I am five years old and it is the age of princesses, evil stepmothers, and happy endings. My mother still bakes the best mille-feuilles the world has ever known, my father pushes me high into the sky on my red and blue swing every day, and they both dutifully indulge me when the ice cream truck comes ringing by on a hot summer day.

It is a summer evening and I am cuddled against my father as we watch the TV. My small fingers grasp a cone filled to the top with vanilla ice cream, and I giggle as he tickles me, ice cream dribbling down my chin. He playfully licks the trailing dairy treat off me, and we both look up just in time to see the flash of a camera.

My mother has just gotten a new camera, and we all grin as the picture appears on the printout. Instant photos are still a novelty, and I trace the appearing outline of my father's jaw. "Your turn." I say.

After protesting for a minute or two, she acquiesces, saying it is only because of me. I am her only child, her beloved daughter, the jewel of her life, and she would do anything to me. She says that while sticking her tongue at the camera.

I insist on reciprocating and taking a picture of my smiling parents. The ice cream is forgotten, as I leave it melting on our cherry-wood table. My mother frowns, but it is quickly flipped upside down when I yell at her to stop looking like a sour lemon. She throws her head back in laughter and I collect the memory with a click of the camera. These snapshots will be lovingly pasted into our family photo album which will collect dust after her untimely death.

I am nine years old now and my star shines brighter than ever. At least that is what my mother says. I am old enough to know now that parents can be infallible, but my mother has not failed me yet, and so I will believe her.

She waves me off to the car, in which my father will take me to school. My lunchbox is tucked securely into my backpack, my loose homework papers are all neatly put into a pink Hello Kitty folder, and my pencil bag holds a multitude of coloured pencils and erasers. I smile as I touch the back of my head, feeling the French braid my mother had carefully done after my shower this morning.

I enter the school with a little trepidation and trembling but it vanishes on spot when my best friend flies at me and hugs me tightly. She instills confidence in me. Other friends of mine join us with greetings and welcome-backs, and I know then that this year will be a good year. The day progresses on like it is any other day of school, barring that it is the first day of my eighth year, and I pay even more attention that I would usually. It is a good day.

I am sitting with my friends at school when I open my lunchbox and see the note she has taped on top of my sandwich container. I love you, I can hear her saying, and I smile, tucking it away into my jean pocket. I can feel myself buoyed up even further, and this day goes from a good day to a great one. She has even packed my favourite foods. With gusto, I take a bite out of my ham-and-cheese sandwich and carefully chew on a crisp green apple slice. The conversations goes on around me and I even join, adding my opinions in a few points. I am not a loud girl yet, but I am not a doormat either.

When Susanne, my then best friend, agrees with me when I loudly tell another friend that apples are too better than oranges, I decide that my day cannot possibly get any better.

We have caramelised onion soup, a fresh baguette, and plenty of laughter at dinner tonight. I am proved wrong, but I don't mind, because as always, my parents are infallible and they can always make my day brighter.

I am eleven years old, and even though it is only two years later, so much has changed. My mother is dead, thanks to a drunk driver who got off because of a louse of a prosecutor — my father has developed a special hatred towards the law system, and I am not much better — and the world moves ahead of me.

My heart hurts so much, and though people usually reserve the term brokenhearted for breakups, I think my situation is as good as any. Every cell of my body feels like it is weeping and wilting, and every day I see the world with unseeing eyes. By a blind man's definition, I have 20/20 eyesight, but yet I do not see. Words float around me meaninglessly and the sight of ice cream and mille-feuilles no longer drag up happy memories. I am blank in every sense of the world and I do not know how to change.

My father does no better either. When he walks into the house after a tiring day of work, we do not greet each other. I silently place a bowl of canned soup heated up in the microwave on the table outside his office and creep back to the kitchen. For myself, I rip off a piece of a baguette I bought at the market and dip it in the same soup I have heated up for him. Because no, I am not too young to walk to the market. I may look eleven, but inside I feel at least fifteen.

It is here in the kitchen that I have time to ruminate on my day. And it is here that I feel this overwhelming anger and despair well up in me. My mother has abandoned, and my father has done practically the same. My parents are not infallible after all and have never been.

I am eleven when I learn a lesson that will forever leave its imprint on my soul. I can depend on no one.

I am thirteen when I meet him.

My father and I have managed to heal, if only a little bit. But it is enough for me to agree to start attending his school. I know he wants to make it up to me. For not being there when I needed him. For not thanking me when I grew up much too fast.

The past has been said and done though. I have changed not only on the inside but on the outside also. I am louder, brasher, and more fierce than I have ever been. Even though I am thirteen, I like to think that I am as good as the actresses I see on TV. Independent, confident, and beautiful. I start straightening my hair in imitation of my favourite actress, and I even buy a couple of belly shirts because my favourite actor says he likes girls who aren't afraid to bare a little bit of skin.

I'll realise how silly I am in a couple years, but for now, I am healing and my father and I are slowly learning how to make conversation again.

Everything changes when I meet him. He is a German boy with sharp cheekbones and pretty eyes. I can hear a tinge of his German accent that colours his voice when he speaks French and it makes me fall in like — I am careful about love, by now — even more. I am barely a teenager, but at the same time, I recognise someone I can trust when I see them. It makes me want to hug him and tell him all my secrets and have him to the same.

He doesn't like me though, and I can't figure out why. But I don't mind because we're only teenagers and I have plenty of time to woo him and bring him into my clutches like a spider traps a fly with her webs. I am determined to have him.

I am fifteen now and not as naive. But even though I am not the naive thirteen-year-old I was, I still want Ulrich all the same. It is wrong, I know, and it will never happen, I also know, but he is always in my thoughts. The way he is so protective of his friends in a silent way, never too loud, and never overbearing, yet there all the same. And the way he kicks the ball with determination and generously sets up passes for his teammates. Every time we talk, I fall a little more in love because of how pure and good he is. I must really be masochistic because I know by now that he has eyes for someone else and only for her.

I watch Ulrich and Yumi jealously as the amble along the school grounds, unaware of my watching eyes. I know that I sound creepy, but I can't help it. I've wanted Ulrich for so long; I've wanted a kindred spirit for so long. I want someone to see through my facade and drag the quiet but assertive girl I was so long ago. But it won't happen, because even I can see that Ulrich and Yumi truly care for each other.

And besides that, I am too far gone now. I've been out in the sun, weathered by the beating heat and toughened by all the people that step over me laughingly. I know I will never be the soft and quiet girl I was. My mother will never sing to me again or be the best maker of mille-feuilles again. Yet, above all of this, I just want to be liked. Is that so bad to want? I may be loud and obnoxious, but I have feelings too, and I am a person too.

And when I watch her kiss him warmly, with feeling and passion she never shows in class, my heart breaks all over again.

So depressing, heh. I just sat down, started writing, and this somehow came out. It seems to drag on in some places for me, but otherwise, I think I kind of like it. Thoughts and criticsm are always appreciated!