It all started off as a bet or at least that's what he led people to believe.
The truth is his attraction for her started before that. Before all the taunts by his friends for him to ask her out on a date.
"Come on, it'll be funny." They jeered. "Come on she's so desperate for someone to love her that she'll actually believe anything you'll say."
He knew it was sad though, leading her on like that. When she did find out, through rumours at school, through his so-called friends who took the time to remind her that it was all fake, that no one would ever love her. He was devastated.
The way her face crumpled as she ran off to the bathroom in tears. The way that she bunked school (the one thing she loved the most) and went missing for a couple of hours broke his heart. He went searching for her and was the first to find her in the place he expected she would be, her favourite spot in the woods by the river.
The sunlight bouncing off her hair the same way it had in the classroom at school or the library where they first met. Always the most studious student out of them all. Always sitting at the front of the class, taking notes, being involved in the conversation. Enamoured by what the teacher had to say.
He would watch her in the library as she would brush her hair behind her ear when it would get in the way, her cute little concentration face when she was thinking of the answer to a question or the way she would bite her lip when she was nervous.
He would watch her from the back of the class, hoping and praying that one day she would see him for the person he truly was and not just what he made himself out to be. The boy with a reputation who still seemed to be a hit with all the ladies.
He wanted to show her though, the real version of himself, the true version of himself that he kept locked up inside. He wanted to show her but was scared that if he showed it to anyone that they would take advantage of him. With her he never felt that. Know she would never do that but the chance to tell her had been and gone.
And so, he would leave. Life would go on. Leaving him with another girl under his grasp. Another notch on the bedpost. His reputation higher than ever but his feelings the lowest they had ever been. Still ever hiding from the world who he truly was, a lonely broken man just looking for someone to love him the way he wanted loved back.