Growing up in a home with no siblings and self-absorbed parents was a lonely way to live life for a child. However, loneliness taught me to be comfortable being alone … or maybe it just hardened me?

It was the same way in school, too—it still is. I have no friends. It all goes back to the day I found out the reason no one wanted to be friends with me.

We were only nine years old.

It was lunchtime on a cool spring day. The sun was warm on my skin, but the air still sent a chill running through my body. I was making my way to an empty bench far away from the playground when I saw Paige and her posse approaching me. It was too late to avoid them. I remember lowering my eyes to the ground, pretending that I didn’t see them and hoping to get them to ignore me, but I wasn’t that lucky. As soon as I was close enough, I heard Paige, who was flawless, say to her friends, “She’s so fat. I wonder if she eats in her sleep.” There was snickering and then someone added, “Did you know that her mom left her and her dad for another man when she was like two years old but then came back? My mom told me to never be friends with her because her mom steals daddies, and her dad is always drunk.”

I felt my heart skip a beat as my chest contracted with pain and tears blurred my eyes. With each word, they killed me a little bit more. Then Paige added, “Oh yeah, I heard my mom talking to my daddy about it. She also said that her dad came to a meeting with scratches all over his neck and face and smelling like alcohol.” She paused. “Anyway, she told me to never be friends with her. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to worry because I would never be friends with a girl who looks like a fat duck.”

They burst out laughing, and when they saw me stop and stare at them as tears fell down my cheeks, they began to laugh louder and harder until their cruel delight was all I could hear.

I began to run away from them as fast as I could, but the ringing in my ears and the ache in my chest wouldn’t stop. Their harsh words wouldn’t let me escape my ugly reality.

It all made sense after that. Hearing them talk had brought back memories of all the crying, fighting and yelling. When she mentioned my dad’s wounds, it reminded me of that night, and the horror I’d felt seeing my parents in one of the lowest points in their marriage. I remembered the courage it took that little girl, not even eight years old, to stand between them, and beg them to stop fighting and love each other, just as she loved them both. The tears streamed down her face, and her voice shook with pain.

Suddenly, I understood why their parents wouldn’t allow them to come whenever I invited the pretty and popular girls for sleepovers. I understood why my mother, who was the prettiest amongst all the moms, had no friends. And I understood why my classmates’ fathers always seemed to stare at her like she was something shiny and beautiful to look at. I understood why my nanny, the only person who truly loved me and didn’t find me an annoyance, said that my father had been a good man, a brilliant man. A man who, when left with nothing, battled ghosts with the only weapons available to him—hatred and alcohol.

That day, with Paige’s cruel words still spinning in my head like a tornado, leaving total wreckage in their wake, I grew up and kissed my childhood good-bye.

After that day, I discovered one indelible truth. I discovered that love wasn’t everything that mattered in life. It was an emotion that not many had the luxury of feeling without any pain attached to it.

Many say that love will set you free, but I disagree … love is a cage, a very painful one; its gilded bars made with yearning, heartache, and unfulfilled dreams. And the moment I realized that love wasn’t necessary to one’s survival I became free. No one would have the power to hurt me again.

That realization set me free.

If love had been enough, the love I had given my parents would have been enough for them. Enough for them to want to love me back. Enough for them to want to give our family a chance. Just enough.

But you know what? You can wish in one hand and shit in the other.

So I said, “Fuck them.”

I stopped caring; I didn’t want to care anymore.

I made a decision that no one—no one—was ever going to hurt me like they did. And whatever was left of my heart, I surrounded it with so many thorns and spikes that if you ever came anywhere near it, I would willingly and happily hurt you.

This was the new me.

And then I got pretty—beautiful, really—and shed all the baby weight from my younger years. Like the ugly duckling from my favorite childhood story, I turned into a swan. Though beautiful on the outside, I felt ugly, so very ugly on the inside.

Men of all ages started to hit on me—their attention making me feel high and powerful. A delectable feeling came over me whenever I saw a man’s cock get hard as he looked at my ass, probably picturing himself fucking me, or saw the hunger in his eyes. It made me wet.

Which explains why I gave my virginity away to Mr. Matthew Callahan. I chose him deliberately, and trust me when I say that my heart had nothing to do with my decision. He was the father of the girl who made my life miserable growing up after all. And maybe I chose him for that exact reason.

After “bumping” into each other at the coffee shop multiple times, it became obvious that we both kept going back to see each other. Flirty comments were exchanged, each pushing the envelope of what was right further and further away until we crossed the line unequivocally. The first time, he fingered me as we made out in the backseat of his expensive car while he told me about the many times he had imagined himself doing this.

The second time we had sex that first night, he came inside my body, panting how lovely and perfect I was. As I felt him shake above me, I remember thinking that this was the same man who I’d wished so many times to be my own father. The love and adoration he showed his family was perfection.

What a joke, right?

The paragon of our town had just fucked the shit out of a seventeen-year-old, doggy-style, in a seedy motel an hour away from his house, while his daughter and wife went to a tea function …

I’m a couple of lockers away from mine when Josh intercepts me. Hot and popular Josh. Every girl wants him and every guy wants to be him. He’s the benchmark for perfection, captain of every sport that matters. He is the guy in our high school.

He grabs me by the waist, saying, “Sup, baby? Wanna meet me after school and go for a drive?” He leans closer and whispers in my ear, his hot breath kissing the exposed skin of my neck. “I miss your sweet little mouth.”

Feeling my skin burn with shame, and maybe excitement, I push him away. “Forget about it, Josh. I can’t today … I’m busy.” Of course, I don’t add that I’ll be busy collecting a gift from Mr. Callahan.

“What the fuck? You’ve been giving me that bullshit excuse for the past month!” he exclaims, anger and confusion marring his boyish beauty.

Sounds about right. I believe that’s how long Mr. Callahan and I have been seeing each other in secret.

He pins me with his angry, hurt gaze. “Are you seeing someone else?”

I flip my hair carelessly, not missing the way his eyes land on my boobs. “Whatever, Josh. Stop being so immature … I gotta go or I’m going to be late to class.” I move away from him and begin to walk toward my locker.

“You’re such a bitch, you know? I don’t know why I waste my time with you when I could have anyone I want.”