Rising Love

The Beginning Part 1

"Instead of studying Locke, for instance, or writing - I go make an apple pie." - Sylvia Plath

Truth be told, if someone had told Lauren Jauregui in her senior year of high school that she would end up becoming a baker, she would have laughed and called you a fucking lunatic.

At only 17 years old, Lauren didn't know how life's plans are still so fragile, like leaves succumbing to the flow of a river they just happened to glide into.

To senior year Lauren, baking was a hobby, taking only baby steps into becoming a lifetime passion of hers. Baking was a momentary solace from college applications and testing, from math classes an the pressures of her family and teachers. Baking wasn't her life, just a method for her to prevent her life from collapsing into shards.

In the span of a few months, Lauren's career plans took a 180 degree turn. A month before graduation, Lauren was rejected from an internship - one necessary for her to get ahead at the university she planned to go to for the fall - Harvard College.

Still needing a summer job, a classmate of hers - Louis Tomlinson - had given her a good word at his uncle's bakery. In the end, Lauren didn't even need to submit a resume for the position. Once Louis's uncle Hans had tried Lauren's famous hot cross buns, she got the job before she could say the word snickerdoodle.

Unlike other seasonal jobs, Lauren was basically given a full time position for the summer, which she liked. As the time passed, she grew to love the early mornings that she would spend baking bread and decorating cakes. She grew to love the feeling of dough and flour on her hands, and the smell of the oven baking cookies and pies at four thirty in the morning.

It was enough for her to drop everything else she had ever known for the future she saw - one beyond Louis's uncle's bakery. 

She wanted a bakery of her own.

So Lauren dropped out of her second choice school, Stanford, enrolled for a culinary academy in Napa, choosing to take on a specialty in Pastry and Breadmaking. Before her first semester was even halfway through, Lauren knew. She had made the right choice. This was something she was destined to do.

Lauren Jauregui was someone who heartily believed in the concept of fate. She believed that it was fate that led her to drop out of uni and go to culinary school. It was fate that led her to meet Zayn.

Zayn didn't look like your typical pastry chef. A former graphiti artist and singer for a band called The Crying Icebergs, his sleeves were covered in intricate tattoos, and he changed his hair at least every other week. Nobody really took him seriously until the course started teaching lessons on sugar work. Turns out, before he enrolled, Zayn had also had a real liking for baking pies and doing sugar work - he excelled beyond the other students, and gained Lauren's respect.

Lauren, one of the better students in the class, had talked to him for the first time shortly after the sugar work section ended in class. Although he seemed aloof at first, the two bonded over their love of art, music, poetry, and of course baking. They became fast friends.

Many of their weekends were spent on the couch at one of their houses, surrounded by snacks and whatever baked good they had decided to practice earlier. The Great British Bake Off would be on the TV, and often, at least one of them would be holding a joint.

A few weeks before Zayn and Lauren were set to graduate with distinction, the were sitting on the couch at Zayn's place, Great British Bake Off on the TV, as usual.

"What are your plans for the future?" she asked him.

He shrugged, a noncommittal look on his face. "Just planned to work at a restaurant as a pastry chef, or maybe work on a food truck - one they would let me paint myself."

"So no consideration for owning a place of your own? No consideration whatsoever?"

"Nope, not at all."

"Well, then, do I have a nice preposition for you."

-

A/N: Heyyyyyy it's me

I have so many ongoing projects at the moment and I'm just deciding to add more to it because I love writing (:

So this is a sort of prologue in a sense, and it's being split into two. It's  basically the story of how Lauren achieved this dream she got with such fervor, and once the prologue comes in, it will show how a certain Cuban-Mexican will come in and just turn her world upside down.

This is definitely a big passion project for me. I'm super pumped to share it with all of you (:

Love you all - remember, you are more than worthy. Be kind to yourselves and others today. Give a smile to someone who you think needs it.

Stay safe, and stay lit (;

-Sel