Separated

Chapter I

MIA

Music: Assault! To Next Door for Dinner from Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius

Time has never moved slower than it is in this moment.

I'm ready to get out of this hell hole.

Middle school sucks.

I'm sitting in homeroom, watching the clock as the second hand slowly moves around the face.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

I put in my earbuds to block out the sounds of the clock and the world around me. Fall Out Boy is my music of choice, the Save Rock and Roll album to be exact. As soon as the first song begins, I am transported to another world where none of the people I hate exist. Just me and my music.

The only people in this room I don't hate are sitting at the same table as me. Mackenzie and Shanna. We've all been through a lot together.

On my phone, the group chat is blowing up. My other friends Sean, Luke, Sam, Elle, Heath, Avery, and Skylar are on about plans for after school. The conversation annoyingly covers my amazing Harry Potter phone background, but that's beyond the point. Mackenzie seems to notice the group chat and looks up at me.

"Mia, what are your plans?" She asks. I pause my music.

"To sleep and never leave my room," I laugh.

"But if you never leave your room, then we'll never get to hang out!" Shanna interjects.

"I never said you couldn't come into my room, did I?" I reply, grinning. Shanna sighs, shaking her head.

"Mackenzie, what are your plans?" She asks.

"Huh. I guess I never really thought about them too much. This is kinda my first summer vacation, I guess," Mackenzie shrugs. "What are they like?"

"They're fun. Really hot, usually. I like to go swimming and get sno-cones, and see movies. Summer is amazing," I explain.

"Swimming... you know, come to think of it, I've never done that much with swimming. It's been years since I've had the chance to..." Mackenzie says, a daydreamish look on her face.

"Well then, my first decree of the summer is that we will go swimming the first chance we get!" I exclaim.

"I thought you were going to never leave your room," Shanna smirks.

"Shanna, I don't need your sass. Besides, I changed my mind."

And that's when the bell rings.

"Hey, it says here that we're all meeting at the park after school. Are you two in?" Mackenzie says, glancing at her phone. Shanna and I both nod.

"It'll be fun!" I smile.

SAM

Music: Vic Viper's Theme from Parodius Da! Arcade

After school lets out for the summer, the first thing I do is take a (very short, I live like five minutes away from school by walking lol) bus ride home. Normally, I only ride with my friend, Heath, since he lives around five minutes away from me. However, my rather large group of friends is meeting up at this park near my house to hang for a little while, so for today, our friends Elle (who's my girlfriend) and Luke are also riding with us.

I take seat #4, and Elle takes the seat closest to the aisle. To our right are Heath and Luke.

"This summer's going to be amazing," Elle says, smiling daydreamingly. "We're going to do so many fun things together, right Sam?"