"She was special. Not in the way everyone saw and thought was so horrible. She was just eccentric and amazing. McKenna wasn't evil, she wasn't even mean. She was just scared. All she wanted from you was reassurance. She wanted help and love. Kenna was 17 yet every time I talked to her she seemed like a thousand. She was always sad and I rarely saw her smile. Now I can put a face to those who made her suffer so much.

She was just a child. She wanted people to show her what love was because she couldn't figure it out,"Ethan's eyes roamed the crowd pinning them each to their seats with sad and pained eyes, "She came to you, to all of you, when she was in need and you threw her to the floor and spat on her. She was vulnerable and you turned your backs. I didn't. I love - loved her more than anything in the world."




"No!" McKenna screamed hitting the boy who took care of her so tenderly in the chest,"You don't!"

"I love you! Kenna, please." He begged her reaching his hands out.

She recoiled knocking over a vase and running as it shattered on the ground. McKenna could hear him calling her back, pleading with her name. How could he tell her that he loved her? How could he expect her to believe him? The attack hit as she into her room. Tumbling toward the floor her heart constricted terribly as panic over took her.

What would he do to her now? She wondered clawing at the navy carpet and forcing herself to her feet. What would he do because she hit him? She thought of the bright red mark she had made on his cheek after he had met his lips with hers with horror. McKenna quickly forced down the panic with a few pills from the orange bottle under her socks. Medication for the medicated.

Emotions flew at her and she began to cry. She collapsed sobbing against her hands. When her name was called from the doorway her head flew up. He stood there staring at her with blue eyes vividly filled with concern.

"Get out!" She screamed,"Get out! Get out! Get out!"

She picked up a bottle that had been on top of her dresser filled with flowers from the boy. The bottle smashed shattering loudly against the halfway opened door. The boy, Ethan, winced but did not move. McKenna lunged instead, hitting to door with enough force to make him jump back before it slammed into it's frame.

She fumbled with the lock her hands slippery with tears and sweat. A strangled sound came from her chest as she began to cry again. Why? Why did he love her? What was to love? She love him too, though she did not know what it meant and she would never tell him. She would not succumb to forcing him into that faith.

McKenna refused to torture him also.

There was a plate on her dresser, they had eaten in her room the night before. They had steak for her birthday and had made a canopy out of old sheets. It was still up she saw and crawled into it. Their plates were still there, neither of them having been willing to pick them up. She remember the way she had woken up that morning as she picked up one of the steak knives with shaking fingers.

She had woken up happy and warm.

McKenna had liked the feeling of Ethan's arms around her as he slept. She had giggled with he breathed onto her neck still lost in slumber. She had woken up happy and warm under a canopy with the boy she cared for.

Now she would go to sleep under that canopy hurt and cold with no comforting arms around her.

The knives bit bitterly into the fragile skin of her wrists. She pressed harder and nearly screamed in pain but continued. The world swum and danced as she rolled over. Dipping a finger into the blood like you would a pen and ink she wrote carefully on the spinning sheet four words:

I love you, too.



"I loved her,"Ethan said his heart aching," and she loved me, too."