Karli, that is my name. I’m in the ninth grade. I’m kind of your average girl. I have plenty of friends, good grades; I’m down to Earth. The only thing is, I always made the same mistake, constantly. I fell for a guy, got hurt, and went into a depressed state for about three months. I couldn’t help it though, I was just looking for someone special someone who would love me forever and never hurt me.
      Sometimes I felt like I was just running in circles. People stepped into my path, lead me off, and threw me back. They’d lie and pressure me trying to get what they wanted and when they didn’t, they hated me. I didn’t think they could see the pain, heartbreak, and tears left in my eyes. Sometimes I wondered if true love really existed or if it’s something this world made up just to please themselves.
      I felt like I went through pain all my life. No one understood me. Sometimes it was like I had no one to talk to. I was tired of making the same mistake, I mean, wouldn’t you? I hadn’t hurt anyone, and quit frankly I didn’t know how I learned to deal with it. Actually I never did. Something happened and I was left alone in my room, listening to music, and eating cookie dough ice cream (aka: depressing ice cream). I guess I might have overreacted a little bit, but it had been painful. Sleepless nights, crying a lot, keeping to myself, and being quiet. My friends worried a little bit but they’d get more or less annoyed. They eventually got used to it though. Obviously, I was better. Every mistake I learned from. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?
      I kind of had to learn on my own, yes, I had parents. They just, only cared about my grades. Last time I liked someone and told them, I was told I only needed to concentrate on school and that I was boy crazy. They “talked” to me, in other words fussed at me in a calm-like manner. Well, that was the last time I told them anything, that’s for sure. Then they began to say that I didn’t tell them anything. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t, it was impossible. If I told anyone anything it was my best friend Crystal.
      She was basically my sister. I could tell her everything. She may have judged me or given constructive criticism, but at least I knew she only meant it for the best.

By now you’re probably wondering about some of the pain and heartbreak I was talking about. Well, here is one of the stories probably the most painful one of them all. Before I tell you though I need to get one thing straight; this is not one of those sappy love stories. This chapter is going to get a little bit sappy but after that there no sappiness. Okay, we met in the beginning of eighth grade. It all started at a football game.
***
      Valor was his name. He was tall and had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. I first met him at a football game with Crystal. We had both been talking to him and both developed a small crush for him. Let’s just say Crystal stopped liking him a week later and I continued to like him.
      I eventually told Valor and then he had started liking me too. All this had happened between September and December.
      Near the end of December we all (eighth graders) had exams. It was the last day until Christmas break, last day of exams, and I had been studying for math with Valor. At the end of the day I decided to tell him everything I ever felt and he responded by kissing me on the cheek. It was pretty amazing, I’ll admit. Over Christmas break we had talked almost everyday. He had told me he loved me on Christmas morning. Then we basically started dating in January. That was fun; we celebrated Valentines Day and all. In March, something had hit the fan.
      Valor and I were talking after school and he took me to a private area to talk. That’s when he told me that he had done some things that he regrets and that I deserve someone better; we could still be friends, though.
      At the time I thought I’d be okay until I went on mebook and saw, “Valor is now in a relationship.” I just lost it; I couldn’t tell if I was mad or upset. I was more of both I guess. I just wanted to tell him everything that was going on in my heart. What I wanted to say is what follows; my exact thoughts.
      If I could’ve told Valor anything I would’ve told him I still loved him. I would’ve told him how much I missed him and how much I wished he were here. I would’ve said to him how much I defended him around my friends and how I wish he did the same for me. I just wish I had had a chance to tell him everything but he wouldn’t let me. Seeing him became scary.
      I began to see myself nervously unhappy because of him. It was as if I didn’t even exist anymore. He would say that he needed to talk to me but he never would. It was hard for me to believe that everything he ever said to me was a lie. That everything that ever went down was just all some type of stupid lie. I’d never accept the fact
He wasn’t there. He left and he wasn’t coming back. There was no way on this living earth that he would love me again the same way he did before. I was going to give up.
      I didn’t know what else he expected me to do. He said I should just tell him and that he’d let me and listen, but he didn’t. What happened? He didn’t care. I had made one of the hardest decisions of my life to finally tell him and I did he didn’t listen and I didn’t even understand. He hated me. He didn’t talk to me, he avoided me in the hallways, he’d give me a look like, “You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me, and I wish you never came into my life.” Honestly, what did he expect me to do? There was absolutely nothing I could’ve done. I just sat and listened to songs that, for some odd reason, reminded me of him. I began to feel like a lovesick fool. I had thought I’d be okay and I’d make it without him. I tried and all it did was cause a lot more pain.
      I wanted to blame him, but it wasn’t his fault, right? It was my fault for being stupid enough to believe him. I wish I could’ve given up but I knew that I couldn’t.
***
      It was then the end of April. I’d gone on a field trip with some of the other people from my school, after school, including Valor. On the way back the craziest thing had happened, he told me he still loved me and he wanted to get back together. We didn’t do that; instead we just became “close friends.”
      A week, maybe two, passed when he had “talked” to me again one day. Here’s what he said, “I’ve lied to you way too much. I know you’ve trusted me, but all I’m going to do is break your heart. That night on the bus when I told you I loved you? I thought I meant it, but I know now, I didn’t.”
      “How could I be so clueless?” I thought to myself. He went on, “I’m really sorry but I can’t keep doing this to you. If I ever try to do something like this again, stop me; I’m only going to hurt you.”
      I wanted to burst into tears and punch him in the jaw, all at once. Of course, I had some thoughts that to this day he doesn’t know about. What comes next are those thoughts.
       Everything was becoming so much harder. I couldn’t even sleep. It’s funny how I could write everything that I wanted to say to him, but it was impossible to say to his face. Maybe something was wrong with me; maybe all of it was truly my fault. I should’ve known better then to believe him. I wasn’t trying to diss him, make him feel bad, or hurt him in anyway. I could barely believe everything I wanted to say to him. So many words were left unspoken. He never really let me fully explain myself. If I could’ve told him anything that day I would’ve said, “Yes, I still love you. I’m still insanely in love with you. Honestly, I never stopped loving you. Talking to you makes everything better. Now you’re gone, most likely forever.”
      I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself because he ran through my mind twenty-four seven. It hurt. Every night I thought about him. I didn’t know why I even tried. I should’ve just given up. I mean, what was the point in trying when succession never came. People said to just keep pushing and trying and that eventually I’ll succeed. Well guess what, I never did succeed so I just didn’t see the point.
***
All was better I guess, I mean he hated me and I finally learned to just live without him and totally forget him. He was super happy and at the time I was torn and upset but I soon became a little happy that he left.

Now, that you’ve known about some of the pain and heartbreak I’ve endured let me tell you a little about the rest of my life.
I’ve told you about Crystal (my bestest friend). Of course, I had other friends the main crew, aside from Crystal, was Victoria, Kaly, Kameal, Eliza, and Annie. Then there were my guy friends, Zack, Dunken, Cody, and Brail. They were pretty amazing, but I don’t think they completely understood me though. I tried to tell them stuff, but they hadn’t experienced things like the stuff I experienced yet. In other words, they couldn’t help me in the long run.
Sometimes I felt alone because I didn’t really have many people to turn to for help. I couldn’t turn to friends because, like I said, they hadn’t been through it. I couldn’t turn to my parents, because they only cared about my grades. I mean honestly I could’ve been broken hearted and torn to the core and they wouldn’t have even noticed. As long as I had good grades. “I can’t be perfect!” I’d always tell them. They claimed I didn’t need to be, but we all know that was a lie. Sometimes it seemed like I wasn’t even apart of their family, I was my own family.
***
Speaking of family, mine was pretty amazing, crazy, and hilarious, but what would they be if they weren’t. There was my older cousin Drake. He was twenty-one and was very protective over me. He loved me though, and he was pretty cool. He meant everything to me. Then there was my little cousin Alex. She was Drake’s little sister. Alex was so funny. She had an amazing personality and I loved her to death. She was seven. I had lots of other family members and I loved them too, but it was way too much to talk about.
Even though I had plenty of family members, I couldn’t necessarily talk to them about my kinds of problems. Like I said earlier, I had to go through pain and heartbreak on my own. It’s the only way I could truly learn from it, I guess. It just seemed like I’d never find the one. Maybe I was unlovable.  I was just a fourteen year old, ninth grade girl.
Why did I care, why should I have cared? I’d probably end up hurting myself, then again, I had already hurt myself. Each time someone hurt me or broke my heart, I took a small knife and I cut a small line on the inside of my arm. Yes, I know it was bad and probably completely idiotic but it was the only thing that would take the heartbreak away. Seeing the blood drip from my cold arm and hit the hard floor, and feeling the excruciating burning, honestly did rid the heartbreak. When I felt better I got a warm towel, cleaned the blood off the floor, put it to my arm and then go on with my life as if nothing happened.
I’m sure there was other things I could do, but nothing else seemed to work. I tried talking to people, forgetting about it completely, and listening to music just hoping it’d go away. It never did and if I thought it did it just came back and hit me ten times as hard as it did the first time. What choice did I have but to cut myself? None, I had none.
That was it, it was over, and I was ending it. The cruel, uptight life I had. What was the point? I was always in pain, no one understood me, and no one loved me. I officially had no worth in this world. I went downstairs into my kitchen got the biggest knife I could find. I said goodbye to all my friends and family in my head and right as the blade was an inch from my heart, my phone rang. It was the phone call that saved my life.

I dropped the knife and fell to the ground. Slowly picking up my phone as tears just poured down my face.
“Hello?” I said in a shaky voice, the best voice I could manage to croak out through all my tears.
“Karli, Karli! It’s Colt, what’s wrong? Why are you crying? Karli?” He kept saying.
Colt was one of my best guy friends. He was really funny and cool. I had known him since the beginning of eighth grade. We hadn’t talked in a while, because things had kind of gotten awkward between us, so this call was very unexpected. Back to our conversation…
“Colt, Colt! I’m fine it’s ok, I’m ok. I was just having a crises, I guess.”
“Oh, no, Karli you tried to kill yourself, didn’t you?”
“What? No. Ok Yes, I did but it wont happen again I’m sorry for scaring you.”
“Well I was just calling to say hi and see how you were and I guess it’s a good thing I did.”
“Yeah…”
We had talked for a little bit about our lives and stuff. He had made me promise not to try to kill myself again. That was basically it though. We did start talking all the time again at school and texting, stuff like that. Honestly, I was really glad we got out of the awkward stage. I could talk to him almost as much as I could talk to Crystal. He was my best guy friend and he was absolutely amazing.
I guess you could’ve said that Colt and Crystal were my family. They both meant the world to me. I didn’t know what I would do without them. I guess technically there the only thing that kept me alive. I loved them both to death.
***
Still I couldn’t be completely happy, I still had a lot of pain. Even they couldn’t make the heartbreak go away. They couldn’t keep the cuts, nightmares, and tears away. I guess Colt tried to, he told me that everything was going to get better and the right one would come. I’m sure he was right but was hard to believe him after all the pain in the past. I guess like he always said, “Just wait and something special will happen.”
Well that night something did happen but it wasn’t so much special. It was more of nightmare come true. It was the worst occurrence on the face of the earth (literally). No one could’ve imagined or even planned it.

I had woke up to the most odd thing. It was quiet almost silent. I then sat up in my bed and looked around.

“Hm, what’s going on? Maybe I’m just crazy, eh whatever.” I said softly to myself. I went to my window, like I always did in the morning, and it seemed particularly empty. I then made my way downstairs and my parents had been nowhere to be found.
“Ok, something’s up, but what?” I had questioned. I called Crustal, and she hadn’t answered. She always answered, so that made it really clear that something was wrong. I called her again; maybe she was in the bathroom or something. I called her again and again and again. Over ten times I called her and she still had never answered.
I then sprinted up my stairs back into my room. I just threw on some jeans, a t-shirt, hoodie, and some converse. I got my phone and iPod touch, plugged in my earphones and ran outside.
I had stopped in my driveway, everything had seemed normal. I went next door to Crystal’s house and knocked, again no answer. All the cars were in the driveway, so I had known she was home. I found the spare key that she always kept in her mailbox and made my way in. At that point I knew her mom was gone because there was no smell of bake goods; her mom had always been baking something. Then, I started freaking our a little bit.
I proceeded up the stairs and crashed through her bedroom door. It was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life. There she had lain, on the cool carpeted floor. Her dark brown eyes wide open. I dived for the floor towards her. I touched her arm with my two fingers, no pulse, and she was freezing cold. I immediately knew…
“She’s dead, gone, forever.” A tear ran down my face. As it fell the craziest thing had began to happen, she was just disappearing. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor by myself. I had sat there for a second, letting everything soak in. Then I stood up, whipped my tears, grabbed her skateboard that was by her bed and headed out.
I slowly put my earphones back in (they had fallen out when I leaped for Crystal). I turned my music up as loud as it could go so that I wouldn’t be able to hear myself think. I jumped on the skateboard and made my way down the street.
***
At that point I knew four things for sure: One, Crystal was dead. Two, everyone else was dead. Three, I’m alone. And four, I’m completely scared. I pulled out my phone and called Colt.
“Please answer, please answer, please…”

“Colt! Ok, ok. I don’t know what to do I’m scared and worried I’m…” I rambled on.
“Karli, calm down. I know! There’s no one left on the face of the earth. It’s just us…I think. Where are you and where’s Crystal?”
“Ok, Crystal is gone too and I’m on my way to your house I’m down the street,” and as I was coming down the street at full speed on the skateboard, BANG! I ran into something but I hadn’t seen anything in front of me. “Colt come down here QUICK!”
I saw him running down the street and BANG! He hit the anonymous object too. I stood up and walked towards him and he walked towards me. I walked until I could feel the weird wall-like thing. I tapped on it trying to get to him, but I couldn’t. I looked at him and yelled, “Can you hear me?” He said he could.
Dazed and confused he took a couple steps back and ran full speed towards me. He crashed right into “it” and fell back. Then it hit me. It was a glass wall that apparently couldn’t be broken. I explained to him and he immediately began to get nervous.
“What are we going to do? We can’t just star like this forever!” He panicked.
“Colt, Colt! Just calm down. It’ll be fine I’ll figure something out.” At least, I hoped I would. I had been just as scared as he was. I got so frustrated, at times and I’d kick the glass wall.
***
It had been almost nine weeks; we’ve just been sitting there talking through a glass wall. We talked about everything and laughed plenty. We’d listen to music on my iPod too. Then something else had happened, for the better this time. It was about two o’clock in the morning and I was sound asleep (we’d gotten blankets and pillows earlier weeks ago). I got a text from him, which had said as follows:
“Karli, you’ve been my best friend since the beginning of eighth grade. Spending all this time with you made me realize something; I love you. I always have. I just wish we could just…oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. I love you.”
What in the…
I didn’t know what to say or do. I was frozen I knew I loved him too but, this had been so abrupt. The only thing I could do was sit up and look through the glass wall. I could vaguely see him looking at me too. I got my phone and texted him back.
“I love you too.” He came to the glass, right in front of it, and I did too. It was as close as we could’ve gotten. He looked my dead in the eye and said, “I love you. I always have, it just took me a long time to recognize it.”
I spoke with a soft tone, “I love you too. I remember you’d always tell that everything’s going to get better and I’ll find the right one. (Sounding corny) I think I have.”
“This dumb glass wall! I’d do anything to break it. I just want to be close to you again.” Then, of course, something else weird began to happen. There was a voice, a really high-pitched voice. I couldn’t make out who’s it was. I looked at Colt to see if he had heard the voice too, and I could tell he had by the puzzled look on his face. Here was what the voice began to say:
“So? You’d do anything to break the glass wall?” I looked at Colt and he looked at me.
“Um, Yes?” Colt stuttered.
“Anything?” Said the voice.
“Yes?”
“You don’t sound very confident Colt, I don’t think you truly love Karli.” Colt had begun to get frustrated, I could see the unrelenting fury building inside of him.
“Yes I do! I love her with all my heart. I’d do anything to break the glass wall!” Colt exclaimed.
“Well there’s only one way to break the wall.”
“Anything.” He said. A gun then had dropped from the sky and landed next to Colt. Horror was building up inside of me. He looked at me. I could feel myself shaking and wanting to scream as loud as I could but I held it back. The last word the high-pitched voice, which had become a deep voice when it spoke the word was, “Die.”

“NO!” I screamed, “You can’t do this Colt! You can’t!”
“Karli I have to, it’ll be ok. Just know that I love you I always have and I always will.” He pointed the gun to his heart and pulled the trigger. I stared unable to breath, blink, or think at all.
Just then, the glass had shattered into a million pieces. I jumped under a blanket and curled into a tiny ball. After a couple of minutes, when everything had seemed pretty quiet again, I peeked my head out and looked around. The street was covered in glass I carefully stood up and began to walk towards Colt. When I finally got to him I just fell. I rested my head on his chest and just cried.
Then I had begun to hear the high-pitched voice again. I couldn’t hear what it was saying. All I know is Colt started moving, but I continued to cry.
“Karli, everything’s going to be all right. It’s ok. I’m right here.” He said. I sat up and he looked me in the eye and said, “You know, someone very special once wrote this poem;
Love is indefinable,
People don’t know,
Walls can separate two.
Unbreakable Walls,
What can keep two…
Together?
One word,
One Feeling,
One need,
Love.”