Lighting a Match in the Rain

Chapter One

It's him who taught me to trust myself.

I know he didn't do it intentionally, and I don't think he ever realized that he did, but it was definitely him. At the beginning of our relationship, he showed me how I should be treated by someone. Being treated decently by my boyfriend was a new experience for me. All I was used to was being dragged around by an angry troll man with bleach blonde hair. But that time around, he picked up all my shredded, rugged pieces and taped them back together.

I loved him or felt what I thought was love at the time. Looking back now, I know it wasn't love. It was comfort. The comfort of knowing a decent guy was taking care of me and my feelings, not treating me how I was used to boyfriends treating me.

I would have taken a bullet for him though. What I hadn't expected was it to be him behind the gun.

It's funny how life works out that way, isn't it? Some prince charming shows up in the middle of a grocery store, saves you from being tackled by a stack of overripe oranges, then shoots you in the heart at the end of the chapter. It truly throws you for a loop. He gave me false hope, and I believed him.

My mind was the first to warn me. I saw the red flags, but he told me everything was fine, and obviously, I believed his words over my thoughts. Over the course of our time together, I had told him what hurts me the most, and in the end, he performed it perfectly. He destroyed me. I trusted him more than I trusted myself and that was the reason for one of the biggest lessons I've learned to this day.

Trust yourself more than anyone.

That was eight months ago. That train wrecked and was put out of service forever, and today, I was okay with that. One day I woke up and he wasn't my first thought in the morning. He wasn't my last memory at night. One day, I was completely and utterly over him. And it was good. I was able to learn how to love myself and not depend on some douchebag guy for happiness. I learned how to be the reason for the smile on my face.

And that's exactly what I was doing as I dragged my little sister out of the passenger seat by her ear: smiling.

"Ow, ow, ow!" she whined, pulling away from me as I slammed the door shut. "I don't want to go! What if I make a fool of myself?" Macey looked around the parking lot at all the surrounding students, most of who were already making their way inside the building.

Rolling my eyes, I locked the car. "You probably will," I told her, turning around and walking toward the front doors.

"But it's my first day!" she cried dramatically, pulling her bag securely over her shoulder and rushing after me.

"It's also every other freshman's first day. Everyone else is just as nervous as you," I assured her. "You'll do fine."

I pushed open one of the double glass doors and entered the school that I knew like the back of my hand. After three years here, you learn where all the skid marks are that have never been mopped away and where all the little hiding places are to ditch classes. "Oh, no" Her round stormy eyes grew wider. "This place looks a lot bigger from the inside."

"Macey, you've been here before," I reminded her, already pushing our way through the crowds of students. She'd tagged along on many short adventures here when I needed to drop off my late homework to a teacher after school hours or when I had late tutor sessions that our parents made her join, thinking I could teach her something too.

"But not when it is full of stinky teenagers!"

"You are a stinky teenager."

"Ella!" she whined again.

Turning around and stopping in the middle of the hallway, I put my hands on her cheeks, making her stop her frantic observing and look me in the eyes. "You'll be fine. Your first teacher is Mrs. Lane. You know her. You'll have fun."