She walks backwards faking a laugh, a slight smile framing her face, i can tell she is not fully comfortable. The way she is clutching on to her drink and the wandering eyes clue me in to her feelings of easiness. His level of drunk is complete opposite of her, she is sober, he is towering over and his hands just barely touching her, but i can see it in his eyes. His intentions are that of someone who is not fully innocent, and i know for a fact that what he wants is more than just to form a new friendship, he wants something else. He leans in a little bit more and she lets out a nervous laugh as she backs into a wall. Thats when my voice calls out for him to back off. I tell him that shes clearly not interested, that his advances are not wanted, his slurred words are not compliments and what hes doing has a name its called ****** harrassment. He moves back and puts his hands up as if to say im not guilty of anything. After he ends up on the other side of the room She looks to me, lets out a relieved sigh, a smile on her face, she mouths thank you. I nod because this isnt the first time ive seen a situation like this but is the first time ive truly recognized it, this is the first time ive ever spoke up. And i feel good about it, relieved.
Later in the night he approaches me. Still drunk and reeking of hard liquor he looks at me and says you totally killed my game. Now i have two options. I could either apologize and pretend like his actions were completely okay or do the opposite and say how i really feel. Before even making a concsious decision i look up and say it's not a game, if theres only one player. I turn around and walk away. Now i know people would say that if she really didnt want it that she would have gotten up and walked away herself but see i know this isnt true. Girls, including myself, have been taught something else when were in situations like this. Society teaches us to be polite and nice as if disrespect deserves anything but the opposite, girls were taught to smile and shrug it off as if unwanted ****** advances are something we can just shrug off. As if **** is a game and were just supposed to play along. Girls, why do we act polite? Why when were uncomfortable and ill at ease do we plaster on a smile and pretend like this is how things are supposes to be, this is not how its supposed to be. We have the right to stand up and say no. We have the right to stand up and say go away i dont want you. We have the right to look you in the eye and tell you to *******, we are not voiceless creatures, we are strong Fearless women who need to look out for eachother because I learned along time ago that if we dont, noone else will. So stand up when you see her being cornered by a stranger, speak out when you see him drape his arms around her, if she seems nervous, make her feel secure, because if you look out for someone when they cant find the words to get away then someday they might just do the same for you. **** being polite and sweet and nice, it is your ******* right to say how you feel, dont ever be afraid to voice your uncomfort, you are not alone. And I was alone the night that the same situation happened to me and at the time society had forced me to believe that all i could do was just smile and stand there powerless and weak. I wish that someone had seen the uncertainty in my eyes and body language, i wish that someone had stood up and told him to back off, i wish that i had had the voice to speak up. And even though i didnt then, im speaking up now. Im speaking up for all the girls like me, girls who consantly are in these situations, the polite victims who couldnt find it in them to tell him to leave them alone, for the girls who are shamed for saying no, for the girls who get called *****, it is not your fault you werent asking for it. For the girl whos smiling despite extreme uneasiness, i want you to know im looking out for you. And as for every girl out there, you should be too.

I remember the day he told me.
Driving down Deerfield road he said so casually,
I have cancer.
The word that we’ve been conditioned to fear, the one that we associate with our
world falling apart, the word that we never want to hear come from the mouths of
our loved ones.
But there it was, spoken with such ease, the word released from my fathers
mouth.
I’ve never been good at emotions or feelings or any of these human things that
you're supposed know how to express naturally. So as he told me I just sat there
in silence, the only sound being the soft hum of the highway around us.
And we drove home.
We didn’t really talk about it much, just went through the motions like that was
enough and it was.
The surgery was quick and before we knew it, he was cancer free and i just
assumed that wed go on with our daily lives that easily and for a while we did.
But the book didn’t end there. Like every good story, there’s a central conflict,
one that we avoid or even face but after some time it reappears as if to say, you
thought i'd just go away didn’t you?
and it came back. With a vengeance, one that would not be so easily cured like
before, one that would change my life and force me to confront the feelings from
which id always tried to hide.
And this time when he told me there was no silence and no casual tone in his
words  I could hear the tremble in his voice as he knocked on my door, he never
knocks. And I knew in that moment that something was not in place. And I could
tell from the fear plastered on his face that he was scared. The man I was
looking at appeared as a lost child, not the strong confident man that I call my
father.
And he told me with the fear in his eyes and a tremor in his voice followed by
the sentence,
"We’ve got so much we’ve yet to accomplish."
And I knew, this was just the beginning of a whole another battle.
The chemotherapy took his silver locks but not his spirit, took his weight but
not his soul, it tore and it ate at his body until the man that stood before me
seemed almost unrecognizable but he had made a promise, one that he had no
intention of breaking. So I stood beside him during infusion after transfusion
with a heavy heart and the fear that I could possibly lose him but never once
did I let it show. I held myself strong because he did. I never let myself get
discouraged because if he could be tough, than I could too.
Sitting on my bed one, weak and at his lowest, he told me to start planning. He
said that our lives were only just starting and that this was merely a wakeup
call to start living and that he wouldn’t dare give up because for 17 years he
has been my rock and he would give anything to see me grow up and that he wasn’t
going to take no for an answer that I was going to write our bucket list and
that he was going to beat this cancer.
And he did.
One Sunday in September we went for a drive.
Something that I so often took for granted and now couldn’t be more grateful for.

And with the sun blaring down on us and the clouds filling in the gaps of blue,
I realized that its moments like these that are the ones to cherish.
Its moments like these that define our lives and the casual routine of our being.
So hug your parents a little bit longer, squeeze them a little bit tighter, make use of
the time you have together because you never know when one car ride might change
everything.

You’re beautiful.
Every single piece of you is absolutely beautiful and I say absolutely knowing that you can trust me because i've seen it all.
And in all of the complicated beauty that you possess I see that you're hurting and that you’re lonely its almost as if I can feel you're sadness, but know that I love you no matter how many miles apart we may be.
785 miles to be exact but regardless of how far away you actually are I still feel like you’re just a few miles down the road I feel as if you still live in the same home the one where we spent countless nights camped out on your trampoline tracing the stars in the sky that would one day lead us here. I get the urge to drive by sometimes you know just to see what its like and who lives there and what’s inside because that house is where I used to spend all of my time growing up.
We used to curl up in your bed late at night talking about things that now seem so insignificant, but back then meant the absolute world to us. And I wonder if some other little girl is living in that room that we found so comforting.
But more than that house more than anything else, I miss you. I miss your presence I miss being able to call you up and knowing that you’d be here in seconds I miss the innocence that we used to have. Back when we'd have to spin bottles in the basement in order for us to kiss boys and sneaking out of the back stairs and trying out best not to make any noise and of course we did because we laughed for hours and didn’t know how to stop it, wed walk to the 24 hour 711 down the street and for us, it was like walking to the moon.
Those moments lasted forever and together we, were unstoppable. And I get choked up when I think about what could’ve been possible before we both went down the wrong paths, going down further and further with no intention of ever going back and we got stuck in quicksand somewhere at the bottom and still through it all you never once let go of my hand. And people can say that our friendship relied on all the things that kept us going but I know the only thing that really kept me going was you.
I remember when things started to get rocky, when we were both walking on a thin rope so close to falling off into a pool of nothing But we never did.
Because you had to pick up and leave everything that you thought you’d always need and start all over in a new town where nobody knew your name and knowing I had to finish high school with my only friend 785 miles away and it still makes me ache just thinking about it. Because I cant walk into the lunchroom knowing that I have someone to sit with anymore, because I know you wont be waiting outside my door with the keys to your Subaru ready to go on our next adventure. And even though we talk everyday I can hear the loneliness in your voice and I can hear the pain and I do my best to hide mine so that you’ll think that i'm okay but deep inside I think you know how much I miss you.
Because I love you more than any guy ever will and you could let me down a million times and id still be there because you were there for me. And so I see the beauty in you and I want you to know that if you or anyone else cant see it, its there. And that no matter what happens in our lives, I will always be here. Because I gave some of the hardest years of my life to you and you gave me yours and for you to be happy, is all I could ever ask for.