There's something special about Lilac Green.

I know it, everyone knows it.

She might not be as loud or as in your face as her friend, Clara. She might not be the best dressed or have the nicest things. She might not be the funniest or the most outgoing.

But there's something about her. She's gorgeous, anyone with eyes could see that. Her long brown hair, and those bright green eyes. The way the freckles on her face show through her makeup, and the way her cheeks are always tinted pink. Everyone knows that she's beautiful.

But that's not it, either.

Maybe it's the way her smile warmed the room, as though the heat could melt the ice in anyone's heart. Maybe it's the way her skin glowed, as if she was descendant of the moon itself. Maybe it's the way she carries herself, the way she walks is as though she's floating through the air, leaving only a faint scent of flowers in her wake. Or, I should say the way she carried herself.

She's been different lately. She hasn't be floating, it's the opposite. She's looks like she's being dragged along, helplessly accepting her imposed life sentence and allowing the chain's attached to her wrists to simply lead her.

I don't know when it changed, like I told her, I've been paying less attention lately. She was a dream of mine, for many years. The girl who sat beside me on my first day of school plagued my thoughts for endless days. Especially, since she became the school's golden girl. I could hardly forget her because she was everywhere. I could hear her laugh ringing down the crowded halls, I could see her in the back of my classes, gigging with her friends. But mostly, I could hear her on the lips of seemingly everyone, as they talked about her. They talked about her positively, praising both her beauty and her mind. No, I couldn't forget about her if I tried.

And then... she started dating him. And so became the faceless girl.

She changed for him. Or, maybe she changed with him. She wasn't the girl from the lunch table anymore. In fact, I wasn't even sure if they were related. She didn't laugh as loud, she didn't smile as big. She looked to him, as if she was looking for his applause. Or, waiting for his criticism. And I stopped looking so hard, because I knew I wasn't him. I wasn't him, and he's all she seemed to worry about.

It wasn't until the night that she asked me for a cigarette did I really see her again. She was drunk, but I could still see her. And she was practically a stranger.

She stood before me now, and she still looked like a stranger.

I didn't expect to see tears in her eyes when I turned her around. Yet, they weren't tears from what just happened. No, they were tears from my words. They were tears from my questioning. She had tears in her eyes because I asked her the very question she didn't want me asking.

I have always hated her boyfriend. I've hated him before they started dating. I've always been able to see it, the ugliness in his eyes. Though, I didn't think it was that type of ugliness. I thought he was a jerk, I didn't think he was an abuser.

Though, what kind of abuser he was, I wasn't sure of. Abuse through words, now I know. My mind flashed back to when she showed up to my apartment, the handprint on her arm. I felt the frown on my face as I pictured it in my mind, and pictured her reaction too. No, no, no.

The anger was resurging in my stomach again, the fury that I felt when he let that disgusting word loose from his lips. The disgust at the way he was talking to her. It didn't matter that I have admired her for so long, from afar. It didn't matter that this was the girl I had spray-painted a mural on a brick wall for. It didn't matter that even though she didn't know my name, I still pined for her. It didn't matter about any of those things, all that mattered is no man will ever speak to a woman like that in front of me.

But, was his words all he did to hurt her? I took a deep breath, slowly bringing my arms in front of me, and placing them on her shoulders. She didn't move, she didn't flinch away. Her face simply scrunched at the nose as she looked at them, and then back to my face.

"Lilac," I said her name carefully, "do you need help?"