I wake and grab a book off the shelf, shove it in my bag as I get dressed to the wonderful sound of Taylor Swift's music. As Foolish One is playing loudly in my room, I get dressed. I look in the mirror and I feel my confidence draining. The shirt, the jumper, the skirt, the leggings, the shoes. They all looked bad on me. 

How could they look so stylish on my classmates and so horrid on me? I sigh and try to fix up the high ponytail. My dark hair refused to sit still, so I had to go to school with a messed up ponytail. On some girls, it'd look cool. On me, it looks like a dark mop. 

I hated everything about myself - my tanned skin, my dark eyes, my weight, my height, the fact that I couldn't stand up for myself.  But whatever. I get my backpack and I go to school.

***

I walk past hundreds of perfect bodies with perfect smiles with perfect friends with perfect lives and I hear the whispers again. What do they say? Oh, the usual... "you are not good enough", "you'll never fit in", "nobody wants to be your friend" and so on. 

Sometimes, when the mirror doesn't make me want to throw a rock at it, I start reminiscing about the days when I could look for hours in the mirror. When I thought I was pretty. When the only validation I desired was my parents. When it was easy to make friends. When I wasn't scared of everything. When I only cried when it was the time to go home from the playground. 

Sometimes, like right now, I start reminiscing those good days when I could see Austin Miller walking across the hall with his messed up hair, blue baseball jacket and kind smile and talk to him. If I had the confidence I had at 8, I would have confessed my undying love for him ages ago, but when I was 8 I couldn't hear the whispers. 

Funny, I keep on calling them whispers when they feel more like screams. When it's only one, it's quiet, but when there are more - it's like a crowd of thousands of people whispering over each other, creating a buzz of sounds and making me drown helplessly in the ocean of doubt. 

I look at him one last time before I dash to the English classroom's door. 

I try to keep my focus as Mrs. Carpenter goes on and on about Romeo and Juliet. I don't get how it even is considered a love story. It's so weird, but my opinions don't matter anyway, so I stare at Austin again. I wonder if he even knows I exist. 

"Alright, now everyone focus!" Mrs. Carpenter's voice rang in the classroom, "For next week, you have to do a presentation about a couple from a book of your choice. I've already paired you up, you can find the list on the school's platform."

I check to see who I've got to explain what they have to say after I'm done with the project because nobody wants to put in the work when they're paired up with me because they know I'll do everything. And just as I find my name I see it - I'm paired with Austin Miller. ME! WITH! AUSTIN! MILLER!

I could scream!!! 

BUT THAT MEANS I HAVE TO TALK TO HIM!

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TALK TO HIM??? 

As I was trying to gather my things and my thoughts and to remember how to speak English in front of Austin Miller, you'll never guess who came up to my desk and said "Hello."

IT WAS AUSTIN MILLER!!!

"Oh, uh, um. Yes, hi. I'm Selena Macmillan. We have, uh, um, a project together." I acted like a fool.

I sounded so dumb!

"Yes, I know, that's why I came up to you. Would you mind giving me your phone number so we can discuss things about the project. And why don't you sit with me at lunch so we can pick that couple?"

The Austin Miller asked me for my phone number and to sit with him at lunch. My delusions were being fed.

"Yeah, yeah, sure! It's... uh... +44 0113 12345789." 

"Okay, I've just sent you a text. See you at lunch."

"See you."

Austin Miller sent me a text. It said "hey". Does that mean he's in love with me?

No! No! No! He just wants to help out with this project. Do not make it weird Selena.

A few hours later, he met me on the hallway and walked with me to the cafeteria. 

He made small talk and I managed to get my act together and answer cleverly (but I still couldn't get rid of the uhhh's and umm's). We sat down and ate. I had a slice of pizza, orange juice, water and an apple. He had tuna pasta, water and some soda. I forgot that I was not talking to someone I was comfortable with and I started to tell him all of my opinions about classic love stories and I only realised that when he started to laugh and say "I agree."

We settled for Laurie and Amy from Little Women. He's never read the book or watched the movie, but said that he'll watch the movie so we can get started. He wanted to help.

And then we started meeting up after school. And we started to text each other. At first it was only about the project, but then we talked about other things. 

And as I was about to stop listening to the whispers and confess that I liked him, he mentioned something. Someone. His girlfriend.

And so the whispers were louder. And I didn't speak to him ever again.

But one day, as I was walking home. My love story began when a boy accidentally hit me with a door and offered to buy me a lemonade as an apology. I ignored the whispers then, and I'm so glad I did.