NOBODY'S GIRL

So it started with Ryan. I was seven, he was eight. He was my first friend in Oklahoma after we moved away from Texas. He called every day for a solid year right in the middle of Duck Tales. My mom thought I was too young to be receiving phone calls from boys. I suppose I was. But I talked to him anyway. He was my boyfriend. When fourth grade started, the phone calls stopped. I got dumped for Tenessa King. But I understood. She was in his class and she had long beautiful brown hair. All the fifth grade boys liked her.

Then there was James. I loved James because he was cute and in junior high. I remember our family going to his house for dinner. We'd shut ourselves up in his room and sit and talk for hours. I felt so lucky to be his girlfriend. Six months later he sent a friend over to tell me he wanted to break up with me because I wasn't old enough for him. I laid in bed and cried for a solid three hours. I thought nobody would ever love me again. Mom tried to tell me that I still had so much more to experience and that someday I'd look back and laugh at stupid 'ol James. I ran into him a year ago. Not laughin. He's hot. And married.

Then there was Eddie. I was in junior high and he was seven years older than me. Our families were very close. He was like a big brother and a confidant. He was my safe place. He used to tell me I was beautiful and smart. He liked to hear me sing. We spent alot of time together. He made me feel special. He turned twenty-one and got married. I still have the invitation.

Will. I was fifteen and he was the one I wasn't supposed to fall in love with. He was the wrong color, lived on the wrong side of town, had major problems with authority, and was barely passing high school. But he could knock a guy out with one hit on the football field. And he always looked up in the stands to make sure I was there watching. He broke my heart the first time after we'd been together two months. Instead of kicking the habit then, I let him hurt me emotionally and eventually, physically, for the next seven years. One day when I was twenty-two, after we had just spent the weekend together, I came across wedding pictures that had been taken at the court house just two weeks before. It was him and his new wife. She was three months pregnant with their son. Somehow, his getting married and having a child was just a blip on his radar screen and was something that didn't need to be brought up in our relationship. I physically could not stop the tears for two weeks. But eventually the urge to throw myself into oncoming traffic subsided. I had to let him go. Even though three years later he still calls.

So how did I get to be the "no strings attached" girl? I guess I just decided it was easier to bank on the sure things. And the only things that are sure are the things that you know have no future. That's what's certain. So you don't worry about losing them. No strings. No pain. But it takes a whole lotta work to keep it that way.