"Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition."
-Alexander Smith

A.J.'s POV:

Here I lie in bed with someone I don't even know. I met him last night at the club I was at. He was tall with blonde hair. Of course I had approached him, always getting what I wanted. Too bad I didn't remember his name. The only name I could remember was Dean Portman.

He was the male version of me. He played hockey and didn't care what people thought about him. Portman was your usual bully. He beat people up if they got in his way. Portman was known for being in the penalty box and sometimes stripping. He had a tattoo across his left bicep that I found him staring at a lot. He was different then me at times. He never did homework and slept during class. If it wasn't for Ms. Palmer's English class I would have never met him. She assigned us to work on a project together figuring 'we had a lot in common.' I did most of the project but he was there to help a little bit. We did learn how much we did have in common as we did the work. Just like me, Dean slept with any girl that looked at him. He never settled.

I learned at a young age not to trust men, that's why I never settled. My father left me and my mother to fend for ourselves. Since then my mother has remarried some rich guy who pays for my schooling. He beats her but I'm not supposed to know. I've never been around him long enough to hit me. I had only one true boyfriend...freshman year I dated Jacob O'Neill. He cheated on me 6 months into our relationship. From then on I just closed myself off to the emotion everyone called "love." I wanted nothing to do with it.

So if I didn't believe in love or like, why was Portman on my mind? Portman was just my friend. He was the guy I hung out with when I had nothing else to do. Portman was the kid that I used to sit in the back of the class with spitting spit balls at the nerdy kid in the front of the room. But Portman was different from the moment I laid eyes on him. He was tall with dark eyes that hid all his feelings. He always wore blue jeans, a wife beater, a leather jacket and a tight black bandana.

I turned over and grabbed my cell phone out of my pants pocket. The phone lit up and read 5:37 a.m. I had to be at the track in just less than an hour, to start training for soccer. I picked up my heavy body and decided to get out of there, wherever there was. I put on my jeans and my white tank top and lastly putting on my signature jean jacket. I pulled on my black baseball cap and slipped it over my head backwards. I jingled the keys in my pocket and slowly made my exit. I didn't think about leaving a note or anything for mystery guy. I walked out and around to the back of the house I was at and jumped in my car. I started the car and proceeded to head to Eden Hall to start my day.