There's only one thing better than being popular, well-liked, and the most attractive person on campus—it's being the object of his desire.
I was overlooked most of my life. Quiet, nerdy, and someone people didn't notice. But he saw me. Adrian Kennedy was kind whereas others were indifferent. He laughed, not at me, but because of me. Because he believed I was the funniest person he knew. I was myself with him—stripped bare, exposed. Raw and open in a way I've never known since. I was his, and he was mine.
But I was a secret. Perhaps an experiment. Pushed aside when things got too scary. Too real. His kindness turned into cruelty, not because of words he said, but because he was unaware of what his rejection felt like.
Years later, he's made his way into my life once more. He's married now. To a woman who will never know him the way I did. The way I still do. He's lying to her and himself, and becoming my neighbor is sure to expose everything, because he is mine, and I am his—the keeper of his secret.