Erin Carter (Title Character) [Vox121]

I know I am blessed in the looks department. No one ever let me forget it. For as long as I remember, I was constantly being called the ‘cute’ one. The ‘pretty’ one that somehow set the standard for others to be compared to. It was the first thing anyone ever saw—and often the only thing. All through my life, I was always the ‘pretty’ one to my family. My friends were constantly mentioning how jealous they were at this or that. As if every day I woke up as I presented myself; the time it took putting myself together didn’t happen. They spoke about it like it was a natural phenomenon. A foregone conclusion. None of the effort and hard work I poured into myself mattered because they only ever saw the finished product. They only cared about the finished product.

Maybe that was the reason why I formed such a close relationship with Colin. I still remember the first thing he ever said to me.

“You smell like coconut. My mom gave me coconut once. I don’t like it.”

The wonderful mind of a child.

That wasn’t the start of our friendship. That came later. I think that was the first time someone had ever referred to something other than my looks. It was always, ‘You have such pretty eyes,’ or, ‘I wish I had hair like yours,’ or, ‘Aren’t you just cute as a button?’ Not with Colin. My presence only reminded him of his passionate dislike of coconut.

I never used coconut scented products again.

As I grew older, the comments about my looks were gradually replaced by lingering looks or worse—lingering touches. Everyone seemed to have an excuse to touch me, and eyes tended to wander when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. Maybe if I didn’t try so hard to look the part, I wouldn’t have gotten so much attention. By then, it was a part of me. I was the ‘pretty’ girl at school and I worked hard to live up to it.

High school was really when my relationship with Colin matured. He was a friend during middle school, but in high school, he stepped up in a big way. My rock, so to speak. Girls joked about how he was my shadow, seen but never heard. To me, he was my goofy sidekick, quick to a smile and always ready to listen. Spending time with him allowed me to feel like myself. I never felt the need to be anything other than... me.

Looking back with the wisdom of age, I hated how stupid I was. The signs were always there. He was my Hercules, my Atlas; carrying all the weight and drama of a popular teenage girl in high school without a single peep. Friendship drama. Relationship drama. Family drama. I dumped so much on him, taking his presence and kind nature for granted. The way the immature me treated him horrified me. He was always a quiet and introverted boy, but I was constantly forcing him into social situations. I dragged him around like a fashion accessory, telling myself it was for his own good. He’d never have friends of his own unless I dragged him to this party or friend gathering.

Worse, I think I knew he liked me. Maybe not romantically, but as a crush. I thought I was being mature at the time, putting our friendship before all else. Maybe it was a good thing I dated so many other guys. I don’t think I would have figured out what I wanted if I didn’t have so much experience with what I didn’t want. Besides, it wasn’t like I was sleeping around or anything like some of our friends. Sure, I experimented. Over the years, I’d given a lot of handjobs. The last two years of high school, I’d graduated to blowjobs. Even then it wasn’t like I was giving them out to random guys. Each and every one was with a guy I was in a relationship with... Even if the relationship only lasted a week or so.

Still, I drew a hard line there. Going farther never seemed right. Guys pressed for more. They always pressed for more. Number one reason for me dumping a guy was because he wouldn’t shut up about it. That alone should have clued me in. Even when I was the one being dumped, I never really felt too broken up over it. Not that I stayed single long. The moment word got out that I was single, I had a line of guys begging me to give me a chance.

Certainly didn’t help my inflated ego.

Senior year changed everything. I’d been in my longest relationship yet—eight months! A milestone that young and dumb me declared I’d found, ‘The One.’ He was funny, charming, attractive, and most of all, patient. He never pushed me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. When he tried to push for more, I told him to wait and that’s exactly what he did. Prom came around and I decided that would be the perfect opportunity to take that next step. I had spent weeks building up my resolve. Everything was perfect. The dress, the festive atmosphere, the occasion. The man.

For a lifetime of simple straights, life’s first curveball was especially devastating. On the night of my teenage fantasy of the perfect romantic evening, finding out that my loving and patient boyfriend was only patient because he was emptying his balls into my best friend on a regular basis completely blindsided me. Not only that, the asshole had knocked her up. To really kick me when I was down, my entire group of ‘friends’ had known about it. For months. Devastated didn’t even begin to describe the emotional hell that followed. My entire high school life had been a lie. Things spiraled as the truth I’d been willfully ignorant of came out. Guys were only my friend in the hopes of fucking me. Girls were jealous for any one of numerous petty reasons. They had been biding their time, waiting for a single slip. Once it all started to fall apart, they leapt to feed on the corpse, tearing me down any way they could.

On reflection that can only come with time, wisdom, and a lot of pain, I _absolutely _deserved it. Endless praise had made me a stuck-up bitch. I took compliments for granted, never looking deeper into the reasons behind them. All the praise and worship I was showered with had made it feel natural. Like I deserved it for simply gracing others with my presence, and my actions reflected it. My friends were fake because I never offered anything real in return.

Colin was my lifeline. Through it all, he was there. Not once did he judge me or offer me advice. He was the shoulder to cry on. The ear to listen. The solid pillar I clung to as everything I knew fell apart. Like I had done all through high school, I abused my relationship with him. My one and only true friend who stood with me through good and bad. I abused our friendship and worse, I abused the feelings he had for me.

Sleeping with him was one of the greatest regrets of my life. Not that I slept with him, but the reasons behind it. I knew he had a crush on me and I was in a bad place. As if that excused what I did. **** to not lose him as I had lost everything else, I gave him what every other guy in my life wanted: me. I figured if I gave him that, he would have no reason to leave me like the others had. Looking back on how I treated him during that time still fills me with guilt and disgust.

Having sex with Colin woke something inside me. A realization that I liked sex. A lot. I guess a silver lining to the disaster that was the final half of my senior year was I made this discovery late, and with someone I would ultimately wake up to realize I loved. Considering my social life and the people I surrounded myself with, discovering the joys and wonder of sex earlier would have set me on a much different and destructive path.

Colin weathered my newfound sexual awakening like he had everything else—stoic acceptance. I wish I could blame it on the emotional turmoil going on in my life at the time, but the simple truth is I was obsessed with sex. Every possible moment I could, I was dragging Colin to bed. Not only was I completely invested in him physically, but as the weeks dragged into months, I put more and more of my emotional and mental well-being on the one person who I felt would always be by my side. After all, he had always been there for me in the past, so why would the future be any different?

Our wild romp as friends-with-benefits ended two months after graduation. My parents were out of town for a four-day weekend, so I dragged him over and spent almost the entire time putting him through a gantlet. We burned through the box of condoms by the second day, so we continued without. Not the brightest decision considering I was not on the Pill at the time.

Still, one of the best weekends of my life for reasons other than the copious amount of sex we had. It was the weekend that Colin finally broke down and asked me the question that changed everything.

“What am I to you?”

Poor guy couldn’t even look at me when he asked. I think it was the way he was acting that finally conked my dumbass straight. He looked terrified of the answer. Like I would answer how I always did when someone questioned our relationship.

A friend.

Just a friend.

His question made it all click. How I’d been acting. What I’d been doing to him all this time. How absolutely fucking clueless I was. In the moment, I had no idea how to respond to it.

What was Colin to me?

I answered with the only thing that felt right.

“My boyfriend.”