In love storys, girl meets boy. Boy charms girl, woes her. Girl falls hopelessly, heels-over-head in love with boy. Boy and Girl date, eventually get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. Blah Blah Blah. If you were thinking this would turn out to be just another typical sappy love story, then you were wrong. The story of us was far from one of those perfect, made up storybook loves. Mostly because those storys were all fictional, and no real couple out there was THAT perfect. I mean, lets be real here. But Taylor and I were as screwed up as they came. I loved him, but hated him. He was the biggest asswhole, yet the sweetest guy. Somehow he managed to be both at once. Confusing? Beyong belief...

So let me start from the beggining. My name is Hayley, I'm sixteen, and I grew up in the tiny town of Cordele, Georgia. It was one of those small, comfortable towns. Just small enough to still allow for that southern family feel, but also big enough to where we had many shops and resaraunts for the tourists. Churches were also plentiful, as we had one of every block. Litterally. Religion was a big part of just about everyones family in Cordele. Only a few familes attended every Sunday together, but at least one member from every family did. On Wednesdays us Teens went to our own service, but also attended Sundays with the adults. Needless to say, I loved being Christian. I loved everything about it, and my morals were strong. I beifed it was important to be respectful and treat every nice, even if they were rude to you. As lame as that possibly sounds. All of my aunts, uncles, grandma and grandpa's all lived near us, too. I'd go visit them all the time. So, anyways, I guess you could say that, to me at least, I had the perfect childhood. Until I turned thirteen, that is. See one night my father had came home, wasted beyond belief. He'd always been a heavy drinker, but this night was different. Momma tried calming him down, but Papa was just so under the influence that he could barely recognize us. That was the first time he hit us. I peeked my head around the corner and saw the whole thing. I saw him strick her, and she just fell to the floor; crying like crazy. She looked up and saw me at once, and that's when I saw the red. Blood was dripping from a sharp cut on her cheek, and small bruises were already forming around it. I cried too, them. I felt helpless, and scared. Before Daddy caught me watching, I hurried back to my room; locking the door, and hiding under the covers. I cried myself to sleep that night. Whenever I woke up, we simply packed our bags, Momma and I, and left that druken bastard.

We ended up in Franklin, a small subarb of Nashville in Tennesee. Momma got a job as a waitress as a local dinner not far from where we lived. Because my father had been the bread winner, we were stuck living in a small trailer across from the High School. It wasn't the best place we'd ever lived in, but it certainly wasn't the worse. The trailer consisted of one tiny bathroom, which also doubled as a laundry room, two small bedrooms, and a average size living room/kitchen. With some fresh paint, and some cleaning, the trailer was every bit as cozy as our old home had been.

Home schooling seemed like a good idea for me to finish off Middle School. I'd never really fit in with other kids my age. I was pretty shy, not very outspoken like the rest were. I'd strange passions for 60's bands and indie music. I didn't get into all that popular pop crap that they all seemed to worship. My dyed, bright red hair and weird sense of fashion weren't much help to fitting in with everyone else either. Most of the time, all I got from it were laughs from other kids or strange glares. So, thats what I did. I finished out 7th and 8th grade on an online school, and decided for Freshman year and High School, I'd try public school again. Of course that'd just turn out to be yet another mistake...

I was now sixteen years old, and beginning my first year at Franklin High School. In all my years of living here, I hadn't really gone out much. So it was a complete mystery to me as of how kids around here acted and dressed. I could only hope my luck for fitting in was better here, then down in Cordele. Again, I was wrong...I had the extreme displeasure of rushing to be on time and running right into Taylor York my very frist day. He was dressed in a Jimmy Eat World shirt, some ripped jeans, and a bright red beanie ontop of his curly hair. I was just about to speak up to apologize from knocking him down, and to complament his amazing shit, but he didn't even give me the time to speak up. He scrowled, collected his now scatterd items, and hurried off.

Geez, people in Franklin seemed to be uptight. Who knew that accidenly bumping into someone could piss them off that bad?

We ran into each other again just a few weeks later; well more like I ran into HIM,again. I'd been looking down at my class scheldule, and didn't really notice anyone else in the halls until my body collided into someone elses. I looked up to find it was the same guy, of course. His papers went flying across the hallway, and he looked pissed. This time it wasn't my all my fault. I reallly should've been paying more attention, but why the heck had he stopped right in the hallway, and he could've noticed me walking before we crashed too?

"Don't you know how to walk, new girl?" The boy practically growled at me. Oh yeah, he was pissed.

I was torn between flipping this kid off and retorting with some smart comment, and completely ignoring him. I settled with an eyeroll, "Actually I do, but I believe you might need to go back and relearn. It's left right left right left right..."

"I know how to walk, smartass. I was only stopped because I was reading the updates on the bulletin board," he pointed to a board hanging from the wall entitled Franklin News.

"Well...sorry, I guess. I should've been watching where I was walking instead on my schedule, "the name's Hayley, by the way. What's your name?"

"It's Taylor." He answered flatly, bending down to collect all of his papers. He seemed hurried, and it made me wonder what was so important about these papers that made him so protective of them. Anyways, I decided to stop wondering and mind my own business.

Sighing, I bent down too. "Here, I'll help you."

"Don't touch them." Taylor snapped, and it scared me a little. What was this kid's illness? He obviously has some type of anger issues. Thats when I noticed these weren't just any papers, they looked like songs. Pretty amazing songs, too. As I read the different lyrics, I couldn't help but be a little awed. Surely this annoying asswhole wasn't deep and poetic enough to compose all of these?

"Wow," I murmered, mostly to myself until Taylor over-heard.

"What?"

"Nothing," I replied, "just all of these songs, they're really good. Did you write them?"

I swear I saw Taylor York, someone I never thought would, smile. He quickly composed it, though. He just simply nodded, and I knew he was proud. Even a impressed comment from a complete stranger that he already hated because she didn't know how to stop bumping into him, probably mean a lot. It no lie either. Growing up, and being heavily influenced by music, I'd written songs myself...but none of anything I'd ever written was half as good. This kid was a genious.

"You should really go into the music business. Sing and record your own songs or whatever...I'd love to do that myself one day, but I need to accumlate enought skill in order to do that. People tell my I've got some pretty good pipes...but they could just be bias. It was family after all." I chuckled, probably rambling to some guy who didn't give a fuck about me.

He surpried me by laughting too, "Well, Hayley, why don't you show me what you've got? I'm in the auditorium after school pretty much everyday with my guitar, and Josh would love it if a pretty girl showed up for once. You should come by sometime."

With that, he left. I was still utterally surprised by his sudden mood change; was this kid possibly bipolar?

After school that day, I decided I'd go to the auditorium. It was the first time anyone had every invited me to hang out or do anything, so I was definatley turning the offer down. Besides, going straight home everyday was becoming a drag and mom wouldn't be home until later anyways. He shifts usually lasted until at last midnight or later. Opening the door the the High School's gigantic auditorium, I saw Taylor and some other kid up on stage. They both had guitars, and we're playing something that didn't quit sound together. So I just assumed they were tuning them or playing random notes. Another guy, who I hadn't even noticed was there, came running towards me. He looked a lot younger then us, and was kind of chubby. I could tell he was related to Josh, as they shared the same deep brown eyes.

He immediatly picked me up into a big bear hug me, taking me by surprise. When he finally set me back down and saw my expression, he laughed, "Ohh man, sorry dude. Didn't mean to creep you out or anything, I do that to everyone, I swear."

I relaxed and laughed too, "It's cool."

"I'm Zac, by the way."

"Hayley." I smiled.

Taylor and Josh finally noticed I'd come, and stopped playing. Josh set his guitar down and walked right over to me. He went with a more gentler approach then Zac had, and held out his hand instead.

"Hi, Hayley." He grinned, "sorry about Zac, by the way, He's just a tag along, and I have to let him because he'll whine to Mom if I don't."

I giggled, "It's really fine. It's actually just nice to see that people here are a lot nicer then where I'm from..."

"Oh, is that why you moved?" Josh asked.

I shook my head, not really wanting to continue on with that conversation. I hadn't really spoken about that night with my dad, and why we left with anyone. All of my relatives were stilll down in Georgia and most didn't even own a phone, so I wasn't able to keep in contact with them for the most part. Sometimes it frustrated me that I couldn't talk with anyone about it, and I was dying to get it out there but Momma made me promise it'd be our little secret, so that it was. Taylor, Josh, Zac and I stayed there for hours. I watched them play for a while, learned that Zac was actually really beastly at playing drums, and even let them hear me sing. They all said they couldn't believe how good I was, and for the next few months we met after school everyday.