Dear Readers,
I don't know where to begin this story, or where it should end. Maybe some stories never end. Maybe they just shift shape — from pain to memory, from love to silence.
Hey I'm Maya your favorite high school queen.Since I was a kid, I've always felt like life owed me something — not material things, not even happiness, but… peace. A moment to breathe. A space that didn't feel like war. But life, as you probably know by now, doesn't hand that out easily. It's a roller coaster that doesn't ask if you're tall enough to ride. It just straps you in and drops you.
I never chose this life. I never asked for any of it — the accidents, the heartbreak, the surgeries, the ghosts. But somehow, I survived.
As a little girl, I used to run away into books. I built myself a world of pages and ink, a castle made of words. I thought if I read enough stories, if I lived enough love tales, maybe my life would start to feel like one too. I thought the world was made of people like characters — kind, loyal, redeemable. I thought I'd find a prince to take me away. I really believed in happy endings.
But no book, no movie, no fictional tear-jerker could prepare me for the story I was thrown into. If you've followed this far, you know what I mean. You've probably seen the cracks. Maybe you've even rolled your eyes at the drama. Some of you left comments like, "This is too much," or "None of this makes sense." And honestly? I get it. Sometimes I read back my own life and think the same damn thing.
But this is real. It's messy, raw, unedited life. It started with a game — a stupid list. A joke between girls: "Ten Steps to Tame the Nerd." It was supposed to be harmless. I wasn't supposed to fall.
And I know what you're thinking — how cruel of me. But I didn't start out with bad intentions. I was hurting. I wanted to distract myself from everything falling apart inside me. So I focused on Eddie. On taming him. On winning. Only, somewhere between step four and step five, I stopped keeping count. And before I knew it, it wasn't a game anymore. I was just… in love.
I don't know if he ever truly loved me.
Scratch that. I do know.
He didn't.
Because how can you love someone when all you see in them is someone else?
I wasn't Maya to him. I was Sammy's second chance. Her eyes. Her laugh. Her heart.
Literally.
You ever wish you could rewind time? Not to change the big things, but the tiny ones — the moment you said "yes" instead of "no," the day you opened your heart instead of keeping it locked? I used to wish I never had her heart. That the transplant never happened. That maybe, just maybe, Eddie and I would've met in some other version of life — a version where I was whole, and he wasn't broken.
In that life, maybe he would've loved me.
The truth is, I was never taming a nerd. I was being tamed — by love, by grief, by guilt. That damn list wasn't about him. It was about me. About everything I thought I could control.
But control is a lie.
The last time I saw Eddie, I asked him if he ever loved me. He didn't answer. And that silence? It broke something in me that I'm still trying to fix.
He stopped coming to school shortly after. People whispered, but no one really knew what happened. He called a few times, but I blocked him. Luna and Sally made sure of that. He still parks his car outside my house sometimes. Thinks I don't see him. But I do. I always do.
I just don't go to the window anymore.
I could've exposed him. Told everyone the truth about what he did. But I didn't. Not because he deserves my silence, but because I deserve peace. And deep down — no matter how much I want to hate him — I'm not over it. Not yet.
I presented the project we started together. Alone. I aced it. Got extra credit. People clapped. I didn't feel a thing.
Then word got out: Eddie left. Abroad. No one knows where. Maybe he needed to run. Maybe he thought he'd find himself somewhere far away. Maybe he's looking for Sammy in every crowded city street.
Meanwhile, I found something too — someone, actually. His name's Damon.
Weird, right?
He started out as Eddie's shadow. But in time, he became my flashlight. He didn't try to fix me or pretend to understand the chaos in my head. He just stayed. Listened. Reminded me to eat. Sat with me in silence when I didn't have words. And somewhere between all the nights I cried and the mornings I stopped, I realized: love isn't just romance. It's warmth. It's safety. It's being seen.
I'm not saying I'm in love with Damon. I'm just saying I've learned what love really means.
Home got better too. My parents — they changed. They actually ask me how I'm doing now. My dad makes pancakes every Sunday. My mom hugs me without needing a reason. It's not perfect. But it's enough.
Sally and Luna? Still my ride-or-dies. They've always been my constants — the only people who never tried to change me, just reminded me who I was when I forgot. And Zeke? God, I wish I had a love like his and Sally's . Something soft. Something sacred.
As for Vic… I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. I'm angry. I'm broken over what he became. But I forgive him. I forgive all of them. Even Eddie.
And I hope — one day — they forgive me too.
Because I was selfish. I was cruel. I was blind. But I was also just a girl trying to survive in a world that didn't know what to do with girls like me.
So maybe this isn't the end of the story.
Maybe it's the chapter where the heroine stops chasing love and starts choosing herself.
And maybe — just maybe — that's the real happy ending.
Until then, dear readers,
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for staying.
Thank you for letting me be messy, confusing, broken—and still enough.
I hope you find your peace. I'm still looking for mine.
And maybe that's okay.