I always heard that the beginning of a story was the ideal place to start and this was a story that has yet to have an ending so there is where I will begin. I had heard that love was a strange and wonderful journey taken by two people but it was only when I sat in the driver's seat myself did I realize that it was also confusing and sometimes more than two were caught in the drive.

Ever since I could remember I had always wanted to be in love. No, that wasn't necessarily true; at first I relished the idea of playing the field, of being able to date as many men as possible and having the opportunity to break their hearts at a single word. It might sound sadistic of me but secretly, every girl wishes to be adored by as many guys as possible, to be the centre of their attention. But that dream died a while back and I spent my nights with different thoughts in my mind.

I never dreamed of being overwhelmingly successful, never wanted drop dead gorgeous clothes or meeting celebrities I admired from afar or even finding the solution to cancer. Every night, as I watched the moon's light dance on my pale green walls, I dreamt of being in love. And not just any kind of passing love, I wanted to be hopelessly and desperately in love, so much so that I couldn't breathe around him or without him there. Maybe it was because when I was younger, I had watched my parents staring lovingly at each other and holding hands under the table that it had made me assume that being hopelessly in love made you happy.

But when I grew up the romantic in me knew that it didn't always make people happy; it could make us miserable. But I think that it was a risk I was more than willing to make.

But not one person around me knew that I felt this way. I was the dark devastated artist who only had emotion for her music; the rebel; the disturbed and I hate to admit it but the cheerleader. I guess when people on the streets look at me, the words 'blond' and 'ditzy' come to mind. In school, it's a different story; I'm the popular cheerleader who also happens to be a wannabe punk. And in the privacy of my room, in the hidden drawer therein lies my art and music that I will never allow anyone to see, the only one that showed me how romantic I truly was.

Maybe I'm living with different sides of me. Maybe everybody is this way. Or maybe I'm the only one living a lie.

Either way, my name is Peyton Sawyer. And this is who I am.