Maere

Chapter 1

In her seventeen years of life, Aralyn had lived life according to what her parents wanted for her: a full ride scholarship at a prestigious university. What parent wouldn't hope for the best future for their child? However, Aralyn couldn't help but feel that she was missing out on so much of her life to try and achieve what her parents wanted for her. How many friendships and memories was she missing out on just to stay home and study? To practice violin? To play lacrosse for her school's team? As much as she enjoyed doing well in school, playing the violin, and competing against other schools in lacrosse, she wanted more from her life. An adventure, she thought to herself in wonder. She wanted to be like the protagonists of fantasy books, courageous and certain in themselves and what they could accomplish with the power of their friends. But, that would be impossible, especially in a rural town like Mantel.

The girl sighs to herself, she wasn't even paying attention to what her teacher was saying. Before she knew it, the bell rang and class was dismissed. The girl's phone starts buzzing haphazardly as a constant stream of notifications starts coming. She unlocks her phone and looks at her friend group chat. All of her friend group was planning on meeting up during lunch and catching up with one another. She was never one to contribute much to the group chat; much to her friend's annoyance, she just observed and would just appear to locations where they planned on meeting up without sending any confirmation on whether or not she would be going. Aralyn made a mental note of the fact that she would be meeting Louise and Allison at the courtyard.

While walking in the hallways, the blonde bumps into a boy and drops her violin case due to the impact. She looks down at the floor in horror. Before she could tell off the boy for being so careless, she realizes who it is. "Chase?" She stammers, "I didn't notice you were there. Sorry." She bows awkwardly and picks up her violin case and quickly walks off to her next class without making eye contact with the boy. Despite her strongest attempts not to catch feelings for anyone she started developing a crush on Chase, a football player who was also in her mathletes team. Seeing him made her heart go in overdrive and she couldn't bring herself to talk to him for longer than two minutes. Glad to have escaped that embarrassing situation, she goes to the rest of her classes before meeting her friends at the courtyard.

"Lala!" A voice calls for Aralyn among the throngs of students shuffling to find tables to sit at. Aralyn swerves around upon recognizing her friend Louise's voice. Louise and Aralyn met in elementary school when they were both put in gifted classes. Since then, they became close and went to the same middle school and now the same high school. Sitting next to Louise is Allison. Aralyn and Louise met Allison freshman year and the three bonded over their mutual love for foreign films. "Have you seen Samantha?"

"No." Aralyn replies looking around them for any sign of Samantha. "I mean didn't she text the group chat saying she was going to be here?"

Allison interjects before Louise can say anything, "Maybe something came up. You know how Sam is. She's always flirting up a storm with boys." She reassures us, "So how was your summer Aralyn? I didn't hear much from you over the break. Like less than usual. You didn't even send any of your iconic 'OK' texts."

"Oh, sorry. I got into a summer program at Brown and I didn't have much time to be on my phone. The professors there really expected a lot out of us even though we were just high schoolers."

Both Louise and Allison look at the blonde in shock, "Brown? You didn't even tell us you got into that summer program!" Louise looks at her excitedly, "That's great, though! I'm so proud of you Lyn."