Joe's POV-

When I woke up in the morning, I felt like someone was hammering thousands of nails on my head. I massaged my temple and checked my bed to see if Diane was there, as she always was. She usually smiled at me, brighter than the beautiful morning sunshine. But this time, she wasn't there next to me.

It made me nervous not to find her lying with me in bed in the morning, especially after she had spent the whole night in my room. I felt like I had made that mistake again: left her in my dreams and forgotten to take her back.

I pushed myself out of bed and got on my feet. "Diane?" I called out, reaching out to the window where she usually sat, and smiled at me childishly. But she wasn't there either. My chest tightened. I was inherently expecting her to come over as she regularly did when I called out to her. She had never ignored my voice except for this time. Then I realized that she might be mad at me for some unknown reason.

I had a bad habit of annoying her with unusual things that I say and do with my utter idiocy. Things never went wrong when I was with her. In fact, she was the only one who made me feel safe and loved.

Diane, at times, acted stupid too, or perhaps I was stupid to think she was stupid. But whatever, she sometimes acted stupid. She didn't want to understand what you were trying to say and got upset. Last night, we were talking about the sky and the universe, and how things change in your life over time. I tried to philosophize in a way that no one else gave me the chance to explain myself. I tried to tell her how the stars, the sun, the moon, and other objects in the universe are linked to your life. It's called astrology. A teacher in my kindergarten used to talk about it a lot, and I was a fan of her nerdy talks.

And then I told Diane that I see the whole universe in her eyes. But she said, "Why, am I not your universe?" She didn't understand and stopped talking to me. I couldn't make her understand. It hurts a lot when your favorite person is upset with you. Something in your heart feels empty for a certain moment. It feels as though you are losing a part of yourself, and there is no other way to make yourself feel whole again other than to make up with that person.

Stupid girl. She liked making me cry.

I went to my canvas board to put my image of her into a painting. It was a very old hobby that no one could ever snatch away from me, not even Uncle Danny. Whenever I missed the girl, I would take the paintbrush between my fingers and start filling up the black canvas in front of me with my colorful paintbrush. It gave me immense strength, and in no more than 20 minutes, I would create an extremely gorgeous painting that would possibly make your jaw touch the ground. This time, I had painted this one: she was wearing a white off-shoulder wedding dress and wore her hair in a messy bun, while riding a white horse, looking behind her shoulder, looking at you. She wore that sweet smile on her face, the one she always shoots me when I wrap her in my arms.

"Now, come here, would you?" I pleaded to her picture, hoping for her to arrive. She did. Every time I wanted her to come around, she appeared and threw her hands around my neck.

A knock on my door echoed, and I cracked a huge grin. But no sooner had I gone to answer it than the grin on my face faded.

"Get ready for your school," Uncle Danny said in a very stern voice, which made me back up a few inches from the door, startled.

Uncle Danny is the one who raised me after my birth because I am unfortunate enough to not have my parents by my side. My mom was beautiful, a fairy-like princess, and my dad was a tall, handsome guy. The two of them were a perfect match, so much like me and Diane. Sometimes, I felt Diane looked like my mother. I had seen my mother's picture; she was a sweet blonde, however, unlike Diane, she had emerald green eyes which I inherited from her. She was a perfect match for my father. Sadly, I was not as handsome as he was.

Anyway, people say I am a stroke of bad luck for our family. They think that my dad's last car accident occurred because of me when my mom was pregnant. They believe that if I never came into their world, everything would be otherwise. I, too, somehow believed in what they said, because I know that my mom left the world right after she brought me into it. Still, I couldn't quite find the connection between my birth and my father's death, although my teenage mind always believed everything that the public had to say.

Since then, Uncle Danny has been taking care of me officially. At least this is what you can call it. But he didn't know how I felt mentally, maybe because he did not want to know me at all. Not to mention the fact that he always made it worse for me. I spent every single minute of every single day thinking about how to be loved by everyone. If not by everyone, at least by someone, especially by my family. But then again, I had brought bad luck to my family, and everybody hated me.

I made no interest in finding Diane further, instead, I started to get ready for school.

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School sucked, of course, it is a normal thought when you have enough kids who bully you whenever they find you around. But it is not always easy to avoid people like them. People who want to find you, tend to find you. I mean, I was a sort of time pass to them. Whenever they got bored with things, they would come to me and use me as if I were their main entertainment.

Surely, no one likes to be bullied almost every day. But since you act all depressed and sad (because I was), it gives them the chance to harass you, and they put you into embarrassing situations from where you don't seem to get rid of yourself. There are so many examples of mental and physical bullying, and soon enough, I will tell you some.

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To be honest, I was really a weird person. The weirdest of teenagers. I don't know what happened to me, don't know what went on in my mind round the clock, but I acted really awkward, and that was what gave them the chance to dominate me. See, it all starts with you.

Sometimes I felt all alone even though I knew that Diane was always with me, but I needed love, I needed comfort, I needed someone else who would take care of me, who would treat me as important; most of all, I needed a complete home where someone would wait for me to return.

I was tired of being rejected. Actually, I was tired of not being beloved. Kids with parental support won't get what I am saying (unless you actually try to). I was in need of someone whom I could call mom and I needed someone to whom I could call dad. So, if you have your parents beside you, then you are lucky because not everyone is that gifted.

Your parents are a gift, actually. Since God can't always keep an eye on you, he sends your parents to support you. To watch your every move, to get your back. If you have that support, you must consider yourself lucky. And I... oh, boy! I envy you.

I went to sit on the back bench. I was always a backbencher since no one liked to sit with me, but that didn't mean that they would completely ignore me. Instead of ignoring me, they bullied me whenever they got a chance. However, that didn't change who I was. I still acted all weird and stupid, probably because I was depressed all the time. And lonely, apparently.

Not when Diane was with me, though. In fact, I always tried to act smart around her. I didn't like to appear as weak as I was, because that kinda turned her off. In truth, weakness can turn anyone off when it comes to romantic relations.

But when I see Diane, all my depressions melt away, and I feel like life is a joy ride, but just when she leaves, my world shuts down again and I fall into complete darkness.

"Hey Joe, have you done your homework?" Mr. Anderson asked, skeptically eyeing me.

By the time I realized I had forgotten to do my homework, it was already too late; I was already in the classroom, looking at this stone-cold, grumpy man. This was not a new thing—me not doing my homework. I was always so busy talking with Diane that I forgot almost everything. Yet, homework was boring, so I was not much into it. Diane was interesting, and I was so much into her.

"Joe Watson, please come here along with your homework," Mr. Anderson ordered.

I stood up and cleared my throat so that the words would come out. "Actually, sir, I have forgotten to..."

"Come here!" Mr. Anderson cut me off. "How many times do I have to tell you that you are not allowed in my class without your homework?" he spat. For a moment, I thought I saw fire burning in his eyes. I stood silently knowing that this was going to be another bad day of my life.

Not that I haven't had some good times, too, but bad days were becoming my friend, actually. Sometimes I felt like I was still living in my childhood instead of becoming a real teenager and having the fun that real teenagers have—like having sex with their girlfriends, drinking, and playing party games—not that I had any friends, and my girlfriend never had sex with me, so...

"Joe Watson! Would you like to come here, please?!" the grumpy man shouted.

Being the center of attention, I went to him, the song, "Mercy" by Shawn Mendes playing in my mind. The whole class was habitually laughing at me, but that didn't have any impact on my brain. I was so used to it.

Then the nightmare I had came true. Mr. Anderson asked me to come over to the board and wanted me to solve the problem he was having with some type of equation. Sorry, my bad. He wasn't having a problem; he was just checking if I was paying attention to his math classes earlier.

Reluctantly, I went to him and picked up the marker from his table. The equation was confusing. At least I thought so. I didn't know how to solve it. It was like I was seeing some ants walking on the board instead of numbers. This happened to me all the time, whenever I tried to focus hard on something, I got so nervous and... Well, maybe shy.

I got so confused. The marker fell from my hand and hit the ground. Along with the sound of it falling, I could also hear everybody's mocking laughter around me. As usual, they were laughing at me, which you might not find surprising. Neither did I.

"So, you do not know how to solve a simple calculation! How come you happened to come to my class, Joe!" Mr. Anderson blurted out. "Get out now and don't you dare come back again without your guardian!"

I was kind of worried now. Because the last thing I wanted to do was to drag Uncle Danny into this mess. He never wanted to get involved in anything regarding my life. I strode off towards the exit while all the students were taunting me and extensively laughing.

Loser, I was.

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I ran up to the lake where I used to meet Diane every day after school, but today was a different day. Not different, actually, but better than any other day. Because something worse could have taken place; Mr. Anderson could have insulted me more, but he let me go easily this time. Only on one condition, "Get out now and don't you dare to come back again without your guardian!"

The fact that had invaded the little space I had in my mind full of sorrows was that I had to convince Uncle Danny to take me to school the following day to have a discussion with Mr. Anderson over my so-called behavior.

I lay on the green grass, throwing my backpack underneath my head. In an attempt to close my eyes to escape from the harsh reality, a breeze swept off the ground and a familiar scent hit my nose.

I gazed at my right side and spotted Diane lying next to me, with her eyes half closed and arms underneath her head. Her blonde hair was falling on her forehead, making the moon-shaped face look even cuter.

I noticed her outfit. She was wearing a cute white sundress that just ended above her knees. She wears white a lot.

I didn't say anything because I wanted her to start explaining where she was. I was sort of annoyed by her random appearance and disappearance. I looked away, pretending to ignore her.

Within a fraction of a second, she threw her arms around my neck and pulled me into a huge breathtaking hug. I nearly choked.

"What are you doing? Get off!" I tried to sound annoyed, but deep down I knew that this hug was all that was needed right now. Right now, when I was so full with my own goddamn thoughts.

Diane kept silent while continuing to hug me even tighter. "Stop, would you?" I said. My voice came out smoothly as if I wanted her to carry on. Well, I was. No lies. "No," she pouted.

"Where were you when I needed you? You always vanish when I need help," I said, with a tone that could express my loneliness along with the affection I had for her, and the emotion I was feeling inside my chest momentarily.

"Because I'm not so real," Diane said and unfolded her arms around me. She let go of me.

"Joe!" I heard Uncle Danny screaming out my name at the top of his lungs.

I got up and saw Diane was gone.

"Crap! She hates people," I murmured.