text: My heart had been freshly broken. I reeked of instability and pain, not an ideal combination. My 16 year old self longed for something to latch onto, not yet knowing the comfort of being alone. His name was Case. A funny name, he told me his dad named him after a case of beer. Could have been one of his many lies, or one of his many stories. There was always a fine line between the two. I met him at a local fast food restaurant, thanks to one of my friends' matchmaking efforts. He was wearing a thick puffy jacket, despite it being quite a warm spring. He held himself in a way that made you intrigued. You could tell just by looking, darkness swam behind those crystal blue eyes. He was my ultimate downfall, but I didn’t know that when we sat on the dock that day, smoking a joint that his dad had rolled for us. I watched the waves as he told me about his childhood. About stealing a car when he was 14, or being sent to jail for hitting his mom. He always reassured me it was a misunderstanding, it was all just a big misunderstanding. And I believed him. His words were like a taste of tequila, I gulped them down wanting more. I depended on his words. I became an addict to them. Because over time, his actions began to speak differently. But his words, oh his words were so beautiful. He twisted them and screamed them and choked me with them. They were all I ever wanted. His beautiful chaos blinded me. I was a drunk for his torture. And the more I hung onto him, the more I let go of the life around me. I watched him turn his back on me as I was handcuffed and put into the back of a police cruiser. And I swore to myself in that moment I’ve never loved anything more. I stayed with him after that. My relationship with my parents had crumbled, but I was happy, because he needed me, and I was in need of being needed. His dad kept my loneliness at bay. The house was empty except for him and I most days. We swapped stories about our lives and our passions and mistakes. He was the father figure I was craving. But an addict isn’t someone a 16 year old should want as a father figure. I realized that just a few short days after staying with them. It all started with a simple pair of volleyball shorts. My belongings at this time were far and few, including a pair of tennis shoes, two pairs of shorts and one shirt. I was pulled aside by Case’s dad. He told me my shorts were distracting, he said I needed to change. I didn’t argue, though at the time I was puzzled as to what I had done wrong. I left the next day. It all happened very fast. Living with someone like his dad was unpredictable, one day he was fine, but the next he was on a path of destruction. The day I left happened to be one of those days. His father's girlfriend claimed I was trying to seduce him. My own boyfriend's father. She said the time I was spending with him and the clothes I chose to wear made me a dirty whore. In a rampage they told me I had brought demons into the house, they told me they couldn’t sleep ever since I came to stay, along with other terrible, degrading jabs. I was shocked, but once again I didn’t fight it. I still had Case. My beautiful addiction. The next day his father hit him in the back of the head with an acoustic guitar. And our trail of fire commenced. I snuck him into my house for weeks. I cut off all my friends. My mind had only one thought; him. After Cases’ dad gave up his parental rights, Case was sent to foster care. I chose to leave my family behind and live in an apartment with two friends. I couldn’t bear to be alone so I enclosed myself with people I thought were good for me. But no matter how much good you think you’re doing for yourself, if all the closest people in your life have vanished, leaving with words of warning, you aren’t doing good for yourself. I wrote to him every day. My heart yearned for him every single day. I cried for him every night, wondering what he was thinking, if he was thinking of me. Turns out I had just been one of the many girls he was preying on. But I didn’t know that. Maybe that would have stopped me from driving up to the foster care he was at in the middle of the night. Maybe if I knew that I wouldn’t have taken him home with me. Maybe if I knew that I was the victim of a fucked up, malicious, manipulative liar, I wouldn’t have lied to the police when they came knocking at my door. My heart belonged to him, and I couldn’t risk falling apart again. So I destroyed my entire life to keep him in mine. But they found us. They tracked us with dogs through the woods. I burned for his love, I willingly ran with him, doing anything to protect him, my heart. But they took us away. They took him away from me. After that I cut my hair, I left every memory of him on the floor with all the blonde tendrils. Because I finally found out who he was. I found the messages, telling other girls I was just some girl he talked to a few times. Leaving out the months I spent crying myself to sleep, holding his shirt because he was my world, my addiction. He didn't mention the times when we had to pack bags before we went to sleep because we weren’t sure we were going to have a place to stay the next day. He forgot about his dad taking money from me to get high. No. I was just a girl he talked to a few times.