Cloversdale was a tiny town to me. I was a city girl way out of place in this one horse village. It was my fault we were there, but I still hated it.

See, my dad had been abusing my mom for as long as I could remember. When we got to eighth grade, they talked to us about how bad abuse was. So the next time my mom was getting beat, I called the police. They arrested my dad and we were fine for a while.

Then my mom got attacked on her way home from work. We couldn't prove it was my dad, so nothing happened to anyone. But it was time to move out of the city and into a safe place. We had to find a place no one expected us to go. Thus, we moved to Cloversdale. It's a miniature little place, with one school for everyone under high school age in the town, and the only high school in the county, which made it sort of important.

I registered at Cloversdale High in the middle of summer, even though they had no more spots. I was a special case, I guess. It was a huge change. The high school I was going to go to was supposed to have double the student body of my middle school. Even though the whole county went to Cloversdale High, there were less people there than my middle school.

Even with the fewer people, I was scared by Cloversdale. Maybe it was because of the fewer people. Everyone knew everyone else. Even the Freshmen knew people that lived halfway across the county. I was alone. I looked all around, and I found no one. I had never been alone before, and I expected the year to be so scary.

But someone saved my life. Or, at least, the year. A guy named Timmy. Timmy had other friends, but he kept them at arm's length. He was a bit odd at first, and I had to adjust. But I was so desperate, I did. Or at least, that's the reason I made myself believe later.

Timmy asked my out end of the first quarter. I'd had boyfriends before, but none of them were like Timmy. He made my mom nervous and still set my nerves on edge every now an then. But he was so sweet and he knew how to listen that I just dismissed the bad things.

God, I thought Timmy and I were going to last forever. I guess God just forgot to listen to what I thought was going to happen. Last quarter of school, Timmy started to drift away from me. At first, it was just a reluctance every now and then. But as summer approached, it got worse. He stopped wanting to go places and grew almost silent. Timmy had been hurt before. He had done the only smart thing for himself and had built up walls. I had hit the wall, and now he wasn't going to let me any closer until I broke that wall.

Timmy went away for summers, and I wasn't about to spend a summer fighting a long-distance battle trying to break down an ancient wall Timmy had built. Last week of school, I finally convinced Timmy to go to the movies with me.

As soon as the previews began to roll, I told him that I thought we should stop seeing each other. I thought this was old news to him and he was just to wussy to break up with me, but it apparently wasn't. His jaw dropped, and, even in the dark, I could see he was surprised. I got out of there fast. I bolted to the ladies' bathroom and called my mom on the cell phone. She told me she'd be there in five minutes. I tracked the time on my watch and refused to leave the bathroom.

When five minutes was up, I snuck out of the bathroom and bolted for the door. I never saw Timmy, but he saw me. My mom was waiting right outside the door, but Timmy caught my arm with only a few feet left. And he grabbed hard.

I turned around, looked at him, and said gently, "Timmy, let it go." To this day, I couldn't tell you whether I meant our relationship or my arm. Maybe a little of both. Timmy's grip loosened and he let his hand drop. I walked out of that theater proud.

I didn't want to look back, but when I got into the car seat, I couldn't help but give a tiny, sideways glance back into the doors. Through the glass, I could see Timmy crying. It took me a long time to get the image of Timmy crying out of my head. I don't think I ever did. I stared straight ahead and my mom drove away, taking me away from Timmy and removing Timothy Johnson out of my life forever. Or at least, that's what I thought.

I don't know if I would have survived that summer had we not gotten new neighbors. Lindsay and Steven Smith moved into the house next to us first week of summer. Lindsay was an answered prayer. As soon as we met each other, we knew we were going to be best friends. It's just one of those things you can feel. I avoided Steven for a while, because he was a year older than me and I figured he'd want nothing to do with me. I was wrong.

Steven was just as sweet as Timmy had been, but he was different in a delicious way. I didn't know it until he asked me out in the last week of summer. I'd told him about Timmy, and I thought it was just a push to help me into the new school year. I thought differently when the first thing Steven gave me upon the opening of the door was a solitary red rose. I was elated.

After that, sophomore Homecoming, Steven's prom, sophomore summer, and junior Homecoming just kind of blur together. I was so happy that I forgot to notice anything else around me. Timmy, for instance. By junior year, I heard talk that he was on heavy anti-depressants. When I saw him briefly in the hall, his clothes were falling off of him. Even his skin seemed to hang loosely off of bones that simply were too weary to carry much more weight. He got paler every time I saw him and the bags under his eyes got bigger and darker. Timmy basically became the walking ghost of our school. When my mom told me she'd heard his grades were slipping, I got pretty scared for about a week. Prankster as he may have been, Timmy was dead serious about his grades. They always came first.

But my prom had rolled around, and Steven was coming. It was like Turnabout, but much fancier, because I had asked him. The day of prom was hardly serious. For one, it was Friday. For a second thing, classes were nearly cut in half with girls coming and going to solons and such, only to return with their hair curled and their nails perfect.

I opened my locker after third hour and a note greeted me. I thought nothing of it and stuffed it into my binder, slammed my locker, and raced to class. I flopped down next to Lindsay and whispered, "I got your note." She looked confused and shook her head, but I figured she just didn't hear me. I opened the note and read. It said,

You swore you loved me,

        You promised you'd never leave.

        Do you remember me?

        I begged and begged,

        But you wouldn't stay.

        I remember you.

        You left me alone,

        Out in the cold,

        But that stops now.

        A promise broken, a heart shattered

        And you moved on without a glance

        Just remember, Maria; What goes around always comes back.

Talk about a note to scare you. I gave Lindsay a weird look and concentrated on what the teacher was saying. Lindsay grabbed me in the hall after class. "What was the look for, Maria?"

"Your note. Talk about psychotic." She gave me a confused look and asked to see it. I handed it to her. As she read, she got more and more disgusted.

"I didn't write it, Maria." Ok. So who did? I asked around a bit all day long. I even asked Steven. He said it was disgusting and I should burn it, but I wasn't to let it ruin our night together. He also told me that whoever it was wouldn't hurt me while he was around. Then he kissed me, and I felt a lot better. Steven has that effect on me sometimes.

Steven took me out to dinner that night. He wouldn't stop telling me how good I looked, so I just kept telling him he was handsome. Sounded like the smartest thing to say in response. Then he drove me up to the top of the bluff that overlooks Cloversdale. "The prettiest view you'll ever see," he whispered in my ear, and he was right. We embraced, then kissed.

"Why didn't I ever get a kiss?" We both turned to see nothing but a shadow with its arm outstretched. Even though I couldn't really tell anything else for sure, that voice my heart still remembered. It had grown deeper and much more raspy, but it was Timmy.

I told him gently to come forward. He stepped into the moonlight. The arm I had thought was grasping something for support was truly pointing a gun. Right at me. He repeated his question. Something in my heart hurt. Badly.

Steven tried to step in front of me, to shield me from that gun, but I gently pushed him away. Timmy and I were older than him, and something had gone wrong between us Steven just wouldn't understand. I took a step forward, then began to run. I crashed into Timmy with such force he lurched backwards, but his arms were around me and I felt like I'd come home.

I knew this is what I'd been missing for the last few years. He was like the friend that was supposed to be behind you laughing, but when you turned around just wasn't there. I had missed him, whether or not I knew it. I had adjusted to him because my heart had wanted to, not because I was desperate.

I looked up at him. His face was white and haggard. I kissed him, which felt really good. As we kissed, I felt him move. I heard the gun pop off safety and I felt Timmy raise it. He also picked up my hand. I thought for sure that the barrel would be pointing at me, but instead I felt my fingers curl around the butt of the gun.

When we parted, I was crying and so was he. "Go ahead, Maria," he whispered. "Finish the job you started two years ago." I just shook my head. "Why not? You've already broken my heart. What is another little hole in it to you?"

"This one would kill you, Timmy."

"Haven't you heard? They say I'm dead already."

"That's just because you're a ghost of who you used to be. I miss that Timmy so much."

Timmy smiled so sadly that I felt a tug on my heart. He leaned forward, pushed my hair away from my ear, and whispered, "Do you remember me? I remember you."

Suddenly the poem all made sense. Of course. He was going to break my heart, like I'd broken his. He was going to shoot me. I was about to grab for the trigger so he couldn't reach it, but his finger was already on it. He pulled it. Timmy shot himself.

From the way he slumped and the sound of the bullet crunching into the tree behind him, I knew Timmy was dead. And something inside me tore wide open. Timmy had broken my heart anyways, much worse than he could have done with a gun.

I grabbed for him and went down beside him in a less-than-graceful way. I pulled him to me. Through my blood-soaked dress, I could feel the metal of the gun between him and I. "Maria..." Steven said quietly. I just glared at Steven. No matter how big or how bad Steven was, he could never save me from myself. Especially not my guilt.