CHOSEN HEARTS

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THEIR LAST SUMMER AS BEST FRIENDS... NOT THEIR FIRST SUMMER FALLING IN LOVE.

Every year, 18-year-olds in Marrow Creek are entered into the Departure Lottery. If chosen, they're shipped off to distant cities or colonies to "build the future" and they never return.
Ivy and Hale childhood best friends on the edge of something more, are spending what could be their last summer together.

They create a bucket list of things to do before the lottery drawing at summer's end.
Over stolen kisses, fights, and confessions, their friendship shifts into love.
****
"How about a bucket list, a pact?"

" Really, the old cliché bucket list Ivy, I thought you'd give me something original." Hale said, tossing a pebble into the lake.
His reflection broke apart, then reformed. Calm. Steady. Everything Ivy wasn't .

"Well it's original, kudos to who thought about the Marrowlist"Ivy twitches from where she sits on the hood of Hale's beat-up truck, legs swinging , pretending she wasn't counting the days until everything's changed. Eighty-nine days, that's how many days until they're forced apart.

"So what would you want to do?" Her bestfriend asks, staring at her with those beautiful, ethereal blue eyes.

" I don't know, " she hesitates, biting the inside of her cheek. Terrified. " Wondering how we're supposed to fit an entire life into one summer .

Hale leaned against the truck beside her , close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. "If I get chosen, promise you'll live for both of us, knowing your credit ratings, you'd make it into the city."
Her throat closed. "Hale..."

"Promise me Ivy." His hand found hers in the fading light, fingers rough, balmy and warm.
She wanted to pull away, but could, too trapped into his beseeching gaze, "Fine, I promise. But the bucket list is your responsibility."