the Blaine incident: the taking

Chapter 1 - The start

"Childhood is a short season."

-Helen Hayes

I guess a good place to start would be when Blaine came into our lives. When everything got messy and uncomfortable. Before her, Finely and I's friendship was never in question. We never fought, except for the Chuck E. Cheese incident of '16. But before Blaine, everything was perfect. This time has become very pivotal for everyone at NYU, and I need to tell this story so it goes in history absolutely correct.

Let me start at the beginning of 4th grade, Fin was a small dorky looking kid who moved to New York from Oregon at the end of summer '14. Her dad was a tech-mogul and app developer who wanted to be closer to his business partners, her mom stayed at home and ran a family blog called "Married to Joseph Banes" where she would write about traveling, raising her kids, and what being married to Mr. Banes was like. This meant, Finley's childhood was documented in great detail from day one. Which also meant, everyone in our grade knew everything about her by her second day in Rochester. We all knew about her 3rd birthday and the clown incident before we even knew her favorite color. Needless to say— she was "famous" at Briarwood ES. Being the socialite nine year-old that I was, I had to put this fragile bird under my wing and teach her how to handle the fame with grace and dignity.

I'm Ramona, by the way. My father is a lawyer, his firm is called Temmer and Lentz Law, he's Temmer and his roommate from college is Kenneth Lentz who was an art major before meeting Temmer. They opened this firm together sometime after graduating from Harvard. My mother owns a bakery with my aunt Katrine. I have two younger siblings Lavera and Sapphire, they're twins.When I brought Finely home for the first time Lavera couldn't stop herself from running her fingers through my new friends coiled hair.

From 4th grade on Fin and I were inseparable. We went through ever awkward day of middle school and every drama-filled day of high school. She even stayed by my side when my parents wanted to get a divorce. We applied to the same college for the same major because we had dreams of being in musical theatre, Fin wanted to be a stagehand or tech nerd and I wanted to be the leading lady of as many shows I could. Fin was my cheerleader and I was hers. Ramona and Finely against the world.