The truth was, Jacob hadn't always been the way he was now. Of course, I mean that personality-wise more than anything else, because honestly? The gangly teenager standing on the highest seat at the center table didn't look like he'd ever been hit by puberty. He looked exactly like the new kid strolling through the gates on the first day of school, but the way he held himself wasn't the same anymore.

See, the thing is, it isn't easy to walk a mile in one's own shoes without tripping when the laces are undone, and Jacob had been walking all his life in shoes that always seemed two sizes bigger, no matter what he did. The laces, you ask? They had been ripped apart from the shoes long before he was born. So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that he couldn't help tripping every step of the way in life.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when Jacob had realized this. The pastel pink, blue and yellow balloons scattered on the white marble floor had seemed to shimmer against the sunlight creeping through the window but Jacob didn't have any time to sit and admire the colours. He was on a mission that day - to blow ten balloons of every colour available in the packet and he intended to finish doing so before his just-turned-ten year old sister returned from her friend's house. He had only just finished blowing the fifth pink coloured one when his concentration was broken by the sharp sound of slippers slapping against the marble floor. He looked to see his mother pick up a blue balloon and look at it with something akin to nostalgic sadness. He would always remember the way his mother had pushed her hair behind her ears and tried to hide her shimmering eyes from him, as she uttered the next words.

"It would have been her birthday too, you know?" Jacob's mother had whispered through partially closed closed lips as she'd unconsciously stroked the balloon. He had held his breath and felt time stand still as he anticipated her next words. It was fear, he realized, that was the feeling making it's way up his chest and blocking his windpipe. Why am I afraid? he'd wondered.

"Sasha would have had an older sister to celebrate her birthday with, had Annie lived," came her next words in answer to his unspoken question. Jacob had squeezed his eyes shut at her name and had fervently begun praying for his mother to stop, to go away, to just shut up, when her trance had broken. It was only when he had heard the soft footsteps that he opened his eyes. His mother had bitten her lip and bent over his cross-legged seated self to ruffle his hair. "Of course, Sasha is lucky to have you Jacob," she'd told him through smiling lips and then had promptly turned around to go back to making food for the surprise party he had organized for his little sister.

That had been the moment it had finally hit him. It had been Annie's shoes he had been gifted at birth, years after the true owner hadn't been able to see the daylight. Not that Jacob blamed his parents; Annie would have been their first child had she not closed her eyes minutes before her birth, and everyone remembered their 'firsts'. Her name had been picked, her first dress decided and the walls of the smallest room painted in welcome of the girl that never came. So, three years later when Jacob had come kicking into the world, he had taken everything meant for that girl.

That was why he had kept tripping. The shoes simply weren't his. It wasn't his fault, you see?

Years later, when the fifteen year old Jacob had walked through the gates of Greenwood for the first time, there was only one thought running through his mind. A new start. He liked to tell everyone that he'd gotten lucky that day; he'd made friends with the four guys almost instantaneously. But the truth was, he'd gotten unlucky that day. He had new, bigger shoes to fill now, as though the ones he'd worn earlier weren't big enough. But oh, it wasn't his fault. The shoes were bigger and he would trip. It was human nature to slip.

Minutes turned to days, and days to years and before he knew it, Jacob had become a permanent fixture at the center table-the table for the 'loud kids'. Some called them the 'in' crowd, but loud was what they actually were. It wasn't just the screaming (because there was plenty of that without them), it was everything about them; right from the boy with the paint splattered shoes to the girl who carried a basketball everywhere she went. And now, since Jacob was a part of this 'group' he had to be loud too. It was peer pressure, teachers would tell you later. It wasn't his fault at all.

The bell had rung at quarter to one in the afternoon, when Jacob had made his way out of the classroom and into the lunch hall with his lips pulled to a half smile; his fingers barely grazed the pink note. He'd skipped down the stairs-two at a time when he felt the first tendrils of doubt creep into his mind once again. Could this be yet another obstacle he was tripping over? After all, wasn't the note too neat to be a coincidence? Perhaps he should just read the note in private first.

Stories could never be sympathetic to Jacob and he knew that, so he did everything in order to become those stories before everyone else realized the truth. The stories he knew would fly, they would make the right choices and break all the right barriers without breaking a sweat or tripping. The picture perfect stories he looked up to didn't trip like he did but that wasn't his fault.

A loud exclamation of Hurry up! brought him out of his thoughts and he found himself moving out of the crowd's way to lean against the closed glass door that lead to the lunch hall. His mind had been made up; he just wasn't willing to take the chance. His fingers had only wrapped themselves around the rolled-up note when he felt someone's palm connect with the top of his head and push his head downward. He barely had enough time to hide his wince when he was met with Sasha's amused eyes.

"All of them were looking for you," she explained through her gentle giggles. "Well," she hesitated under his disbelieving stare, "at least, Rhea was."

"So, Rhea has become everyone now, has she?" He just couldn't help teasing her, "What happened to the time when you'd confessed that I was everyone you knew, eh?"

The two siblings had made their way down the hall in a similar fashion; trading insults and sarcastic comments and the note was long forgotten. But this wasn't Jacob's fault either. The circumstances were what placed him in the position he was today.

It was only when Jacob had made his way through the students, around the tables scattered in the hall to reach the center table that he remembered the note. He'd quickly set the plate on the table, sent Rhea a wink and the rest of the guys a smug smile. It's too late to back out now, he sternly told himself as he placed the sole of his leather shoe on the chair and pushed himself upwards. It took a minute for everyone at the table to realize what was happening, but once they did, loud screams and cheers overrode the usual chatter of the hall; drawing every eye in the hall towards the lanky boy dressed in the black button down.

His heart had seemed to come to his throat as the gaze of every person in the hall had rest upon him. Too late to back out, he'd reminded himself and hurriedly reached for the pink note in the jacket. He'd taken in a breath and tried to calm his racing heart all the while smoothing out the creases of the note. He wouldn't trip now, he vowed.

But he felt the little courage he'd built up over the years desert him all at once when he finally drank in the first words of his 'Valentine'.

'I'm sorry, Ti. This world just wasn't right for me'

Oh no, was his immediate thought and attempting to crumple the note the unconscious reaction. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, said his terrified thoughts; rendering him deaf to the confused shouts of the students. He knew he'd felt someone tug at his shirt but his thoughts weren't done with him.

Didn't mean to hurt anyone, he whispered to himself once again. It wasn't supposed to be a suicide note.

And suddenly the stories the boy had spent all his life building a ladder to had come crashing down upon him and he had tripped. All he'd wanted was to be those perfect little stories but his shoes had become too big for his feet and it wasn't his fault. He wanted to see what it was like to be the most liked, the boy on the top but his stories didn't want him.

It wasn't his fault, it never could be.

That was the moment the two stories finally merged into one. And this was how the story of the girl with a million beliefs met that of the boy who had none. And me? I was but a bystander at the collision.