“Suddenly, it was as if the roar of the crowd, the echo of the final buzzer, the cheers of my teammates, were all sounding from a thousand miles away. And what remained in that bizarre, muffled silence, was only Peyton; the girl whose art and passion and beauty had changed my life. In that moment, my triumph was not a state championship, but simple clarity. The realization that we had always been meant for each other and every instinct to the contrary had simply been a denial of the following truth. I was now and would always be, in love with Peyton Sawyer.”