It was the summer after we had graduated from high school. It was time for us to break loose, go a little crazy, and spend our last days together. My group of friends had grown especially close in our senior year. Every day you could find us swimming at our neighborhood pool, watching movies, going downtown, or just having fun together. See Gallery But there was one friend who was more often then not missing from these occasions. Angela and Dan started dating February of our senior year. Angela was a great girl, but one that most guys thought of as a sister, not the type they would date. We were all happy to see her happy with her first serious boyfriend.But then we stopped seeing Anglea at all. She began spending every day and night with Dan. When we could call her cell phone to hang out, Dan would usually pick up and tell us she was busy. Or, if Angela did pick up, we could hear Dan in the background telling her to get off the phone. Her best friends started to get angry. "We never hang out anymore," they'd complain. "I'm just busy right now," she'd reply. Just wait till the summer. Angela started dressing differently, and acting coldly to us in school. She even decided to sell her car and buy the one Dan preferred. If we invited them both along to hang out, they would only talk to each other. Dan would complain the entire time, and jingle Anglea's keys and ask when they could leave. By the time school ended they had started fighting. Dan yelled at Angela because she didn't skip her last class to hang out with him. Dan accused her of not loving him. Upset, she came to talk to us. There we learned more about their relationship. Angela was spending all of her money buying things for Dan, and paying for romantic getaways on the weekend when they'd stay at hotels to be alone. She was working all the time to make up for it, but she needed the money for college, and Dan would get angry that she worked too much. The more she talked the more apparent it became that he was putting her down all the time. I'm trapped, she said at one point. He's the only one for me, but sometimes he makes me feel so bad... Her friends agreed and started to put him down. Angela got defensive. You don't get it, she said. You don't see us together. You don't know him like I do. I pulled her aside as she was leaving. "Regardless of what happens, I want you to know you're a great girl, and I love you and I just want you to be happy. Happy all the time, and not just while it's better before it gets worse again. You deserve better." "But this is all I have," she replied. As she walked out the door, Angela turned back. "Thanks," she said.