This story starts one chilly morning in January.

We can start with "Once upon a time," but this story is no fairytale.

There was once a girl.

She had a crush.

She got rejected.

She

was left

brokenhearted.

That girl...

Was me.

My name is Loren, but I prefer to be called Laura by my close friends or classmates. I had a crush a few years back, and he said...

I was not good enough.

Not pretty enough.

Too childish.

I loved him. He was kind, friendly, and rarely got angry. At least, that's what it seemed on the outside, when others were around. Whenever he was with me, he had a face of scorn. His voice was never gentle when talking to me, it was always heavy with annoyance.

Then, I had another hard blow. My best friend dumped me, only a few months after I had managed to glue a bit of my ruptured heart together again.

It quickly shattered once more...

My parents weren't angels either. They fought quite often, and heaven "blessed" me with a spoiled brat for a sibling. Everytime he did something wrong, I was blamed. My "father" (really, my stepdad) wasn't a huge fan of me, so he decided to scare me into doing his wishes. Another root for his hate was the fact that I wasn't his child. I came to this world during a one night stand. So, my heart broke afresh because of his abuse that happened every day when I came home from school. My mom was always (and still is)

very busy working, so I barely got time to create a strong bond with her. Whenever I might have had a chance, my brother stepped in and took it. He was always her first priority.

So, I decided to move on. It was difficult for me because I fell hard, and because I was but a child when I made my decision.

Anyways, I was never the same after those betrayals.

I still haven't recovered, due to the lack of parental love, and lack of friends.

At that time, I promised myself NEVER to love again.

I NEVER wanted to be in a position where someone could easily manipulate me with only their dominant presence.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

I was terrified about my first year of high school.

I thought I would fail, just like in middle school.

But, thankfully, this was not to be the case.

I first made friends with a girl called Roxy. She had red hair and dark green eyes. Her aunt was very rich, and she gave Roxy a decent amount of money every month. Roxy never spent time with her because her aunt was very busy. Roxy was also an orphan. This helped the two of us get along, because we both had no parental love. However, despite this major setback in her life, she remained optimistic.

And she reminded me to do the same.

I was good at all my classes, except math. I was still in 5th grade. That was embarrassing.

Number one, I was already 14 years old.

Number two, I had to walk to the nearby middle school.

Number three, all the 5th graders would make fun of me.

Other than that, I was perfectly fine.

Well, until I saw him…