It's not like that, and it never was.

This has been one of the toughest obstacles to understanding that I've faced over the years. It comes up time after time after time, and it's always wrong, and I never seem to be able to find the words to explain the way it truly was. The way it truly is.

Expectations, assumptions, hopes, they never mattered, not enough to affect any of this. Those things still don't matter.

It just was. It just happened.

That girl is beautiful. That girl seems smart. That girl seems sweet. That girl doesn't seem like a slut. That girl seems friendly.

Nope, I never had any of those thoughts, not at first anyway. I didn't have time for those thoughts. I had two seconds, and that's all I needed. That was an eternity compared to what I needed.

That girl.

Period.

Everything was a bonus. There was no validation or authentication or demonstration or confirmation. There was no ideal, no pedestal, no fantasy, no anything except...

I had nothing but a simple fact, and nothing that's ever happened has changed that simple fact.

That girl.

Period.

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Sometimes, I hear stories. I don't like them. I don't like hearing them. I wish people would stop telling them to me. They've never changed a thing except my mood.