Late teen. Dark hair and eyes, steel-rimmed glasses. Skinny, nervous, metalhead boy generally found in jeans and a black concert t-shirt proclaiming the '80s hair band of the week.

The first man ever to love me, he is young and dark and wears glasses with fine steel rims. We are seventeen and spend our nights parked on gravel roads, sharing wine coolers and learning how first love feels. We dress up in expensive designer clothes for high school dances and share the same small group of friends and our parents grow uneasy that we might be shhh having sex. We pledge our eternal love and promise to be together forever.

One day, he shows me the house he wants to buy when he's older. It sits two miles from his parents' home in the suburbs of our small town. I realize I can't be with him forever because he's never leaving and the world that waits for me is so huge and unknown, and I smile and tell him it looks perfect.

He believes every lie I ever tell him.