Damn. It was one of the first word that comes to mind when someone would think about the 'it girl', the junior prom queen, and all round mean girl Hanna Marin. She would flounce about the hallways of Rosewood High, with a new guy on her arm every week or so- usually someone on the football team to show off to her 'on-again off-again' all-star boyfriend Sean Ackard, with her lackeys in tow, trailing along behind her, meeting me and my friend Lucas with a grimace. The annoying thing was, she was liked by most, hated by others, and the guys, well, and they just wanted to bang her-

including me. But, soon everything changed between us.

On my first day at my new school after many failed foster homes, I was approaching the schools office, I bumped into a slim figure, coffee in hand, spilling the hot liquid all over each other and all down her cream top.

"Watch where you're going, Sketchy."

"I could say the same to you, Princess." Lets just say we took an immediate disliking to each other.

I sat down in my assigned seat in my first English lesson without a partner starting our shared assignment, when she flounced into the room, her honey coloured hair flowing behind her sat beside me. "Shit" I heard her mumble when she noticed me smiling sarcastically up at her.

"Hi Princess,"

"Rule: have a boyfriend so don't even consider anything, not that I would go for someone like you anyways."

"I wouldn't even consider it Princess."

Over the next couple of weeks, I attended a couple of the infamous Noel Khan parties. I was so intrigued by the way she would come to these parties totally fearless without her friends and command the room with her presence alone. The way she moved when she danced, a red solo cup in hand swaying her hips in time to the music without a care in the world had all the guys staring at her and her scrap of material that she called a dress that I just wanted to rip off of her. Still, after those two weeks since we met we hadn't spoken, apart from the occasional grunts in English, which didn't count anyway. With liquid courage in my veins I prepared to go up to her and talk to her, when she approached me.

"Hey, Johnny. I'm a massive fan of your work!" she giggled in front of me.

"Okay… have you had a bit too much to drink Hanna?"

"Johnny, I love you!"

"Hanna, you're hallucinating I'm not Johnny Depp."

"Whatever Johnny. I don't believe you."

I was fascinated by her, the way she would just come up to me, courage coursing through her viens without thinking of the consequences. I knew I'd mock her the next time I saw her.

The next English lesson we had together was the day after the party, and as usual, Hanna came in late to the lesson. Who could blame her, it was the first lesson of the day and everyone had a massive hangover. When she came in I whispered in her ear, "Johnny, I love you!"

"Oh my god. I said that didn't I?"

"Yep." I responded popping the p.

"This never comes up again. Got it?"

"Calm down Princess, it was only a joke." I said with a laugh. "Do you have a spare pen I could borrow? I lost mine." I continued, trying to make conversation.

"Fine." She replied with a huff. Throughout the lesson we chatted, not paying attention to the teacher, Mr Fitz, I think his name was. Apparently one of Hanna's friends is up the duff with his kid. I hope he doesn't get chucked out because hes one of the only teachers I get along with here at this hell hole I call school. During the lesson I joked about telling her about some of the funnier people I've met around the country, earning a few small smiles which reached her bottomless blue eyes. That was a turning point in our relationship, becoming close acquaintances, exchanging glances and smiles to one another in the hallways whenever we saw each other, receiving weird looks from her friends, one even calling me 'Sketchy'.

One night, after a house party was shut down, a couple of us who had fake I.D.'s moved on to a club in Brookehaven, and of course she tagged along. We started to get even more drunk, sharing drinks together, dancing together and by the end of the night, because she said she felt lonely without anyone but me there to take care of drunk Hanna, we ended up in a bathroom stall together. With no clothes on. Lets just say, it got quite frisky.

Our next lesson we had together we spoke, but couldn't look one another in the eye because of what had happened. I still told her things about myself that I wouldn't tell anyone, and she did the same telling me about her time in 'Fat-Camp' for the previous five summers, how her friend disappeared and how close she was with her. She begged me not to tell anyone, her best friends and Sean didn't even know. By the time it was the end of the lesson, we exchanged numbers, hoping that we were each other's comfort. That we could tell and trust each other with anything.

Later on that day I walked through the hallway to my locker, which was coincidentally next to hers. With Hanna, you could always hear her before you saw her, so instinctively, I turned around to greet her with a smile when I heard the clacking of her shoes on the floor echoing down the hallway. "I don't care what you have to say, Sean. No means no. I don't want to sleep with you."

"But Han, it'll be great. Just come to mine tonight and I'll make it really special just for you."

"Sean, I said no. you know how important it'll be for me, considering I'm still a virgin." Not true, but thank god he didn't know that she wasn't because if me.

"Come on Han, just do it. For me? Please? I love you."

"Sean! I said no!"

"Come on Han, we all know you're a party girl at heart." He said starting to get hands-y.

"Get your hands off of me!" she shouted.

"What are you going to do about it hey, Hanna"

I couldn't stand it any longer, "Hey! Get your filthy hand off her! She said no so leave it alone!"

"Who are you to say anything? I'm her boyfriend." With that, I punched him, and sent him packing. "We're over Hanna. Done. For good this time." He said walking off holing his bleeding nose, his football lackeys strutting off behind him.

Hanna wasn't in school for the next week and a half. I got seriously worried about her, bombarding her phone with messages checking in with her, seeing if she was okay. There wasn't a single reply.

The rest of the week passed and I decided to go back to that same club Hanna and I did the deed to blow off some steam and to relieve some of the grief my foster family was giving me. Sitting down at the bar and ordering a drink, I saw a familiar blonde stumbling around the dance floor we had previously been on together with some of our drunken school friends. I familiar rush of joy and worry surged through my body when I saw her telling me to walk over to her to see if she was doing alright. I followed my instinct, my feet following my brain, stumbling over furniture on my way there. When I saw her face she looked a mess, yet somehow still completely gorgeous. I took her outside to some place quieter where we could talk. When we were outside I noticed how much she had drastically changed, blue eye liner was streaming down her face, there were black smudges around her eyes, her face looked thinner, her once curvy body now looked like a pile of bones and there was a buzz in her eyes. She looked broken. That was the moment when I realised that I was hopelessly, ridiculously in love with her.

Sitting down on a step on the cold concrete floor, I cradled her in my arms and she spilled her worst secrets. I could feel the pain radiating off of her as she spoke about her parents divorce, her friends death on top of her disappearance, the names she was called, the years of bullying she went through, her bulimia. Everything. She told me that she had started to make herself sick again when her and Sean started fighting again after we slept together. I felt her frail body in my arms shaking from the cold nip in the November air. She said quite comically that she had 'fallen into an unhealthy pattern' of drinking all night, binge-eating all day, then puking it all up. Which I immediately told her off for. She said that she needed help, but her mother couldn't afford it due to her money problems at that moment. She thought that she wasn't needed and wanted to end it all, that nobody loved her. Which I also told her that I needed and wanted her.

More weeks passed and she decided not to go to school, but to take some time out. I went to visit her every day in the health clinic that she had checked herself into, making sure that she knew that she was loved by me- just after she said that she said that she loved me after our first makeshift date in her room in the clinic, her mum, her friends, and she would always respond with a smile that reached the eyes. She did have off days when she felt like she wanted to not eat at all, that she said that she would rather not eat and be slim, than eat and have to puke it up again. She said that she wanted to be home in time for Christmas, but unfortunately her treatment lasted a lot longer that it should have been due to a huge set back involving Sean and his football lackeys coming to visit her and telling her that she looked fat, close to the end of her treatment, resulting in three more months at the clinic, being allowed to come back home to her mother and her fiancé Ted for Christmas. When she was released, it was March and she said that there was no point in going back to school, because she missed out so much of the year, she would rather do the catch up work for junior year then take the finals in her own time, besides the only thing left of the school year was revision and the dreaded finals.

By the time senior year rolled around, Hanna was back to school with me by her side, us against the world. She knew that she was loved, and especially by me. There was shock when she returned to school. Rumours were spread when she was gone, my particular favourites were, she was Ali 2.0, she had died, she had run away, she was kidnapped, and my personal favourite, she was pregnant, with Sean's baby, thanks to the brilliant minds of Noel Khan and Sean Ackard, as well as the rest of the football team. Since we got back, we were classes as the school loners as we wouldn't leave each other's side. After being reintroduced to society, Hanna decided to reject her friends efforts of being there for her, because they wouldn't visit her in the clinic when it was the toughest time for both her and the people who were there for her and visited her. She would only trust me now.

During the months she was away, a beautiful blossomed between us, knowing that we couldn't be apart otherwise we'd die, so that lead us to today, the night of our senior prom, the theme was memories and each person or couple had their own pictures put up onto a slideshow projected up onto white canvases dotted around the school fields, I found our canvases and let her to them, lights shining above our heads as we danced to slow music projecting from the gym. Halfway through the song, I broke apart from our dance and got down on one knee and asked her the most important question I could ask. You could say we were lucky to have found one another this early in life. I waited anxiously for the most important answer Hanna could give me, and all se said was a simple,

"Yes."