Present, Sam POV

I think our story pretty much boils down to this: Girl meets boy. Something rubs her the wrong way and they hate each other for years, or at least think they do. Girl and boy become entangled in an elaborate adolescent project. In our case, a web show. A series of events leads to girl and boy stealing a kiss on their apartment balcony. Back to more of the same, until something clicks. Boy asks girl out, and they date for two years. Everything is as close to perfect as could be expected from two opposites such as them until they realize that their dreams will land them at colleges across the country. They avoid this fact until prom when girl breaks up with boy because long-distance relationships never work out.

I guess that's about the point I'm at now. It's been almost three years, but it still feels like just yesterday was the time of our lives. How times flies.

I'm sitting on my dorm room bed with all of my notes spread out around my blue comforter. I haven't looked them over even once. I can barely concentrate on anything. My roommate, Ashley, is gabbing into her cellphone to one of her thousand boyfriends. I'm ready to vacate in a second. She set up the roommate code on the first day. So far she's the only one who's had to use the "Hookup Terms" which guarantees the user complete privacy until 7:30 AM when all rights expire. There's an empty room set up down the hall with a bunch of mattresses strewn across the floor for roommates like me. I think I've spent about a sixth of my nights there so far. I've gotten quite close to a girl named Haley, whose roommate actually completely kicked her out and threatened her with blackmail if she went to the dean about it.

In my opinion, there really shouldn't be so much studying required for music theory. Really, I mostly go by what sounds right and whatever is running through my head at the moment. But still I have to study almost constantly. Does anyone really need to know how to play a Bm7/9 chord on guitar? It's certainly not used on the radio, the land of the four-chord pop songs.

"Hey, I might have to resort to the Terms again. You're cool with that, right?" Ashley says, giving me a grin as tosses her thick brown hair over her shoulder.

"Of course," I say in a sarcastic monotone. "Totally cool."

"Great. You're the best, roommate."

Yep. Roommate. Like she doesn't even remember my name after a whole semester. She probably doesn't. I hardly spend any time here anyway. I gather all of my packets and papers and stuff them in my bag.

"You know, the Terms do apply to you too. I won't be mad if you have to use them. And don't be embarrassed. I've gotten over it." That's pretty obvious.

"Whatever. My main love affair is with pie and ham. We get it on in the cafeteria," I reply, opening the door. I look back at her. "You know, you're not getting graded on the amount of guys you hook up with. You can get kicked out for failing. There goes your chances with the fraternities, huh?"

Ashley just gives me a funny look and returns to her phone call and painting her toenails an obnoxious shade of hot pink. I shut the dorm room door behind me and make my way to the reject room.

The truth is that it wasn't the studying or the classes or anything that was keeping me from getting a guy. It was him. That guy, the only guy I'd ever truly been with. The one that kept me up at night and made me scared to ever start anything new. The one that I'd let go because I was stupid and too afraid to be with because we were becoming way too perfect. Freddie Benson. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I crash down on one of the mattresses in the room and splay out on my stomach.

"Hey, Sam," says Haley from the mattress beside me. She has a Calculus textbook open on her lap along with a graphing calculator and notebook, clearly in the middle of homework "So, Ashley found a new guy she hasn't defiled yet?"

"Apparently." I want to start trash-talking her, but I don't. Normally I would. Haley and I have come up with a quite a few rather rude nicknames for Ashley, but today I don't feel like it. I knew when I woke up today, that it would be tough one to get through. I don't know why, some days are just harder to survive than others. Freddie has a corner in my brain, and sometimes it takes over more than usual.

Then I know what I have to do. One of the only things that can truly calm me. I bid Haley goodbye and race back to my dorm room. I grab my acoustic guitar from next to my bed and run back out before Ashley can say a word. Next I make my way to the local coffee and snack place, Crazy Beans. It's the favorite for all the coeds.

Jimmy Chester, the owner of the place, nods at me when I enter. We have a good relationship, me and Jimmy. He lets me play my music here whenever I want to. In return, he also lets me have some of his heavenly bacon for free. It's a fair trade. My songs for food. Usually when I'm stuck in a major rut and need some release, I come here. Music cleanses the soul people say. Something like that.

There aren't very many people here today. Maybe a dozen sit at the tables, scattered across the place. I set up on the little makeshift stage in the corner. I sit down on the stool Jimmy's left out and set my guitar on my knee. After quickly checking to see if I'm in tune, I get to strumming. I start off with what I always do, a happy little slice of ignorant teenage infatuation called "Really Happening" about... well, you know who.

I get a couple of smiles, nods, and one person even claps. Then I get into the emo, dark stuff that seems to dominate my writing lately. "Drive Away" is about him driving to Stanford without me and "Permanent" is about him seeming to be permanently etched on my heart.

I'm losing the crowd, and I can tell so I switch to something faster, happier. It doesn't feel right. I'm just not in a cheerful mood. I can't sing about Freddie anymore without feeling like crying, so I go to the song I wrote about my mom. It's even tougher. Tougher to sing, and it makes my whole heart feel weird. It's about how I feel like she never wanted me; she never showed it. Even through therapy, our relationship was never the best.

That's when I get to thinking about the one day Mom and I had a huge fight...

March, Sophomore Year of High School

"Sam, what are you doing here? You don't even have a smoothie." It was the dork, looking over my shoulder again.

I crumpled a stack of napkins to release my anger. It was a therapy technique. Take your feelings out by harming a non-living object instead of a person. Unfortunately, it was not as satisfying. I glared at Freddie. "None of your business, Frednerd."

"Okay, I just wanted to see what was wrong. It kind of looked like you were crying." He was smiling, but when he saw the poisonous look on my face, he backtracked. "But that's ridiculous, of course. Pucketts don't cry."

"Don't you forget that," I said. He sat down across from me in the booth. "What are you doing sitting down? Get me a smoothie."

Freddie rolled his eyes and got in line. T-Bo tried to sell him some cupcakes on a stick which Freddie repeatedly refused using gradually larger hand gestures, ending with him slapping the counter and T-Bo looking all offended. I laughed, and Freddie slid the money across to T-Bo and walked back toward me with a smoothie and frustrated expression.

"The things I go through for you," he said, handing me my drink. I took a long sip. It was mango, my favorite. He noted my smile and said, "I know you so well."

"Really," I muttered.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do you think you really know me?" At his nod, I added, "Then prove it."

"Well, I know you like mango smoothies, ham, fat cakes, bacon, fried chicken, meatballs, steak, spaghetti tacos, and hotdogs. You have two cats named Hashbrown and Frothy. Your best friend is Carly, and I'm your second best friend sometimes when I'm not your worst enemy, and you play guitar and..."

"That's too easy. You could tell all that stuff from my Splashface page."

"Well, I know you were crying when I came up to you, whether you'll admit it or not. I'm guessing it's something to do with your mom." He pauses, probably to see if I'm going to rip his face off. I'm just calmly shredding a stack of napkins and sipping my smoothie. "I know you have a twin sister named Melanie who is absolutely the opposite of you, and your mom likes her better which is just horrible for you." He then goes on to recite practically my whole life story. I have absolutely no idea how he knows all of it.

"That's enough," I snapped. "God, you're annoying when you talk like that. It was almost like you lecturing me on photon receptors or whatever that tech chiz is you talk about."

"Oh, I thought you were actually listening."

"No, nope. Total bore. You need to get your facts straight."

"You must have been listening!"

"Don't flatter yourself. See you later, Fredbag."

I snap back to reality then. I must have been sitting on the stage glazed-eyed for ten minutes. I flush and start strumming some random chords to break the silence. Suddenly, a guy starts walking up to me. He seems vaguely familiar. I'm pretty sure he's in one of my classes. He has dirty blond hair and clear green eyes. He's pretty cute, actually, and he's smiling at me. I stop playing abruptly.

"Hey, it's Sam Puckett, right?" he asks. I don't care how he knows my name. I nod. "I'm Alex Harrington. We have Music Theory together. I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to talk about, you know, composition and stuff when you have time. I think you're really good."

"Sure. Sure, that'd be awesome," I reply. "I'm almost done playing I think."

"Cool. I'll stick around," he says and goes back to his seat and his coffee. I take all of Freddie's love songs and sing them straight to Alex, just to get through the rest of the day. Now I'm thinking that maybe things may turn out better than I thought.

Thanks for reading! I'd like to thank you guys because 30 people favorited my one-shot, The Defintion of Love, which is really awesome. I have the third chapter for this already written, so I'll probably post it tomorrow or the next day after editing. I hope you enjoyed this and if you did, I'd love a few more reviews. Thanks a lot!