“WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH!?  WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO INTERFERE?!  WHY CANT YOU JUST LET LEAVE ME ALONE!?
“I can’t help it…” She said, the tears streaming down her face.  “I just can’t help it.”
“Help what?”  He asked, raising an eyebrow.  Mandi stirred, something peaking out of her lips but not reaching his ears. She still gripped his wrist tightly, not wanting to let him go.  Suddenly, with out warning…
“I LOVE YOU!!!”  She bursted out.  
D.j’s eyes grew wide.  If anything, he didn’t expect her to say that.  Why… how?  The young boy opened his mouth but Mandi lifted her finger to it and cut him off.  
                 “I know…  I know that you could never find it in your heart to love me…” She was struggling to speak.  “And when you told me… on that day… so long ago.  I was fine with it.  I didn’t care for you like that then.  But as we grew, I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about you.  When I woke up, I looked forward to seeing your face.  And as I was going through my day, I was wondering what you were doing.  If you were laughing or crying.  If you were sleeping or taking a walk outside.  If somehow,… you were thinking about me too.”
                “Mandi.”  He whispered.  
“Let me finish! I tried to fight it.  I didn’t want to feel this way.  Setting myself up for disappointment.  For something that would never work.  I wanted to just remain your friend…” The girl lowered her head further in shame.  “And then… and then when Cody came along…  I told myself that I wouldn’t be jealous.  I saw somewhere that true love is when you care for somebody more then yourself.  When you want what will make them happy.  And I told myself that Cody would make you happier then I could.  So I tried to step aside.”
There was a small silence as she sniffled quietly.  
“But I wasn’t blind.  I saw what was happening.  And it killed me… to see… what he was doing to you.  It KILLED me.  The way he was treating you.  It would torture me to see you tortured so much.  The things he made you do…  I knew that they weren’t who you are.”
“How do you know that!?  How do you know that it’s all I’ll ever be good for!?”  He said, tears starting to swell up in his eyes as well.  
She stared at him, her eyes huge and wet, sad and innocent… and so filled… with compassion.
“Because.”  She said.  “I know you.”  D.J looked away.  
“Now you know why.  Now you know why I couldn’t just stand by and watch as he had his way with you.  I heard the terrible things he’d say to his friends about you… and I wanted to… hurt…. Something.  I wanted to knock something over.  I wanted to break something, I don’t know!  Anything to get rid of the sick stirring feelings I had!  And then when I thought about it more, I realized that all I wanted was to hold you.  To feel you again.  To have things the way that they were when we were little.”
They stood there, the sun fully set.  The street lamps cast the only light on the road before the overpass.  A chilling breeze swept by, prickling at D.j’s face where the tears had fallen.  He didn’t know what to do.  Mandi’s hand twitched a little.  Suddenly she started sobbing.  She put her hands up to cover her face as her body shook uncontrollably.  All the while tears ran down D.j’s face as well.  He wanted to hold her too, he found.  But there was something holding them both back that couldn’t be described.  
“Oh God… Oh dear God.”  Mandi wept.  “Why?  Why do you do this to me?  Why is it that whenever I’m around you I feel like everything and nothing at once?  Why is it that every time you say my name I feel like I could fly?  And why is it that through some odd twist of fate… I’d meet someone as wonderful as you… And you can’t love me back?”
“Mandi…” D.J cried.  “I...”  The boy stopped speaking.  He was completely caught off guard as Mandi wrapped herself around him in a hug.   Her small body shook against him as she continued to cry.  Slowly his arms lifted up and held her close.  She rose up her head, her face weary.  He looked down at her, and a tear on his face feel upon hers.     
And then she did something that will forever impact D.J.  She stood to her toes… and kissed him.   It was a simple act really.  All she did was lightly press her lips against his, there, enclosed to his body.  
And yet, this simple act was so powerful, that it caused a weakening, stirring, and out of control emotion to overcome D.J.  It was as if there was something that exploded inside of him.  
It was not D.j’s first kiss.  It was far from that.  He had kissed many people.  Many he didn’t know or didn’t want to kiss.  John and those… those people.  Strangers wearing faces to mask the monsters they really were.  He had kissed Cody while they lay in bed together, those unbearable nights he thought he was in a painful love.  
But this.  This was completely different.  It was like breathing fresh air for the first time.  It was as if his whole life he had been swimming in muck and now he was in the ocean.  
It was the most beautiful, wonderful, innocent thing he had ever felt.  It was free of lust, and full of love.  And just as she had started, she was done.  Drawing back her face in shame, staring at the ground, hopeless and solemn again.  
He touched her face softly.  She glanced up, that innocent wet eyed look again.  But to her surprise, he was smiling sweetly at her.  
And then he kissed her back.  Holding her closer then ever before.  They seamed to stand there forever, neither one wanting the feeling to end.  Another gust of wind rose up in the air and through their hair, but they didn’t care.
They didn’t care what the world would think.  What their parents might say.  What Cody would say even.  They didn’t care how cold or how hard the wind blew.  They only cared for each other.  
                                                            After all, what is love anyway?