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things to do. He’s so tall and strong. He has these big arms that wrap around me making me feel like I’m in the safest place in the world. When I met him that day, I knew nothing about him other than; his name was Nate, he moved into Ms. Williams’ old house, and he looked about fourteen or fifteen. There’s one other thing I knew for sure. Nate was a kind, sweet boy, but he looked sad and lost at the same time. His eyes were never carefree and no matter how hard he tried, he never looked truly happy.
     
    I wanted to make friends with him, to see if I could make him laugh, make him smile, and tell him jokes. Most of all, I didn’t want him to be sad anymore. I figured, he definitely couldn’t be lonely if I was his friend. I would make sure I was always there for him, like he was for me that day. The reason for that crap-tastic day was; Verity decided it would be a great idea to put worms in my sandwich for school. I opened my lunch box in the cafeteria and had gone to take a bite of my PB&J before realising what she’d done. I screamed so loudly it made my own ears ring, dropping the sandwich immediately. It gets worse; in doing so, fell backwards and hit my head on the floor making my vision blurry and my head ache. Verity and her friends all pointed and laughed. I felt like an idiot. I’d been crying since, well until I met Nate on the curb that afternoon.
     
    From that day on, every time he saw me out the front, he came over and rode his skateboard with me while I rode my bike. He was trying to make sure I was okay, I knew that, and thought it was very sweet of him. Basically, Nate was like a big brother to me. A GOOD big brother, not one of those horrible ones you hear about, and nothing like my sister. The only problem with Nate acting like my big brother was; I thought he was the most beautiful boy in the world. More than that, I started looking at him more like a gorgeous specimen of man as I grew older. Definitely not the way I would look at a brother if I had one. That would be disgusting and incestuous. Ewww.
     
    I told myself if I ever get married, I’ll want it to be to someone that looks and is, just like Nate. There isn’t one thing about Nate I don’t love. I realise that I view him through the eyes and naivety of a little girl, but I simply don’t care. I love my best friend.
     
    Nate has gorgeous, thick black hair. It’s so dark it looks like it has a tinge of blue running through it. Just recently he started having cut and styled in a Mohawk that stands about three inches above his scalp. His beautiful green eyes look like the moss that covering the rocks at the swimming hole we go to. They are deep, clear, and hypnotising. He is so tall already too; he must be at least six foot, with no sign of his growth slowing down, either. Nate said he’s working out, that’s why he has muscles on top of muscles. He’s doing Karate and Jujitsu at the local martial arts centre, so he can become faster, stronger, and more disciplined. I know why he does it, I don’t like that he has to. But I understand. His dad is really horrible to him all the time. I’ve seen Nate with black eyes, bruises on his face and arms more often than I care to remember. I’ve never outright asked about them, because it makes a look come over Nate’s face that makes me realise I’ll never get an answer, so why bother. I know exactly what’s happening to him, it doesn’t take a genius to work it out. The thought makes me furiously angry and incredibly sad, but I keep my mouth shut, and have a small first aid kit under my bed, in case he needs it.
     
    The first time Nate ever came over to my house with blood dripping from a deep cut above his eyebrow, I cried for an hour. After getting a wet washcloth and cleaning the blood off him, I applied Neosporin to the cut and used little butterfly bandages I found above the sink in my parent’s bathroom to patch him up the best I could. We didn’t talk about it, and we