Chapter 2:

"Love is bittersweet…like strawberry wine." Deana Carter knew exactly how this song would connect to women around the world. She might have gone through it herself. Falling in love at a young age only to have to go through a broken heart. Young and innocent at her "first taste of love" and I understand every single word in that song. Because as much as I want to deny it? I fell in love. I fell hard and fast. Even if I call this just a time period of my life. A moment where everything was going great but in reality was falling apart with everyone around me. The temple I had created was falling apart. I as a person was falling apart.

Until I met….

Him.

Mr. Prince Charming himself put a charm on me and several other girls that no-one could resist.

The only difference between me connecting to Deana Carter's love song called "Strawberry Wine" I wasn't seventeen. I wasn't a women but still a child in every way. My body was forming into womanhood. But my heart? My soul? It was still nothing but young and very innocent. I wasn't stuck between a woman and a child. I was stuck between which parties to attend. Which friend to have as my own? I was stuck in this "social life" I was stuck in memory lane. I was young and innocent when I met Prince Charming, but so was he.

We both were young. We had a life. We had so much ahead. That meeting someone of the opposite sex that would change our lives completely was just out of the question. We didn't need any more distractions as it was that we had.

I was just 15 years old. Well when I first met him I was. But throughout the rest of the year I turned that 15 year old girl into 16 years old. And let me tell you! The day I turned 16, it was the best day of my life. But this is not how I and Prince Charming met.

When me and Prince Charming met… well it was nothing like how fairytales make it to be. You know with the whole thing of him sweeping me off my feet thing?

Yea…it was more like superman rescuing his beloved girl. Except the one thing…I wasn't his beloved girl. I was just a stranger.

I was just a random girl in school. Among many faces none being familiar.

Our first encounter it went a little like this…

Between it being the third week into Junior Year and remembering all my homework and keeping myself in check? I had no time and no head to be meeting a Prince Charming.

I walked into my third hour class of the day. I won't say the name of this class. I won't say the teacher of this class. If anything privacy is still needed in my mind. But back to the first encounter.

I walked in took a right turn. Ready to join a friend sitting in the back of the room. Only to run into a brick wall, a thin but stiff brick wall. It all happened so suddenly that even to this day, I only remember the impact and these brown eyes.

I remember hitting something. Or someone in this case and then the next thing I know I am staring into a pair of brown eyes. This feeling started in the bottom of my tummy. It erupted and then just exploded into a fizzle kind of tickling. The thing is I wasn't laughing, I felt in that moment complete.

I mean. No, yes I felt complete. If you had been in my shoes back two years ago in my freshman year. Well let's say I wasn't that type of girl that was going to be a Genius. I was that girl that had her best friend making her let loose because she needed it. I partied, I went to dances. I tried different types of little drugs. You know the things most teenagers don't try till they enter high school? Well yea, I had become that girl. I had lost it all when I had entered freshman year. All I had was my best friend. She taught me the best of the best. Sure most of the "best of the best" wasn't really the best thing I should have tried or done in my life. But hey! Don't judge. Everyone has a reason to screw up.

Well anyway. She ended up moving out of my life, in my sophomore year. I felt alone and well useless. Her being about 30 minutes away by car and about an hour in a half in public bus transportation, it made me feel even more alone. We had never been apart like we were pulled apart sophomore year.

So…when I said that when I connected and felt complete to this brown eyed boy, it was just something in me that made me feel like I met my reason of existence. I mean as silly as it sounds. For a moment? I know he felt it too. I know he did. For some odd reason I know he did. Because I saw, something in his expression. I saw it in his eyes. I saw this spark. If only had I known that spark meant something for the both of us, that he saw it in my eyes too.

Because in that moment. I felt alive and I became scared that this boy could see something I couldn't pin point what it was. I pushed myself away from his touch and his questioning eyes. Then I heard it.

It was faint. But in my ears was loud enough that the walls around me felt the vibration as well too.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump, Thump.

My heart. His heart.

I could hear the melody.

Of our hearts, I had pressed my hand on his chest for just a split second, and I found myself connected to him just by this simple touch.

I looked up, he felt it too. He moved away for a second, and then I felt cold whether it was just me or whether it was just him. Or both of us. He felt something too, cold? I guess so? Then he moved an inch closer. I looked down, avoiding his prying eyes that were searching my soul.

"Are you okay?" those words. If only I could respond to them. I felt the heat rise up on my cheeks; I snapped my head up to meet those intriguing brown eyes. His voice. I swear I have heard it before. While I am trying to rack my brain for this information, if I have ever met this boy ever in my life, he tends to look me up and down.

His voice… it was between a child and a man? The way I heard it, it was mature but it still held that child sound in there. He sure has gone through puberty I know he has because well he has a mustache! No young child has a mustache! But as well when I bumped into him, he had strong chest.

Then he smiles… that smile was my undoing. I smiled back. It was a silent conversation, in a way. Him smiling at my staring and stuttering, while me confirming everything was fine. "I am fine. Just a major klutz I am that is all!" I waved it off as if nothing. "Well I must get to my seat now. Sorry for…you know? Ramming into you" I smiled and walked off.

I sat next to my friend. Only to look up and see him still standing there, watching as I walked away. His eyes held questions. His smile tugging at his lips held amusement. The tingling had passed but the fire in my tummy that was there it was burning out as he walked further to the front of the room. He sat next to his buddies.

I started talking to my friend. Ignoring the light ache in my heart, its demand to run up to this stranger and be close to him. The need and the demand were strong but not as strong as my stubbornness of becoming a fool.

I felt those brown eyes on me. I didn't think or have time to over think I just followed my heart. The heart that had betrayed me in that moment, the heart that for the past two years had drowned out her sorrows by alcohol and drugs to not feel it pulse or beat in me. It had betrayed me by coming to life when I first encountered Mr. Prince Charming.

I looked up and sure enough. Those brown eyes were staring right at me, with questions clouding his mind as if trying to figure me out. In my heart. I knew that this wouldn't be the first time I bumped into Prince Charming, and it sure as heck wouldn't be the last time.

My heart knew it.

He knew it.

And I sure as heck believed it.

One thing I know my heart knew, that I just had no clue of was that this boy would impact my life more than I had wished anyone to ever do. He would change every aspect of it, that I could no longer go back but just more forward.

He transformed me into who I am today…

So I must thank Mr. Prince Charming the day I see him again…