Prolouge:

It wasn’t always like this. I hadn’t stood here my whole life, imaging that I’d be completely and utterly beaten into submission. I had never taken myself to be the romantic type, matchmaker maybe, but never a romantist. I had always been bombarded by pleas of “When will you get a boyfriend?” and “Elaina, you’re seventeen, get a guy for Christ sakes!” Now look at me. I’m sitting here praying that I could hear those once more, but then again, I’ve never wanted anymore more then to be seen hand-in-hand with him on the street.

He was smiling now. That was enough to make my knees weak. I was becoming one of those sad, sappy love enthusiasts that had once made me gag. It was horrible to imagine myself, I didn’t even want to think about what my old friends might have thought about me right now. I was popular, but in the tomboyish sort of way. I had scorned make-up and desperately tried to ban dresses from my house. Now I was wondering if I looked weird in the shorts and t-shirt I now had adorned.

Perhaps I should start from the beginning, where it all really began.