Prologue

College had always seemed so crucial, such an

essential part of what measures a person’s worth and determines

their future. We live in a time where people ask which school you
went to before asking your last name. From an early age I was

taught, trained really, to prepare for my education. It had become

this necessity that required an overwhelming amount of
preparation and borderline obsession. Every class I chose,
every assignment I completed since my first day of high school
revolved around getting into college. And not just any college—my
mother had it set in her mind that I attend Washington Central

University, the same school that she attended, but never

completed.
I had no idea that there would be so much more to
college than academics. I had no idea that choosing which
electives to take during my first semester would seem, just a few
months later, like trivial affairs. I was naïve then, and in some ways
I still am. But I couldn’t have possibly known what lay ahead of me.
Meeting my dorm-mate was intense and awkward from the start,
and meeting her wild group of friends even more so. They
were so different from anyone I had ever known and I was
intimidated by their appearance, confused by their pure inattention
to structure. I quickly became a part of their madness, indulging in
it...
And that’s when he crept into my heart.
 From our first encounter, Hardin changed my life in
ways that no amount of college prep courses or youth group
lectures could have. Those movies I watched as a teen quickly
became my life, and those ridiculous
plotlines became my reality. Would I have done anything
differently if I had known what was to come? I’m not sure. I would
love to give a straight answer to that, but I can’t. At times I am
grateful, so utterly lost in the moment of passion that my
judgment is clouded and all I can see is him.
Other times, I think of the pain he caused me, the deep sting
of loss for who I had been, the chaos of those moments when I felt
as if my world had been turned upside down, and the answer isn’t
as clear as it once was. All that I’m certain of is that my life
and my heart will never be the
same, not after Hardin crashed into them.