to the great cliché realization that history repeats itself.

So how did I not see any of this coming when I met you Jordan?

I'm going to leave a poem here for you because I know you're impatient but you are still number 18 and I just haven't gotten there yet so wait on, just like all the ways I've waited for you.

But for now, here's this:

If you don't love me, can you pretend you do?

You don't have too call me in the morning

I know dreams are only meant for the moon

And if all I could ever be is the ground you walk on

Then walk 1000 miles over me

I know she looks like a fucking rose

And I am only a wilted Lily

But can you please still hold me in your hands

Just long enough to throw me back on the ground?

And I know this sounds fucking pathetic but I have nothing left

You are my stock market crash

You are the Great Depression

And if I were to take a cruise

You'd be the god damn titanic

But it's okay.

Drown me until I'm left lying at the bottom of the ocean only wishing you were lying next to me

Don't get me wrong

You think I want to die at the hands of you?

No

But I don't want to live in the arms of somebody else

So i'll drink this bottle

Because it reminds me of you

And not because of some dumb metaphor

No

Because frankly, you drank too damn much

And every time we kissed I tasted this cheap bottle of liquor on your lips

It's not that you broke my heart.

It's that you hit me going 120 on the highway and I fell off the fucking side railing

It is poems like these that make you so goddamn fucked up, Naya.

How are you feeling today?

Why even ask, it's not like I'd tell the truth.

What are you doing today? Drowning yourself in indie music, vodka, boys and this book?

Of course you are, you're predictable as fuck.

Where are you? On top of an abandon building? Laying on train tracks? Or walking in a forest?

Quit acting like you're any different from anyone else. Those places are just places and you're not the only one into them.

I don't mean to be such a bitch, maybe I picked it up from you.

Maybe reminiscing is just pissing me off.

You are one hell of a roller coaster, I'll give you that, although you need to learn to stop building a fire out of people who have no intention to keep you warm.

What about you, readers?

You find what number you are?

Are you me? The terrible number 14.

God I feel bad for you if you are.

But again, I am now the best version of myself that I have ever been and you Naya, still have a lot of growing up to do, that's why you're not the beginning but not the end either.

My next number are 2 girls I'm sure most of y'all can relate too. Or at least wish you could relate too.

I'll take a break from this depressing shit to talk about the two beauty queens, Bianca and Nikita. Here's a little history for you, on August 15th through August 18th, 1969 there was a music festival in Bethel, New York for the hippie generation, the counterculture, and the youth. It was called Woodstock. Over 400,000 people attended over 1,000,000 drugs were done in the course of 3 days. Imagine watching The Who, Janis Joplin, Santana, and Jimi Hendrix’s on one stage. Do you guys even know who they are?

I learned about this the other day in history class and thought about us three. We spend every goddamn day the way those 400,000 beautiful souls spent a weekend, but I can't write about now without talking about the beginning first, so here we go.

I’ve known y'all since we were in middle school although I didn't much like y'all back then, so I associated myself with a group of guys instead, and then I met a girl who I absolutely loved and she became my sister, then in between that I found myself getting along with the two of you.

 Zhanna didn't like that. I wish she didn't mind. Freshman year: Bianca you were a bit of a trouble maker associating yourself with girls who liked to cause drama because you thought it was cool.

Nikita, you have a gorgeous older sister and in some ways that means you have a pair of shoes to fill. Good thing you look good in heels, sneakers, slippers and just about anything else.

I began to like both of you that year, it was convenient that we all lived in the same neighborhood which meant we were all walking distance from each other.

But like I said Bianca developed a mean streak and her and Nikita had a fall out. Wasn't much of my concern back then, I still had Zhanna. That summer, Bianca became the birds she flocked with. And those birds took a strong disliking to me.

I didn't care too much but I admit I was a little upset B, because you see, you were never one of them, I tried to tell you that. So when you turned on me after reaching my hand out for you I was angry.

I spent my summer with my sister, my best friend and we'd laugh at night under a tree when we'd find you on social media making a fool of yourself for these girls who should have never been your friend.

Nikita was a bit more lowkey, she was sweet and respectful and stayed true to everything she believed, she still is a very religious beautiful person who spent a few days of that summer with me as I tried to wipe away memories of my grandmother.

I always admired the fact you believed so strongly in god, I wish I had something to believe in like that.

Bianca was beautiful in her own way, she is filled with rage and aggression. Maybe that's why I took a strong liking to her, she voiced her thoughts much better than I ever did.

Zhanna was fearless but Bianca had common sense. Nikita pushed Bianca just a little but never too much. It was a much more responsible mixture of friends.

So when Bianca stopped flocking with vultures I got closer to the two of them. Her and Nikita fixed their issues with a little bit of my help but I had to lose Zhanna.

I love y'all guys. Y'all would never make me choose friends, y'all would never let me drink and get high without saying something about it.

So when sophomore year started and I began a game with number 18 and lost my sister completely, y'all were both there.

I have to skip ahead to finish up the story of the two of you.

I am 17 now, about to be a senior.

A month ago in the middle of writing this book my heart was destroyed. Bianca and Nikita were there and they are still here, we go out every weekend and I fucking love you guys.

If you've ever been in the car with us you'd find it funny that all three of us are like a machine. I'm the driver, Bianca’s always the DJ and Nikita's the GPS and it works every night.

And after school we meet at my house we don't talk about life after death or metaphors or books but we sit quietly and scroll through twitter or take a nap with my dogs and I've come to realize I've found such a nice comfort in friendship.

In a week it'll be summer, my book will release and I'll hope to spend every goddamn day with y'all being 17, turning heads and laughing in the car at 2am after leaving a party.

We'll play indie rap songs and eat Whataburger fries and trash my room with memories and clothes.

You see reader, they are not me they're the embodiment of a 17 year old girl, confused, scared, crazy and beautiful as fuck. So it's no surprise that wherever we go boys follow. You want to be us yet? California trips and sneaking into pools after hours, concerts and parties and tagging our names at every abandoned place along the way.

 It’s okay I'd want to be them too.

 I want to say thank you guys, for holding my hair back when I've puked up all the words spilled on these pages, thank you for literally getting me dressed for bed and taking my makeup off after I've taken one too many shots. Y'all are the postcard picture for American teens. Right now writing this I'm lying on my bed and y'all are on the couch that is in my room under the indie tapestry and the grey walls and the Christmas lights hanging right above a string of empty clothes pins where the pictures of me and Jordan hung just 3 weeks ago before I tore them down screaming in tears, and I can honestly say I fucking love y'all.

We talk about after high school going to college and sharing an apartment and for the times we are together I am a bit cleaned up and this book seems like just a book and life seems like just a game and we are in first place.

Trust me, everyone has some bad parts but it's not my place to focus on them, it is only my place to talk about the parts of these people that have influenced me, Bianca and Nikita, thank you. Being 17 simply wouldn’t be fun without the two of you.

I was going to get into a very beautiful factory now, but I forgot somebody.

I should have talked about him at the beginning of my book.

But it's 1am and I just walked inside from sitting in a parked car with you crying over the last influential number.

Amir, number 16 fits you well, just like everything else.

I met Amir in fourth grade on a bus. We played arm wrestle and he was chunky, charming and goofy as fuck. He was a 5th grader, I barely knew his name but he lived down the street.

In middle school we had the same bus stop and we'd lay on the concrete and laugh. At school we hardly talked. He was a football player, still is. He is also a future dentist and a wrestler, funny huh?

In middle school Amir would walk to my house and sit outside with me when I wasn't with Avion, Logan, and the two Brandon's. We’d do dumb things like moon cars and eat ice cream and laugh at nothing. I looked at him like a big brother.

In high school, Amir, you grew up fast. You became fit, attractive and everyone's favorite. Girls drooled over you. Would it be another sin to tell you I drooled a bit too? You dated the prettiest girls and threw/attended the best parties. I figured you’d have forgotten about me, but you didn’t.

Want to know a secret Amir? I would have loved to be one of those pretty girls you dated.

Although it would simply be too awkward.

Why are you included in this? Because I love you, but honestly I'm just stalling because 17 and 18 are about to take the last of me left to write about. You still live by me and in my eyes you're still the same chunky kid I use to beat in arm wrestle on the bus. In everyone else's eyes you are a high school god, tall, buff, Persian, with beautiful hair and a silver Camaro that's almost as good looking as you, a real heartbreaker. I have to admit, even Ethan's yellow mustang has nothing on what you drive around in.

 You look so good sitting in the driver’s seat.

My mom loves you and if you haven't heard this in your four years of high school, I think you are very humble.

 Are you scared Amir?

You graduate in a few days, are you scared of your future? You will go from being a great white shark to being a tadpole. High school is over, your crown has to say behind in the desk you choose to leave it in.

You want to be a dentist, I can see that. You have fixed my smile many times when it was broken.

 We don't go to the same school anymore but I am so glad you still live close.

Let me stop babbling and tell you why you are really in here, because yes I am stalling, but you do have an ounce of influence.

Since I met you, you have always been there for me. You use to walk to my house to keep me company and then you got your car and you drove to me at any time I needed you.

Tonight included.

You have been there for every number in this book, including the last two I'm about to get too. We'd sit in your car, or on my bench and for hours talk about my problems and instead of giving me some shitty advice I won't listen too, you make me laugh and you make me blush and you make me feel silly for worrying about the things I worry about.

You are a year older than me and have high school figured out much better than I do. Everyone you meet becomes wrapped around your fingertips, myself included. You're a flirt and don't believe in love at a young age. You're daring and outgoing and everything I want to be. You're like a big brother to me and honestly Amir, I'm scared when you go off to college in a few months you'll forget about me.

       And I'll be left on my bench alone.

So before you go, here.

 Sitting in your passenger seat or next to you on my bench meant a lot more to me than you probably think. Thank you for not switching up on me. Thank you for picking up the phone when I need you.

 I'm sorry I need you most nights.

Let me also say thank you for introducing me to your friend Devin Pope, he is not a number in this, but he very well could be. Let me also stall a bit longer, my hearts not completely ready to write to the next two.

Devin, I've liked you since I met you, you're like Amir, but I would never call you a brother so it's not as awkward when I say I wouldn't mind laying in a bed with you. I think, like Amir, you're a bit afraid of love, you're graduating as well, and maybe college will bring you a girl as attractive as you. I'm sure a cap and gown will look very cute on you in a few days. When I met you, you read me pieces of books on FaceTime for a few hours. I think I was a little hooked then. Will you read a girl pieces of this at midnight sometime soon? You look like Mac Miller, which topped it off. Since then I had tried to get to know you a few times but it never seemed to work out, you could have been a number, your mind works differently than most people and I like you a lot for that.

Back to Amir, back to stalling, I hope if I ever have kids, they are lucky enough to meet you, if not meet you then meet somebody like you. I hope everyone meets somebody like you. Thank you for sitting in a car with me to make me laugh when I am a sad heartbroken poet yet again. I am incredibly lucky to have grown up with you living a street down from me and whoever you meet will be even luckier than I.

.. Okay Jordan. You might think the spotlights on you now but not yet. This should have been your turn, right now. Number 17. But it isn't, you'll be last because when it came to her, you put me last. But I love you J, you are the boy Amir has heard so much about. You left me in the middle of writing this book and I found comfort inside a factory.

I was going to end my story there, but as of this moment you are not done killing me, so number 17 is the factory who wanted to save me. I didn't let him. Oops, it.

This story, this number, this god damn abandoned rice factory took a lot out of me to write about so my apologies if you're left with questions at the end of this part. Some secrets are just better kept as secrets, this is one of those.

Dear factory, I’m about to sound like a selfish bitch.

 Of everyone I've ever met I owe the biggest apology to a building. This was my first taste at really hurting someone. Fuck, something.

I found you 3 weeks before I met number 18, the summer before sophomore year. You were standing there so broken, across the street from a hotel and out of place as fuck.

You're an eye catcher. Did you mean to catch my eye?

Pearland abandoned rice factory, you loved me the moment I touched you, didn't you? You loved me because everyone else would stand out in front and take pictures, but I climbed to the top and danced around on every crack of you.

 I was unforgettable.

For 3 weeks I made an introduction that will forever be stuck in your mind.

You were so captivated and seemed so alive when I'd run up and down the tall staircase. I felt so small engulfed in you and I had never felt better.

You, abandon rice factory taught me so much, but in those first 3 weeks, you were the one learning.

I taught you what danger meant when I spun around standing at the edge of you.

 I'd break down and cry in one of your many rooms and you learned what being wreaked really looks like.

You heard me sing and saw me dance around you at the top like there was nobody else in the world, and just like that, I taught you what love was.

Did you miss me when I met Jordan? Did your insides still smell like me? Do you still have daydreams of all the ways I have made myself acquainted with you?

Here is the start of a long list of apologies. Run down old building I am truly sorry for ever walking inside of you, and I am sorry I left shortly afterwards.

 Number 18 is not you, he is a football player with a big goofy smile and a mean streak. You two knew of each other considering you both reside in Pearland. Except he came from Dallas, and being a building you were grown and kept in the same damn spot. So when I left, I knew exactly where to find you, and I knew you'd wait.

I left with no warning. I was there one day and gone the next. I spent my time on the phone day and night with a boy I met online.

 He just wasn't into torn down places so I left you alone.

 I have to skip over Jordan to finish this story.

 For 2 years you waited patiently. I'd visit sometimes. I'd ask if you missed me. I knew the answer. You became much more attractive looking in those two years, I think it was because I spray painted my name on your goddamn heart and created graffiti all over your walls. I had to, it reminded you that I was there, I was not a dream, and I would be back.

 My visits in those two years were never long because I always had my football player boyfriend to attend to. But like me, you sat on the side lines. Except I was watching a game and you were watching me grow.

For the few times I'd visit, you'd listen to my cries and screams each time he'd rip away another piece of my heart. My football player was never the nicest to me, but I fell in love with his mean streak. And you fell in love with every broken piece of me that you'd have to put back together when I left myself shattered on your floors.

You drown my tears with beautiful songs that you would play for me and I'd scream at you and tell you do not fall in love with me.

I was not made for boys, I mean buildings, like you. I was made to be hurt that's where this book came from. You were made to be sweet.

 You were a home just waiting for some beautiful girl to come move in. But you have to understand, I told you from the beginning I was not that girl.

Sometimes you'd whisper secrets of memories you kept of a girl before me, a girl who was homeless and looking for a place to stay. She was mean and didn't spray paint memories of herself on your walls, she carved them. And after a while you had to shut your doors when she came around. I didn't realize I was hurting you just as much only in different ways.

I'd drive by you with my stellar boyfriend in my unmistakable blue car and we'd make love in the back seat so loud I'm sure you could hear. I was reckless with your feelings. So here is another apology. But I think you liked watching me drive by. You use to wish it was you in the passenger seat huh? Beside me watching me sing songs that remind me of everybody in this book I've written about. Watching me hit the gas until the meter hit 120 the same way my dad hit me at the start of this shit and the same power used as number 18 broke my heart for the last time in the ending. You got to realize man, that car was drenched in to many secrets and too many memories, you couldn't replace them all. I know you tried. 

It turned you on watching me dangle my life in the air. That's why when I sat on the edge of you, you didn't even flinch.

I wanted to spend my life with Jordan, you knew that. Our story should have ended right now. But half way into writing this book Jordan left. So I stumbled up your staircase drunk with mascara and tears smeared across my face asking for your forgiveness. I must have looked like I was at heavens gates begging to be let in, but just as I had lost god when I lost my grandma, I lost my belief in love when I lost my beloved number 18.

You shouldn't have let me in. I filled your mind with beautiful stories of how our summer would be spent. Adventures every day. I was going to fix you and you were going to fix me... But stories are simply only stories. You know that by now.

Let me say sorry one more time to you. I shouldn't have ran back at midnight looking for open arms to cry in to. But you really should stop picking up the goddamn phone when I call. You're smarter than that. I guess that's what love does to people huh? Make them dumb? Because I was a goddamn fool for so many people in this book. But we are similar in the sense that you are a fool too. A fool for me. I didn't mean to make a fool out of you.

Hurt people, hurt people. Except I was hurt enough to hurt a whole building. I guess it wasn't hard considering you were already half way torn down.

I created art inside of you. Art that you won't ever be able to take down.

And I write you this my dear factory, to help you. I need you to hate me. I need you to understand everything I did to you was so fucked up and I need you to stop letting me inside you. I need you to know I am sorry but if you let me, I might do it again.

Do you hate me yet? I was built by destruction. So is it really any surprise that I made you collapse just like my lungs and my liver and my heart and my mind?

When Jordan left and you opened your doors for me one last time, there was an eerie feeling in that building. It scared me. I had never felt that there before.

I attempted to build a home out of you like you always wanted, but you were not my home or my vacation or my escape. You were only a visit. A visit when I needed inspiration, hope or love. I’m terribly sorry I only ever visited when my mind and my heart weren't where they should have been. I’m sorry I touched your walls and made them crumple at my fingertips. I’m sorry. I tried to let you love me when he left, but you guys will all see, this next number I write about took every fucking part of me. So I had nothing to give to you my dear factory.

Please hate me because after all of this, I deserve it.

And the sad part is I'm sure many other girls will venture to you. Because you look so mysterious and captivating, and you will entertain them for as long as they will stay but they will never go inside of you like me. They will never climb to the top and dance and jump around on every piece and every crack of you. They will jump the fence that surrounds you and take pretty pictures in my reading glasses I once left there and assume that's all there is to you. For that reason, you'll long for me...

But I have a home, and you are only a visit.

I am sincerely apologetic.

Please hate me.

Are y'all ready to get this shit over with?

Because here is the ending.

Or many a beginning to another book? A sequel? I guess we'll have to find out. I find it ironic that this boy, the ending reminds me so much of the twin at the beginning. Although writing this, I'm starting to think it was not irony who introduced us, it was karma.

Number 18 Jordan Blake Healy. I started this book while we're together. Ironically you left me in the middle of writing about Ethan. I met you online the summer before sophomore year. My Instagram bio said something about watching the stars at 3 am in my underwear. You left me a comment that said "I'd love to sit in my underwear on the kitchen counter with you at 3am and talk about the universe." There you go, I was hooked.

Come to find out you were nowhere near the type of boy who gave a fuck about the universe. You weren't even much of a talker unless you were making people laugh, but that was enough for me.

I forgot about my factory the first night we talked on the phone. You went to Pearland high school. You walked the same hallways as the beautiful Ethan Meyer. When school started you walked with me down those hallways, we walked across Ethan each day and each day I stared at him like he was a ghost, he walked past me like I didn't exist.

When I first met you 2 years ago Jordan, I thought you were sweet, and funny and a change from the boys I had always been with. You made me laugh until I cried. I called you "booger" and you called me "buttercup"... And it sounded much better than monkey paws. Everything felt so real with you.

 I wasn't a poetic mess I was just a girl and you were just a boy and we were just having fun.

We met for the first time a few days before school started. We saw a movie and we both showed up wearing white. We made out and held hands until I forgot there was a huge screen in front of us playing some stupid movie and 50 people in the background watching it.

I was only watching you.

 I was falling for you hard.

You didn't clean me up, you didn't even know I was a mess. I forgot I was a mess. I lost myself in you and I don't think I ever smiled that much.

 God it was beautiful.

Nothing about us was perfect which was what was so wonderful about it all. I didn't need to be perfect. I didn't need to be unique. I just needed to be yours.

       I wasn't the only one with a background between the two of us. Like I mentioned before, you lived in Dallas. You fell in love with a girl there, she was your first love.

She is gorgeous and if she is reading this than I need to thank her for teaching you about love and for forming you, J.

You were heartbroken when you had to move away from her and while I spent mine with drugs, you spent your freshman year with a different girl each week to try to fill some spot inside you that your first love took away.

 I thought it was charming.

 Everyone thought you were a player, I guess you were, but you were heartbroken so it was justifiable. Did I fix that heart of yours?

At Pearland high school I was the new girl and you were the popular class clown, jock, and heart breaker. It was fitting.

You never much liked art museums, but it was okay because I fell in love with football stands.

 You caught me off guard, Healy. Girls like me aren't supposed to get boys like you. But "supposed to" didn't matter when we were together.

On game days I'd bring you breakfast each morning and sit in the stands alone in the afternoon cheering you on. You never officially asked me to be your girlfriend, it just kind of happened.

I didn't mind that everyone in the school only knew me as yours that is everyone except Ethan, Isaiah, and a factory.

Sometimes your jokes went a little far and they hurt my feelings. Sometimes when you got mad it was easier for you to just take it out on me. I didn't mind. I felt like a little girl in a new pretty dress when I was with you.

And we were together all. The. Time. Sophomore year we spent every day together, watching movies was our favorite thing to do. Second was riding bikes at a park, we'd get ice cream or wings and we'd kiss in front of a lake and I didn't care about the stories people use to tell me about you. I didn't care who you were before you met me. I felt wonderful with you. Life was spinning so fast and the motions of everything still run through my head and those were the happiest times.

I didn't need to feel broken to be human. I just needed your fingertips all tangled up in mine to know I was perfectly fine. Every god damn love song on the radio reminded me of you. Oops. I said the word.

Okay Jordan, I fell in love with you.

I loved you. I love you. I fell hard. 3 months into our relationship we were sitting in the football stand together on a Friday night watching varsity play. It was fall so it was getting cold and you wrapped me in your arms to keep me warm and we laughed that whole night and hardly payed attention to the game. I knew I loved you then.

If you guys can remember I told y'all how I was staying at my aunts around this time. Lucky for me she lived next to Jordan. We went to the park near her house every afternoon and cuddled in the grass by the lake until sunset. Until the sky was orange and I told you all the ways that color reminded me of you.

We snuck into her house one afternoon and had sex. It was Jordan’s first time, I wish it was mine too. J, you seemed so nervous it was flattering. It wasn't rough it pure passion and young stupid love. I'd have married you on the spot. My relationship with you was something you'd see in the movies. We never fought and if we did it was over in less than an hour.

I met your real mom and your little brother one day at a football game and fell in love with them too. I wanted them to be my family someday.

I had Bianca and Nikita at this time but you were still my best friend. I told you all my secrets and you told me all of yours. I was consumed in you.

 Utterly intoxicated with your laugh. Obsessed with your big brown eyes and the bump on your forehead, it was my favorite spot to kiss.

Unlike the girls you met freshman year I took the time to get to know you. I was patient and kind and loving and I'm not sure why. Something about you made me want to believe in fairy tales.

After you had your first time with me I guess you realized you like rough sex, my life was a series of rough events. So it worked nicely.

 One day at 7am after eating Waffle House we had sex in the back of my car in front of your neighbor’s house. Dumb teenagers, right? Your parents found out and we were screwed. Making gingerbread houses, carving pumpkins, bonfires, bike rides and watching movies all became nothing more than memories that would never be repeated.

You were snatched from me and your parents hated me. I felt so guilty. You were grounded for months. I snuck you phones so we could talk. Besides your parents, we were starting to have our own problems.

You became very close friends with a really annoying girl. You started to lie and keep secrets when I asked you to leave her alone. This is the first time I felt like I was being put in second place in your life. It hurt.

The next time I felt this way would be when I first started this book, a month after that feeling we broke up but that part of the story is yet to come.

I cried a lot to my factory. I was wrong for using that building as a way to dry my tears. But you were wrong for hurting me.

I finally got you to leave her alone I don't know what clicked in you. Maybe you realized she would never be there for you like me. Maybe you just grew sick of the fighting like I did.

That summer was a rough one, most of it was spent with Bianca and Nikita but the rest was spent sneaking around trying to see you considering your parents still hated me. But at least we had each other, right?

Your lips were still as soft as our first movie date.

We got to talking about our future, a life after high school, college, a family.

 Settling into a place to call our own, where there were no distractions.

The issue with this was that it was still only an idea we cooked up in our heads.

I worked at Starbucks and spoiled you with gifts, love, sex and attention as much as I could. But I guess even that wasn't enough to make you stay.

Junior year started. We survived the summer. I figured we'd survive anything. Evidently I was wrong.

The beginning was good. We were fine. I still laughed hardest when I was with you. The problem was, we weren't with each other often anymore. I became a friend with one of yours. The football teams quarterback.

 Andre Lavigne. He was well known around the school for fucking girls and never calling them back. You introduced us and I thought he was a prick at first but he grew on me. I decided to stop bothering my factory with my tears that you would cause, so I gave my problems to Andre. He and you are a bit similar, except for the fact he's a bit more fucked up than you J. You would hurt me with another lie and I would cry to your friend and he'd give me the best advice. There are many people I could have written about in this book, but it's a book of influence, so how did Andre influence me? I learned from him that other people's lives are probably a lot worse than your own. I won't spill your dirt Dre, but thank you for being there each time Jordan wasn't.

 J, you ready for the ending?

The middle of junior year was spent scavenging what little remains were left of our relationship. I tried so hard. I wanted to believe we would have a happily ever after, I wanted to believe you'd love me forever. I guess forever fell short.

 Before I say what happened, I want everyone to know that I gave 100% of myself to him, I did everything I could and forgave him for lying to me, for keeping secrets and for hurting me. I'd forgive him all over again.

But none of that matters, does it J? I started this book expecting to talk about how all the people before you were nothing compared to you. Expecting to talk about how our love has been strong for 2 years. How we are invincible. But that's not the case anymore. Half way into writing about number 7 you told me it was over because the fighting had gotten too bad.

We fought nearly every day over your best friend who was a girl, who took my place as your best friend, you spent every day with her, I can't help that it made me kind of mad considering we never spent days together anymore.

But you see guys, this girl had a friend too. She introduced her friend to my god damn boyfriend.

They talked more than me and him ever did. I watched our future became a faint blur because of her. So it was no surprise when you left me at 5pm on a Wednesday, p.s I didn't sleep until that following Friday. I drowned in tears and this book was put on pause.

I slept on the living room floor because my bed smelled too much like your shampoo and my room was covered in our pictures.

I had always figured you liked her but like Ethan, you were nice enough to give me a well enough excuse.

"We fought too much" is what you said. The next day I asked if you had feelings for anyone. It was no surprise when her name was brought up.

When we were together I begged you to leave her alone. You made me choke on my words. You told me I was crazy for thinking she was anything more than a friend.

Another lie.  Our two year relationship ended at the hands of another girl. I was so down for you J... you told me you liked her so I spent every possible day burrowing myself in my beautiful factory.

 But even he, it, couldn't fix me this time.

The games were over. I never expected you to win. I never expected her to beat me.

Maybe you were just lonely but a month ago we had sex and you said you still loved me and missed me. I'd have given everything to be yours again. So I put off writing your part in this book and I made the Pearland abandoned rice factory number 17 instead of 18, and like the name, I abandoned it.

All for you. I just wanted you to love me again. I just want you back J.

I'm not sure what's going on with you and this girl right now, I'm not even sure what's going on between me and you right now. We're sleeping together but you're still not mine and I don't think you will be again for a very long time.

Let me take a second to give y'all a message I typed for this girl that he was so stuck on. I never sent it. Maybe she'll read it now, maybe she won't.

Female to female I don't know what's going on with you and Jordan but I have no respect for you. I don't know if you know what love even is but I loved that boy with my whole heart I gave him everything and I did everything for him, I only went to that stupid school this year for him... and you come along and fucked up our whole 2 year relationship because you couldn't help but try to flirt with someone who was taken. And I don't hate you but that shit hurts. I wanted to marry him, I saw my whole future with him and you took all that shit away from me and you can go sit there and show your friends this message but I am typing this only for you female to female. And when I was laying in Jordan's bed Friday night after we had sex and he was telling me he loved me and wanted me to stay at Pearland another year for him and when I looked up at his wall and saw all the posters I had made for him still hanging there and when he told me he didn't have feelings for you anymore all I could think was fuck you. But if he is lying when he says that y'all are only just friends now then let me tell you something. You better treat him right. You better care for him and be patient and honest even when he lies. You better spoil him the way I did and be loyal to him. He's hurt me many times, and he'll hurt you too but be there for him because he is simply growing into a man so he'll make mistakes. I don't care that he has broken my heart, do not break his. You will probably hate me for sending this to you and you will probably talk shit about me, but instead of talking shit behind your back I'll say it directly, you were selfish and took away somebody I truly loved and female to female I hope you understand what that feels like one day.

Jordan, you and this girl really hurt me. But when I said forever I meant it.

So now you and she are just friends and you're asking me to stay in your life and I am utterly conflicted.

This book was made to have a happy ending and my fairy tale was supposed to be you.

You hate poems and metaphors so when I wrote about you I used none. But this book is coming to a close and I am still unsure of where I stand with you. Everyone has meant nothing to me when it comes to you.

You told me she was nothing compared to me, is that true baby?

I was supposed to write this book and have everything figured out by the end.

But it's the goddamn end and we are not together, but we're not apart and I am conflicted.

       You played games with me and won each time. And I am still here waiting for another round. Love makes you dumb. Heart break makes you insane.

At this moment I am dumb and insane.

 Tonight while you're in my bed, who else will be on your brain?

 Is this the way the ending goes?

 No fireworks?

 No wedding bells?

No promises?

I'm sorry readers, I'm just as upset about this as you are.

 Jordan are you going to give me a sequel?

An ending?

 An answer maybe?

 Are these the questions y'all are asking me, guys? Are you reading this book right now mad that I cannot give you the answer?

 Like I said, I’m so sorry I am a shitty writer, and a shitty lover and I am so sorry I make love to unpredictability because I guess this is where unpredictability gets you, huh?

Stuck at an ending that’s not exactly where the stories supposed to end.

 Jordan are you there? Or is it time for me to find a few new numbers?