I know what people think when they look at us. I know what he probably thought when he first looked at me, too. Eighteen, wide-eyed, dramatic in that way girls are when everything feels like the end of the world or the beginning of something huge. I know how it must have looked when I said I love you too easily, too softly, like I was trying on a word I hadn’t earned yet. But it wasn’t pretend. Not all of it. Yeah, part of me loved how mad my parents got. I loved the slammed doors, the tight voices, the way they suddenly stopped calling me their little girl and started calling me reckless. It made me feel powerful. Chosen. Grown. Like I was finally doing something that belonged to me. And Matt—twenty-two, tattooed, car keys always jingling in his hand—he was the perfect symbol of that freedom. The proof that I wasn’t a kid anymore. But that’s not the whole truth. It never was. When he opens my door, when he texts first just to ask if I got home safe, when he listens to me ramble about nothing at all at two in the morning—I don’t feel like I’m rebelling. I feel seen. I feel like someone is choosing me on purpose. And maybe I lean into that feeling too hard. Maybe I wrap my entire future around it because it’s the first time anything has ever felt this solid. I catch myself imagining forever without even meaning to. Meeting his friends, learning the songs he likes, being the girl people associate with his name. Matt’s girl. I want that in a way that scares me. I want to skip the awkward middle parts of growing up and land somewhere safe, somewhere certain. With him.

And sometimes I wonder if he knows. If he sees how badly I want this to last. If he clocks the way my rebellion and my affection blur together until even I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Maybe he thinks I’m just acting. Maybe he thinks this is a phase I’ll outgrow once my parents stop yelling and the thrill wears off. But when I look at him, when we’re sitting in his car talking about nothing, knees touching, the world quiet for a second—I don’t feel like I’m playing a role. I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Even if part of me is still messy and unfinished and figuring it out as I go. I know I’m young. I know I’m intense. I know I want to prove things I’m not even sure are true yet. But I also know that what I feel for him is real to me. It’s tangled up with rebellion and growing pains and first-love foolishness—but it’s still love. Or at least the closest thing I’ve ever known. Maybe this will crash. Maybe one day I’ll look back and see all the cracks I’m ignoring now. But right now, in this moment, I don’t feel like I’m pretending. I feel like I’m choosing him. And I feel like that should count for something.