If you had shown me, on April 2nd, 2009, a police lineup of the 21 other teenagers who'd received the same letter of confirmation I did, my eyes never would have landed on him.

I can see you frowning as you read my opening line. I'm sure you all expected this story to be the classic summer love story of a young man struck by sudden flushes of previously undiscovered homoerotic desires for another lean, less-hirsute adolescent male. You probably expected us to be like two blushing anime boys, completely oblivious to their own sub-surface desires, falling all over each other. Or at the very least, somewhat knowing, but in complete denial. Well, I will burst your proverbial bubble before you wade through a couple chapters of this nonsense: no. No, I'm not in denial, and I'm not saying it in the easily defeated and transparent way people usually say it. When I came into this competition, I was completely self-assured. Also, no, I never was a blushing, uncertain 'uke' as you crazy anime kids would say (well I'm sorry if I find Neon Genesis Evangelion to be a fascinating and complex story)

Of course, I'm only speaking for myself.

I didn't need to meet him to know that I'm gay. I've known for a while now. For God's sake, I'll be seventeen in September, if I hadn't figured it out by now, I'd be in for quite a confusing adolescence and probably an adulthood full of latent and painful feelings that wouldn't be fully understood until middle-age, at which point the tragic amount of body hair that frequently plagues older members of my ethnic group would render me rather unappealing to hot young white guys, and I'd live a life of loneliness. Not that I'd have any better chances with other 'brown' guys. Yes, I need to cover my own behind and express that I'm not racist against my own kind, just that I don't find most of them attractive.(Except maybe the Lebanese. Damn. ) And it seems that trying to find gay guys who are Arab or Indian or anything like that is a lot harder than gay white guys. The world is crawling with gay white guys. It's just that they aren't always crawling towards me.

Anyway, I don't want to come across as whiny, though I imagine that if you care about my life story, or rather the parts that involve me kissing boys, because let's be realistic, that's the part you people honestly care about, you've seen me on TV, and you probably already think I'm a little bitch. But you all seem to like me well enough. So that's really…something.

But my fans get a couple things wrong about me. First of all, I'm tempted to lash out a big El-Oh-El at all the folks who still defend me as being straight. They ship me with any girl that isn't attached, even some who are. And often with Eva. Thanks guys, you know, you aren't really defending the whole 'Noah is Hetero!' stance by pairing me with the manliest chick from our show.

Secondly, um, hello? I was totally popular in high school! Okay, maybe not the most popular, but you can't be number one without sacrificing a lot of neurons in the process. But people knew me. People liked me. I made it to student council, all sorts of activities, anyone would talk to me, and I was completely aware of my surroundings, while all at once sort of seeing the superficial side of this. Not sure if you really care. I guess I wanted to clear that up.

You probably want me to skip over all the tidbits about my bustling childhood up to and including my awkward emo phase at age 12. You totally just want me to skip to the part with me making out with Cody, or at the very least the part where I kissed his ear. You want to hear about my earliest forays into homosexuality. But tragically for you fans who are oh-so-obsessed with my state of absolute virginity, I've actually (hold onto your hats kiddies) been with people that weren't Cody!

I've even kissed a girl!

Collective gasps come from the mouths of the readers right now. Because you think, oh Noah, so awkward, only us as his hundreds of fans understand him! Well it kind of leads back to my whole, 'I have a social life' thing, because I actually do. I got invited to the parties. To be fair, I didn't always go. And they usually told me to keep the whole thing hush-hush from the other advanced programs students. But hey, it's the thought that counts.

Girls sort of liked me. I think it's because girls like, adore gay guys, in a move completely detrimental to the continuation of the species. My first kiss with a girl was on December 13th, 2006 with a redheaded girl named Rita. Actually she was awesome, and even though I wasn't all that into chicks, I was completely okay with hanging out with her. But I kinda made out with her hot cousin Stéphane when we all got together on New Year. And that really solidified (I know you're going to make a pun out of that) the whole 'Noah likes men' thing. I kept all that craziness on the down-low for a while but when Rita started getting a bit too antsy for my genitals I had to throw the brakes on.

No, she didn't hit me. She was…a tiny bit sad. And I only saw Stéphane a couple more times, none of these ending with hot 9th grader loving. Whoops.

And then I most of grade 10 and the entirety of grade 11 winning academic awards, playing piano, reading books and being the one braniac in English who knew every symbolic aspect of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and going out on the weekends because my Mom did not give two shits after having already been driven to the edge by my eight older siblings. I never drank, except maybe one glass, even at the parties where everyone was hitting the bottle hard and the parents were nowhere to be found. Because if you're drunk, you're an instigator. But if you're sober, you're an observer.

That became the highlight of my sixteenth year. Watching people do stupid shit when they were drunk, and then ratting them out to everyone. I don't seem like the type that would gossip, do I? Nonetheless, I did. I watched, and I reported. The reason I was so good was my nonchalant attitude about every last bit of it. I was a teenager who wasn't stupid, so of course, I should use my position to my advantage. People should pay for being dumb, and the currency they paid in was ridicule, much of it trickling back to me.

I bet some of my readers are no longer fans of mine. You probably expected that I was a really nice guy. Well, I am a nice guy in some ways. I always listen when someone has a problem. To be fair, most of the feedback I give them is either A, sarcastic remarks, or B, telling them dirt on someone who has it worse than them.

There was one time I did something very horrible at a party. Involving spit-swapping with an inebriated 18-year-old who either wasn't gay or hadn't told anybody. That was one thing I didn't gossip about. Not for Brennan's sake, but because I didn't wanna be ousted. I liked the female attention. None of it was permanent, none of it would mean anything in the end, but I liked it, and I never wanted to lose it.

Judging by my fanbase, I'll always have women who pay attention to me, even if I started chasing after Chris MacLean.

Okay, so I'm a homosexual gossip queen who gets 90s in almost all his classes, who cheated on his only girlfriend, and maintains a completely Meursault-esque outlook on life and society. (Read Camus' "L'Etranger") That is who I am. I wanted to get these trivialities out of the way so I could rest assured that any fans who want to change their mind about me do it right now. So that people who only like me because I somehow became Cody's sex toy would turn away instead of getting off to my personal history.

And you know, I was totally fine with all this. I loved my life. I was somewhat popular, smart, and secure in my quiet-but-not-closeted homosexuality.

You probably expect that I'd say everything changed when I met him, but it isn't quite so simple. He didn't send me into an instant flurry, but in a way, what happened was even more pervasive. He wormed into me. He made me think of things I'd never really thought of – which is quite a feat when it comes to someone who thinks as much as I do.

He made me have actually feelings. Sticky, confusing, visceral feelings. Um, gross.

My aim with this story is to...not be cliche. Not to focus solely on the Playa, not to make a gigantic deal of Noah's orientation, not to get Izzy extremely involved...at least I hope. It's been pretty fun to write. I hope I actually finish this one, and I hope you all enjoy! :D