Lexi
The friends we have as children shape us. Some of them we keep forever, some of them we lose along the way... but all of them leave something behind... or in his case, take something as they leave.
Mason Jennings held my heart in his hands at...
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Breathe. Just breathe.
I can hear mum repeating it to me in my head though it's less soothing than her voice and more like my conscience is yelling at me. Helpful. A side glance from the girl next to me tells me I must look as bad as I feel... well, that and my aggressive foot tapping is probably driving her mad. I smile apologetically and force my foot to stay still which is way harder for me than it should be. As I check the time on my phone for the millionth time, a red-head bursts through the door gulping in lungfuls of air like she's been deprived for years.
"Pl.. please-" she holds up a finger, signalling she needs a second and chugs the water bottle in her hand.
The girl next to me sniggers but I bite my lip to hold my laugh in so the red-head doesn't get embarrassed, though her burst through the door was practically slap-stick.
She takes a deep breath and frowns at the girl and I sat on the chairs outside the Dean's office.
"Please tell me that one of you is Lexi Turner" she sighs out, looking frantically between the two of us.
Why I sheepishly raise my right hand like I'm still in middle school is beyond me but it makes the red-head smile so I roll with it.
"Thank god!" She yells, earning her an aggressive 'sh' from the Dean's assistant.
She holds her hands up in surrender and this time I can't help but giggle. The red-head reaches forward and grabs my embarrassingly still raised hand, pulling me out of my seat. I just manage to grab my bag as she loops her arm with mine and drags me out the office.
"Welcome to Bridewell University!" she squeals excitedly as we step onto the sidewalk. "I'm Ophelia but most people call me Lia. Weird name I know but my parents like to be original and to quote them 'our little girl is one of a kind'"
"I think it's beautiful" I reply trying my best to smile sweetly and not like a serial killer. What can I say, I'm out of practice being near other people but something about Lia's energy is incredibly infectious and I can't help but hope she rubs off on me.
She turns to me and smiles, "Thank you. Sorry I was late, the rink is the other side of campus and Grouchy insisted I land my double lutz at least five times in a row before she let me go." Ophelia rolled her eyes and huffed as I failed again to hold in my chuckle.
"Who's Grouchy?"
Lia laughed as she spoke, "Coach. Well, technically she's Coach Grinsky but she's a miserable bitch so we call her Grouchy. Never to her face though, Nick let it slip out and he had 5 extra practices every week for a month. Poor guy barely survived."
"Good to know" I chuckle.
"I assume you've been assigned to our dorm because you're a skater too?" Lia asks.
"Uh yeah, I got a scholarship for the team after high school but I had to defer for two years because um... well I just had some stuff going on." I mentally curse myself - way to go Lexi, couldn't have been cryptic if you'd tried and big shocker, Lia noticed.
