How to Fall in Love With Someone who Doesn't Believe in Love

A friend once told me that your childhood ends the moment you realize that it didn't exist.

That same friend grew up in a house that was troubled to say the least. He never saw his dad sober and his mom seemed to live in a different universe altogether. He never was a child. It's not that he didn't want to be a child but rather, he never got the chance to be one.

He never had someone there to make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on his first day of school every year. He never had someone to walk him to the bus every morning. He never had anyone to come home to after school. He never had someone to patch him up when he got hurt or be there when he needed someone the most.

The pain of thinking no one would ever love him was so great that he started to smoke at the age of 13 and began to drink as he started high school. But then, I guess he realized that it all wasn't worth it. He stopped believing that anything good could happen to him.

Then there is me, the hopeless romantic, who just happened to have the house to myself the weekend I met him. He was badly bruised that night after getting beat up a couple days ago at a party. I offered him a place to stay, after he saved me from a drunken guy. I owed him.

It's obvious what happens next. I fall in love with a guy who doesn't believe in love.