Fall Apart

Chapter 1

Snow has been gently sprinkling the ground for months now. Not a single sign of any grass is left, and I'm standing in a park with the people I love - Lucas and Evelyn. We were doing a late February photo shoot. We finish taking photos and just walk around the park. I stared at Lucas for a bit, his swoopy hair gently sprinkled with snow, his shiny green eyes that I could swim in. He caught me looking and he laughed, and gave me a side hug, Evelyn beside was walking beside us, she was noticeably taller than me now, her dark black hair framing her face with loose curls, her laughing hazel eyes sparkled and she threw her head back, letting snow fall over her face. I thought about how lucky I was to have such amazing people with me. I looked around at the snow covered park. It was absolutely beautiful but I have no cold tolerance so after a while I was shivering and couldn't bear it anymore. I practically ran back to Lucas's car and by the time the others had gotten in the car I had already turned the heater on full blast. 

"I swear, are we in the Arctic because MY GOD, I'm pretty sure that my toes have fallen off from frostbite" I say throwing a random blanket I found in the back over me.

"You're so dramatic" Lucas says laughing, and then climbs into the driver's seat.

We head off back to the dorm as I am slowly de-numbing my fingers and toes, vigorously shaking the seat. We arrive back at the dorms by the time that Lucas and I have to get to class. We arrive and Riley and Johnny are there waiting for us. Things between Johnny and I have been a bit weird ever since him and Riley had gotten together, and it's gotten worse for me ever since Lucas told me that he used to like me, around the same time that I did.

"Okay class, I know that your second year has already started, but we have two new students joining us today, Clarissa Jones and Tess Young," Miss Taylor says. 

The two girls walk in, one has short brown hair and the other has long, slightly curly, ginger hair. They seem nice. The one with the ginger hair smiles at me and walks over.

"Hi! I'm Tess, this is Clarissa", she says.

Clarissa just nods, it seems like she is trying to be nice, but I'm not sure if she knows how. 

The lesson goes great, Tess and Clarissa are actually really nice. They tell Lucas, Johnny, Riley and I all about their life back in England, but there was something off about the way Lucas was acting around them. They had some weird degrees back at their college there, such as hacking, surf science, puppetry design, floral design and much more. It turns out that Tess is in a lot of my classes and Clarissa is in a lot of Evelyn's, so we got to know them pretty well. They are pretty nice people, and super chill about everything. 

One day Lucas and I were just relaxing in the student center, doing some homework when Tess and Clarissa walked past with some other girl. I can't remember her name, it was something to do with music. Tess waves and I wave back. Lucas goes all tense like he always does when they walk past so I reposition myself next to him to calm him down, leaning my head against his shoulder, his phone goes off, I look over at it, he picks it up and I see that it's from an unsaved number. I sit up so that it doesn't look like I'm snooping. Then suddenly Lucas starts packing up all his stuff.

"What's going on?" I ask

"One of my old friends from Texas has made a surprise visit, he's waiting at reception for me, come on hurry up, we need to go like now, he is VERY impatient" Lucas says, now packing my stuff up.

We rush out the door, I'm still so confused, but follow Lucas to reception. We get there and for a second I don't see anyone, then out of the corner of my eye I see this blob of a black hoodie on the benches in the corner. They look up as we walk in and then run up to us, throwing their hoodie back from their face.