He remembers the first time he saw her. And those two sentences she spoke, pretty much more than any other one-sided conversation he's ever been apart of or witnessed in his life. She was breathtaking – literally – and made his palms unusually moist, and his throat close up and his stomach tighten.

He didn't belong there. He knew that. He wasn't rich, or overly good looking, and he'd worn the clothes he was wearing more than once. Unheard of. What an outcast. But seeing her, even for a minute, kind of made all this uncomfortable social interaction and humiliation worth it. She was in front of him, smiling brightly, and he hadn't even registered that she was talking to him until she was gone.

He knew she had no idea who he was. He was probably the hundredth guy she talked to that night, and now she was in the corner sipping from a bitten straw and laughing out loud with a tiny brunette. Other guys circled around her like vultures.

Serena Van der Woodsen. He had no chance. What would she ever see in a guy like him?