Connected

Chapter 1

I looked down at the piece of paper in my hand and back up at the building in front of me. This was definitely the right place. I followed the other people dragging suitcases into the building and walked up to the desk.

"Hello, there," said the woman behind the desk. "Find your name tag on the paper, tick your name off this list then go straight through the green doors."

I stuck my name tag on my top and pushed my way through the doors. As I scanned the crowd anxiously for someone I might recognise, I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned to find,

"Ellie?" I exclaimed, pulling her into a hug.

"Emma!" she screamed in response, she always was the excitable type. She grabbed my shoulders and we both jumped up and down in excitement like teenagers.

"I never expected to see you here!"

"Same! There are so many people from our school here. So far I've seen Rosalie and Joselyn."

"No way, reunion!"

I was about to ask where they were when I caught sight of a tall, good looking guy across the room with glasses and cute, dark brown hair that was just slightly too long.

'Who's he?' I thought, but before I could ask Ellie if she knew him, someone, most likely the man in charge, called for silence.

"Listen up everyone," he called. "Welcome to the Young Ambassadors for Social Skills or YASS. My name is Zayden and I'm your organiser for the course. Over the next three weeks you will get to know the people in this room, and especially in your group, very well as you work together to complete activities and conquer your fears. You all have different colours on your name tags that represent the different groups. Can you now please make your way to the allocated section of the room for your colour."

Ellie and I were in different groups so we split as I made my way to the blue section and she, to the green. There were five people in the blue group and I quickly took the only remaining seat.

"Alright," called Zayden. "Now you're all seated in your groups, you need to create a team name related to your group colour and skill. I will come round and tell the groups what their skill for the week is but until then, get to know each other. Go around the group and say a bit about yourselves."

I looked at my group to find that the cute guy from earlier was seated opposite me. He flicked his too long hair out of his face and I caught myself staring.

'What are you doing Emma? Stop staring!' I forced myself to tear my gaze away from him and started paying attention to the rest of the group. The girl two seats away from me seemed familiar but she was turned away from me so I couldn't see her face.

"I'll start," the girl next to me blurted out. She was clearly excited. "My name's Mackenzie, I'm 26 and I'm a primary school teacher. I also teach piano and I have 2 cats called Maisie and Molly and a Dalmatian named Rufus."

We were going clockwise so it was time for me to find out where I knew the mystery girl from.

"Hello, I am Emilé," she said and my head snapped up as I recognised her accent. "As you can tell by the accent, I'm from France. I moved to London last year and I work as a translator."

'Are you kidding me?! Emilé is here?!'

She quickly glanced at me, she knew exactly who I was and she wished she didn't. Before I could say anything to her, the cute guy started to speak.

"My name's Oliver," he said looking around at the group.

'Wow, his voice...' I thought.

"I'm 25," he continued, "and I work at an animal shelter."