I was just a young girl when it all started. young, naive... and inexperienced in many ways. But Mark helped me overcome my shyness. He helped me to realise my dream. He was my dream.

All my life I'd been told what to do in some way or another - from friends, family, teachers, people I didn't even know. I was a walking doormat. No matter how much I wanted to do anything about it, I just couldn't say no people, I didn't want to let anybody down.

I suppose I should have just bitten the bullet and told people where to go, but when you've got a voice nobody wants to hear, an opinion that nobody wants to listen to, a body that nobody wants to respect, and a mind that nobody wants to expand, simply, no one wants to care. Nobody wants to care about anybody else unless they can manipulate them into doing something that will benefit themselves.

Everyone but Mark. Mark was the only person who took me seriously, the only person who listened to me, and the only one who respected me for the human being that I was.

Ever since the day we met, we've hardly ever been apart, except when he had to go away on tour. The day we met, we looked into each other's eyes, and didn't look away. From that day, we loved each other endlessly, nobody could keep us apart.

Of course, his other fans didn't like him going out with a fan... especially a fan that was almost two years younger than him...in the same age range as them. He was honest about me from the beginning. The magazines, paper, radio and television people had a field day. Mark Feehily - Westlife heart-throb dating 17-year-old girl from Edinburgh. They couldn't believe that after all the times he went on about fancying Mariah Carey, he finally met and went out with a plain girl who nobody knew. And a fan no less - there were articles everywhere saying that I only went out with him because of who he was, for his money. Of course it wasn't true, and Mark comforted me whenever I cried about it.

He'd hug me close, and kiss my forehead and tell me he loved me, and that was all that mattered, not what some fans wrote in to a magazine about, slagging me, putting me down, calling me all kinds of names that the magazine could never print.

My friends at school didn't believe me when I told them that I was going out with Mark - because I'd told them so many times before that I was going to meet him one day, they just took it with a pinch of salt. Neither did my friends on the Internet - because we all loved Westlife, and said we'd go out with them one day, nobody believed me when I told them I actually was. I should have guessed.

"Don't worry about all a' them, we've got each other" He'd whisper in my ear. He always knew what to say to make everything better. Even when the hate mail came to his house. Even when the fans found out where I lived, and wrote there too. Soon my friends at school and on the Internet found out I was telling the truth because a certain magazine that I had bought every issue of printed a picture of us out together at my local cinema, both our faces clearly visible. I soon found out who my true friends were. People who I thought were true friends wanted to meet the guys - which was fine - but when they kept asking for their addresses and phone numbers, even Ronan Keating's, I just couldn't handle it. I went ballistic at some of them, telling them that if they couldn't respect the guys' privacy, then they weren't worth me knowing. So I never spoke to two of my best friends again. My friends on the Internet soon came round, most of them had already met the lads anyway, so they were happy for me... except all the Mark fans, that is.

The name-calling at school started soon after. The jibes in the hallway between classes, the evil looks at break and lunchtime... the cold shoulder every holiday. "Don't worry Lorraine, we'll get through this, when we're together, nobody can hurt us"

I loved the way he'd hold me close, cuddled on my sofa and tell me that WE'D get through it, not just me on my own, but the both of us together. Shame we weren't together all the time...when we weren't, that was the worst time, I'd get prank calls, and people ringing my doorbell and running away. I thought about him every day, even when he wasn't around. I was terrified that because of all this negative publicity and hate mail towards me, he wouldn't be able to handle it, and leave me for someone else... a Mariah Carey look alike or someone who was far more pretty than me. Who'd have guessed that was all in the first 3 months.