"Who are you?"

Six year old Zachary Goode looked up. He shrugged. "Call me Zach." Even at such a young age, he had the smirk Cameron Morgan would later fall into a love- hate relationship with.

He chose to ignore the implied What are you doing in my sandbox? as she inched farther and farther away from him. Farther still until she had to rise to sit on the wooden rim of her favorite childhood playground feature. Ha he been in touch with his feelings, like she, he would have come to the same conclusion many years earlier: love at first sight, even though to any and all onlookers, it appeared to be anything but.

"Don't worry," he said, "I don't bite... Unless provoked." He winked, sounding more like his older cousin, the high school player, than his kindergarten self. In fact, it was a line he picked up- no pun intended- straight from James, the cousin who lived with his family. And even though it wasn't original, it became a sort of inside joke between the two.

He said it before he kissed her the first time, at age twelve. He bit her bottom lip anyways, just to make her laugh. Her beautiful laughter was a sound he didn't hear much around that period, what with her father disappearing and their impending departure to separate boarding schools. Later, when she called him a liar for saying he didn't bite, he told her that he only bit when provoked, and he was most definitely provoked. She had rolled her eyes. God, those beautiful eyes.

Winter break of their sophomore year, she wouldn't even look at him in the airport. They had taken a short break, but he was fully intending on getting back together. He tried to hug her, but she wiggled out of his grasp. "Remember?" he had asked. "I don't bite."

"Yeah?" she argued. "Well maybe I do." And with that, she stood up on tip toe and bit his nose, hard. She took in the blood pouring from his nose. He took in the tears pouring from her eyes, the culprit being only one possible thing: heartbreak. As much as it hurt him to admit it, she had been close with someone while they were they opposite. And it had hurt her. For one sick second, he was glad they felt the same, that they were both hurt. But then, as her tears got to him and wrenched his heart out of socket, he knew there was a difference: while she only felt her pain for this mystery boy, he felt her pain and his own.

He had gotten his wish, they were back together by the weekend. During their senior year, the Blackthorne Institute had its second exchange with the Gallagher Academy. Instead of learning at one of their schools, though, it was a year- long cover- maintaining exercise at Cammie and Zach's old school.

Being more widely accepted as a couple- because to their hometown, Zach and Cammie were one, like conjoined twins, having been together almost six years, and friends for twelve- they grew even closer. Seemingly almost impossibly so to their friends. Now, after the fact, Zach saw how stupid he was to put everything he had into their love and their bond, into her.

A wise man- his father, actually- had once told him that the closer you get to your true love, the farther apart the pieces of your heart will shatter. He passed it off as nice sounding but untrue. He and Cam had laughed about it, and she reminded him not to be sad when things were over, but happy they had happened. Which made his conflicted feelings now only so much more cliché. That thought made the fragments of his heart clench. His Cammie, his Gallagher Girl, loved clichés, coincidences, and irony. It was part of what made her herself, like her beautiful, breathtaking dirty blonde hair, or those amazing sapphire orbs, or even her polite tone for adults and the honeyed sarcasm she used for her peers.

She had run away once their graduation after party was finished. She was the valedictorian, with a billion and one job offers from AlphaNet companies around the world, yet she took none of them. Now there was some irony for you: the girl who had everything took nothing when she took off.

In a desperate attempt to derive himself of depressing thoughts, he plopped down onto his leather sectional and flipped on the TV. American Idol was on. He could live with it, even if it had happened to have been her favorite show. What's wrong with that thought, Zach? This is like the little kid what- item- doesn't- belong game. In my world,it's the past tense. She was my girlfriend, but still is the love of my life.

Realizing his bigger problem was the fact that he was talking to himself, he shut up with his inner ramblings and turned his attention to the television once more. Somehow, he hadn't known that tonight was the American Idol finals, and, considering he was still a co-worker of Macey McHenry, that was a pretty big feat.

A new, familiar girl came onto the screen, and it took a second for him to realize that this was exactly what a bone- thin but far curvier version of his ex- girlftriend would look like. When they flashed her name and the number to vote for across the bottom of the screen, he knew his hunch was correct. She had entered as ikl;Katie a;rnewcjr Katie rocks like cheese rekajkkkatie albrecht rocks like cheese son a unday ,orni Morgan Matthews.