Just The Beginning

Chapter 1- Introduction

Ava POV

     My name is Ava. Ava Andolina. And I'm 13 years old. I just finished 8th grade and today is the first day of summer. And I'm currently sitting in my room at my mom's house bored out of my mind. I have four siblings. They're all younger than me. Two brothers, one half sister, and one step sister. And I have 4 dogs, 2 cats, and 20 chickens. 2 dogs at my mom's house, and 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 20 chickens at my dad's house. 

     Honestly, my life is pretty great. I have an amazing family, great friends, and everything is going great. Except for the constant worry in me about high school. I mean can you believe it? In 3 months, I'm going to be a Freshman a Sycamore High School. A freshman! I'm so nervous. Everything's gonna be so stressful, and busy, and competitive. Especially with sports. 

     I have a few very close friends. Irene and Hannah are my absolute best friends ever. Irene is half Indian and half American/European. Her mom's American/European and her dad's Indian. She's definitely my best friend. We bonded with the love of One Direction and the Celtics and Bengals. Hannah she's Chinese. We were both in double accelerated math since 5th grade so we just ended up having all our classes together. We both love math. Irene wasn't in double accel math but in 7th grade she tried really hard to get in so she could have more classes with me and Hannah and it couldn't have worked out any better.

     There's also Vivian and Monica. I'm closer to Monica than Vivian but I got really close with them in 8th grade Orchestra. Me and Hannah play the violin and Viv and Monica play the cello. Irene played the violin too but she quit in 7th grade to do choir. She's really good at singing. I love my orchestra gals. We really bonded on our weekend trip to Cedar Point. 

     And then there's Sahana and Haneen. Sahana has been in double accel math with me since 5th grade and Haneen I met this year through Monica and Irene. I'm super close with them. These girls are the reason I'm who I am today. I love them to death.

     Now we can't forget about my guy friends can we. There's Noah. I've known him since I was in diapers. He's my neighbor and definitely my best friend after Irene. Our moms are super close and we are too! Noah would probably be considered a loner at our school but I love him as a friend. He's super smart, he has blue streaks in his hair, normally has headphones around his head, I think you get the picture. He's not a very known person but he gets along great with new people!

     And then we have Ryan. Of course. Never in my life would I have thought that I would get this close with him. Our moms were friends but we never got that close. He lives just 2 houses down from mine but we never really talked. This year, me, Irene, and Ryan has history together and we sat right next to each other too. During the first week of school, we never really talked but then our teacher made us do assignments togethers. And not to mention we also had geometry right after history and in geometry we also ended up in seats next to each other. So we started to get to know each other and now we're best friends.

     Me, Irene, and Ryan tell each other EVERYTHING. Starting from girl drama, to crushes, to grades, to when we felt our lowest. We trusted each other so much and as much as me and Irene pretended to hate Ryan and he pretended to hate us, I think everyone knew that we were best friends. Ryan's best friend Aaron was also pretty close to us. We just didn't tell Aaron absolutely EVERYTHING like we did with Ryan, but we still told him a lot. We were a gang. A pretty random one. And definitely not one you'd expect. 

      Ryan and Aaron are two of the most popular guys at our school, and me and Irene, well we weren't popular. Irene was more popular than me though. None of the popular kids even knew we were friends. It was just our small gang of smart kids that knew, if you know what I mean. Another one of my closest guy friends are Demir and Nathan. They both did orchestra with me and we were a pretty rocking gang. 

     Honestly, 8th grade was my favorite year. Everything just...went great. Apart from the social media hate that we went through but that's not important right now. Everything was so perfect. But I guess I'm scared. I'm scared that my perfect life is going to...shatter as soon as high school starts. High school is always a big fat mess. Or that's what I've heard.