***Why must I be a teenager in love?

Troy and Jenny had been the "it couple" of the younger half of the youth group for four months. Every moment they were in the same room, they were together, side by side. When they weren't together, they were on the phone. It was consuming.

Perhaps it was this that started a gradual change for Jenny. She couldn't explain it. But slowly, she just stopped feeling the same way about him. She missed her freedom. She missed her friends. She began to get annoyed with simple things he did. And perhaps more than all of this, the increasing attention of another young man began to tempt her 14 year old mind.

One day in November, Jenny got the mail as she often did. But on this day, there was a letter for her. There was no return address. She opened it slowly, read it carefully, trying to guess who it was from, only to turn it over and read the closing, "Your Friend, David." She paused, confused and surprised, and then, she smiled. It was nothing, really. The letter was just friendly, just about the things he had been doing and a new TV show he liked called "Friends."

She wrote David back that day. And it had begun. From this moment on, the slight annoyances and the hidden desire to end her relationship with Troy became intensified. Within about a month, she went from adoring his every breath to wanting it to all just go away. She just wanted it to be over. But that was certainly anything but easy.

She pretended everything was fine. She held his hand. She laughed at his jokes. And every night, when they spoke on the phone, she said, "I love you." And then she immediately hung up the phone and hated herself. She hated being so cowardly, so fake, so cruel. She felt trapped. She couldn't tell any of her friends. They still thought Troy was heavensent. And more than all of this, she hated herself for even wanting to break up with Troy. He had not changed. He still loved her just as much as the day he first told her so. He was kind, polite, funny, the guy who only a few short weeks ago, she adored. Jenny wished she could just go back in time and feel the way she did before. But she couldn't.

David and Jenny wrote letters to each other for two months. They remained friendly, nothing slightly romantic about them. But Jenny knew that he liked her. She knew it and it was so very exciting. Just like Corpus was. For Christmas he gave her a book on Disney animation because Jenny had told him she wanted to be an animator when she grew up. She loved it. And she knew what she had to do.

She knew she had to end it. There was nothing else she could do. She was lying to Troy, to her friends, to everyone. She just had to do it. But she couldn't do it. Every night she swore that this was the night she would just say it, "I want to break up." But then every night she would become weak and say, "I love you," hang up the phone and scream. She cried. She yelled. She wrote in her diary. She hated herself.

Finally, Jenny did the most cowardly thing she had ever done, or would ever do. She wrote him a letter. She explained herself the best she could, cried, read it, and reread it again and again, and sent it.

They didn't speak again. It was as if they were strangers. They would walk past each other and look the other way. It was like the previous six months were a dream. He hated her and he should have, Jenny thought. Even on the week long youth group trip to Colorado, they didn't speak once. They both pretended the other didn't exist. Jenny tried to convince herself that this was best, but it just felt wrong. But it was what it was.

David did ask Jenny out. He even asked her out with a ring. It was a James Avery gold band with two hearts and a flower on it. Jenny said yes and immediately regretted it. She didn't really like him. She liked the pursuit. She liked flirting and the challenge. She did not want a boyfriend. But she said yes because she didn't know what else to do. She had led him on. She had accepted his gifts and now, she was trapped again.

So Jenny did what any 14 year old girl would in her situation. She disappeared. She went to her family's ranch every chance she got, she avoided youth group, and she never answered the phone. Eventually, by some miracle, Jenny broke up with David face to face after about a two months of "dating" him. And just like that she had ruined another guy's life. She swore off all guys from this point on. It was just too hard and complicated. She would just be boyfriendless.

But then one night at youth group, about a month before the annual youth group trip to Corpus, a little game of keep away began, and for the first time in 6 months, she spoke to Troy.