I. a. H.B.

Melania Escott is a romantic. She always has been. She's always wanted to find that perfect guy. And now she's resolved to find him...no matter what.

Chapter One-

I've always known soul mates existed. I mean, what would be the point of souls without soul mates? Isn't that the idea behind them? If soul mates didn't exist, it wouldn't matter who we were with.

In second grade, I had my romantic prospects all wrapped up. I knew who my soul mate was. Julian Baker. He had chocolate-brown hair and he let me use his crayons when I left them at home. The next day, I told him I liked him on the playground. He said girls were icky and walked away.

That was the first time I had my heart broken.

For three days afterwards, I chased him around the playground until he told an Aid and she made me stop.

He didn't lend me crayons anymore.

In third grade, I still thought he was my soul mate, but I began to notice other boys. One boy, Dustin Jacobbs, actually liked me back. We got married under the oak tree on Halloween, him dressed as Darth Vader and me dressed as a fairy. I liked him, yes, but I was confused. How could I like both Dustin and Julian? And how could Julian be my soul mate if I was married to Dustin?

So I decided that I was wrong, and Dustin was my soul mate. But that scared me. If I was wrong about Julian, could I be wrong about Dustin too?

That day at lunch, Dustin gave me half his M&Ms. That's when I decided that Dustin was most definitely my soul mate.

At that time, I had no concept of breaking up. It never occured to me that married couples might want to seperate. If you liked someone, why would you want to leave them? That's why, when searching for my soul mate, I used my parents as an example. They shared things, didn't they? They shared "bills" and sometimes they shared drinks. That's why Julian was my soul mate when he shared my crayons and Dustin was my soul mate when he shared his M&Ms.

In fourth grade, my parents divorced.

For months, I no longer believed in love.

Eventually Dustin forgot we were married and asked Michelle Porter out. She was the most popular girl in the fourth grade class and had hair the color of tomatoes. When I heard about it, I wanted to remind Dustin that we were still married. I wanted to tell him that we had never gotten a divorce, because then I would sound smart, because I knew what a divorce was.

I didn't.

Near the end of fourth grade, Andrew Alarono asked me out on a dare. I wasn't stupid then. I pouted and said, "No," and he returned to his laughing friends. That night, in my pink-and-green diary, I wrote down a list of things I knew about love.

1. Love doesn't last forever.
2. You could be wrong about who you loved.
3. People who are in love share things.
4. People forget who they love.
5. Soul mates DO exist.

I wrote "do" bigger and bolder than the other words, because I knew that someday, I would forget, and I needed to be able to remind myself before it was too late.