The Surrogate Betwixt

Hey I'm Nova. I'm 22 years old. I have always been independent and strong. Not muscular, strong but emotionally strong. You see once your stepdad tries to get fresh with you and your mother, the person that is supposed to take care of you turns her back on you, you learn to take care of yourself. Some people shouldn't have kids. I had a tough life but not worse than my friend Jeannette. She was actually molested by her dad when she was only 5 years old. What a pig! Her mom blamed her and made her life miserable after her dad left them. At least I was older when my stepdad tried something, and I was able to defend myself. You see, my dad was abusive. Nothing s****l, he just beat my mom and I all the time. One time I accidentally broke a cup looking at the dishes and my dad got so mad that he punched me in my stomach. He broke two ribs. I was only six, so when the doctor asked what happened, I told her that my dad did it. My dad was sent to prison and my mom hated me for telling on him. Eventually, my mom married my stepdad and things weren't that bad until he began to whisper inappropriate things to me. Then one night he came into my room and began to uncover me. I have been sleeping with a knife under my pillow for fear of something like this happening, so when I woke up and saw him I didn't hesitate. I pulled out the knife and chased him out of my room. My mom woke up with all the commotion and sent me to my room. I went into my room and locked the door and called the police. Can you believe that my mother told the police that I was lying? That day, I found out that my mom didn't care about me. I got a job and started saving money. I waited until I was eighteen to move out. My friend and I moved together to a little studio. It was crowded, but we were finally happy. We had to work on weekends and nights but it was worth it. I didn't mind, but my friend hated missing out on parties and things that normal teenagers do. She was obsessed about finding love. I don't understand why people are so obsessed about finding love. Love! Do you believe in love? Do you believe in finding one, or your soul mate? Ha! Do you believe that one day someone will come to your life and your knees will get weak, you will get butterflies in your tommy, or your heart will just let you know he is the one? I think love is just a concept, a product of people's desperation trying to find the meaning of their primitive procreating urges. For the longest time, I didn’t believe in love. I always rationalized things. You know there is no such thing as the heart having feelings?! All the heart does is pump blood. All this fantasy about love is made up by people trying to make sense of their need for human contact and s*x. Let’s be realistic, the only thing everyone is truly interested in, is s*x. People go around lying to themselves and others acting like their blood pumping organ has the ability to tell them who they should spend the rest of their life with. Love is not real and no matter how much my friend Jeannette tells me, I’m in love with Leo, I'm not in love. Well, I don’t think I am. How could I be in love when love isn’t real? I told Jeannette, I can be physically attracted to a guy, like how he smells, get nervous when he gets close to me, miss him when he is away, and it doesn’t mean I’m in love with him. Maybe I just want to have s*x with him. Well, I hope it is just that, because there is no way I’m in love. He is so sweet. I can spend hours talking to him. He is just so different from all the other guys. He makes me feel safe. I know this is the kind of thing people say when they believe they are in love, but that is not the case here. He is actually very sweet, and I like having him around. Leo is handsome and he is a great listener. When he talks, I want to kiss his lips and those arms! His arms are so strong. I would love to have his arms around me forever. I hate this, I hate being so confused. This is all Jeannette’s fault. I met him because of that stupid party, and now I'm here lying down with this hot guy's arms around me messing around with my head. What am I going to do?