Selfless

PROLOGUE

Sometimes, life is cruel. No. Let me rephrase that. All the time, life is cruel. Morning, afternoon, evening, night, you're being tested and pushed to your limits.

Well I, Piper Moore, can't get what I want the most. Love. I'm 22 years old and have never had a relationship that lasted more than a week. I've always been a hopeless romantic. I started reading romance books in the 5th grade and my love for love only grew from there.

However, because I was so desperate for someone to hug, cuddle, and hold hands with while walking across my school's campus, I gave away my first kiss when I was only twelve to a guy who was sixteen and flunked the 6th grade 3 times. Sixteen and in the 7th grade. How sad. Thinking about it now, even ten whole years later, I'm disappointed in myself for doing that-- kissing him in hopes that he would stay with me. For someone in honors classes, you'd think me to be smarter.

He "broke up" with me through his cousin, who I hated, at lunch, telling her to pass on the message that I was "boring" and that he was "cheating on me with 5 other girls anyways".

That was a lie that all the boys told in middleschool. "Oh yeah," they would say. "I have like seven girlfriends. But uh, they go to a different school so you don't know them."

Yeah, whatever, Connor freaking Stevens. No one believes that.

I fell in love soon after at the age of 13, with my crush of two years, as of then. He was someone I liked much before Connor, since elementary. His name was Colby Benson and he was 14. We were in the same 8th grade class. I knew I loved him when I saw him talking to toddlers, calling them "buddy" and "princess", and helping them with games when we volunteered to run a booth at our town's carnival.

What's worse is that Connor Stevens, the recent middle school drop out who had just turned 17, showed up on his skate board and flirted with 13 year old me shamelessly, commenting on my "ass" and "rack".

Then Colby, being the sweet 14 year old he was, pushed him away by his chest and told him to "fuck off" before asking me if I was okay. I remember blushing my ass off, staring at him with wide eyes, and nodding slightly.

But then later that year, our last year of middle school, I found out that he often talked about me behind my back. I experienced it first hand, too, when he didn't see me walking into our first period class and continued calling me a desperate whore.

I forced myself to get over him, though I often thought about him, even years later. I'm not sure why I kept thinking of him, but everything seemed to draw my mind back to one thing, Colby Benson. That's why I'm so convinced I was in love.

I grew up in a small town that no one really knew of. We were the Ravenhill Falcons and Ravenhill K12 was the name of our school. Almost everyone in our tiny town of Ravenhill went there, besides a few who could afford to go to the private school just around the corner.

Then came time for highschool, and since the fancy private school only taught middle school and down, all ninth graders had to transfer to our poorly funded, boring school. This meant there would be a potential opportunity for me to meet someone. I was 14, which is young, I know, but all the stories I'd read and written about love and sparks and cuteness, I couldn't help but long for someone.

Then I met him. The very first day of school, I knew I liked him-- Robin McMillan. He was cute, 6"2, 15, funny, sarcastic, and we had the same taste in music. By then end of the week, all my trustworthy friends knew I liked him. We got along great. He would show me card tricks, we would sing our favorite musicals together...

And then I find out on the second week of school that one of my best friends is seeing him. She knew how much I liked him, and everyone knew how much prettier she was than me. And he chose her. They'd gotten together over the weekend, she'd told me. I pretended to be okay with it, cheering her on and saying that I would back off immediately.

I'd never been one for confrontation.

Then it struck me that all of my friends had relationships. Even the ones that moves away and I texted. Everyone always talked about how sweet their boyfriend is, how cute their girlfriend is.

Everyone except me. AKA, the one who'd longed for it since the fifth grade and had never gotten anything but the short end of the stick.

What was so wrong with me? What was it about Piper Moore that drove all the guys away. Was I ugly? Too annoying? Short? Loud? Overbearing? What was it?!

So from that point forward, I decided to give up on boys until I got out of school in order to meet a real man, not a stupid boy. And I give up on boys, staying true to my words. It's not like any of them made it hard. The only guys that ever talked to me were my friends.

And you know how they say High school relationships almost never work out?

Well it sure did for my best friend Allison and her girlfriend Margaret. With Ally being 24 and Marg 23, they were engaged and planning a wedding. Meanwhile, fresh outta college 22 year old Piper Moore is single and lonely, writing romance novels when she's not working full time at her waitress job.

Now that you know of my past misfortunes... let's get to the fun part.