Young Writers Society

Prologue- https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/work/notmaria/...

Chapter One- https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/work/notmaria/...

I've never believed in love at first sight, and I don't think I ever will. Everything the fairytales and teen fiction novels try to sell you is a load of crap.

No one can fall in love with someone the first time they see them. You have no idea what they're like, what they like. It's ridiculous to believe that you can spend the rest of your life with someone after seeing them once.

And what about those people who claim it was love at first sight? What is it that they're feeling? Attraction, nausea, I have no idea.

All I know is that I didn't fall in love with Lorelai Lupei the first time I saw her. Or the second, third, fourth, and so on. I must've seen her a thousand times before I even noticed her.

No, it wasn't love at first sight. We'd been in school together from third grade until senior year, and I never looked at her in that way. It wasn't until Homecoming that I made the choice that changed my life as I knew it.

As much as I'd like to start at Homecoming, the train wreck that took over my senior year started about two weeks after school did.

I was taking it easy for my last year of high school, and my first period was office aide. I'd just finished making a hundred copies of a worksheet on the anatomy of a cell and was on my way to drop it off in the science hallway when the earth tilted on its axis.

The first thing I saw was a shimmering curtain of thick black hair, spilling over a deeply tanned shoulder in loose curls. All I could hear was her laugh and my own heartbeat. My eyes followed a path from her collarbone to just behind the shell of her ear, where a beautifully detailed tattoo of a waning moon was etched into her skin.

I don't know how long I stood there, but when time caught up to me again, the small girl beside Lorelai was staring at me. She was as delicate and pale as a porcelain doll, and she had this look on her face that I just couldn’t ignore. It was like she had just watched someone drown, knowing that she couldn’t save them.

I continued walking, trying to look as if my heart rate was relatively even and my blood wasn’t racing in my veins. Before I closed the office door behind me, I looked back over my shoulder and smiled at the doll-like girl.

It looked like she might need it.

I pressed my back to the concrete wall beside the office door and stared at the anti-drug poster on the other side of the hallway, trying to slow my breathing and prevent myself from actually hyperventilating.

I was literally going crazy. It had been less than an hour since the incident in the office, and I was already re-imagining my entire life around Lorelai.

My knee was bouncing, my fingers tapping the cold surface of the desk, and I kept glancing at the clock, despite the fact that second period hadn't even started.

A bag was tossed rather unceremoniously onto the desk next to mine. "Hey, loser. Why are you so tense?"

Salem Chey sat herself down and looked disdainfully down her hooked nose at me.

"Uh," I paused, knowing that she was going to force it out of me either way. "No reason."

She laughed and then stared at me. "You're seriously not going to just tell me? You know I'll find out by the end of the period."

My cheeks reddened and she stared some more. "Is it really that embarrassing?"

I shrugged, avoiding eye contact. "You always make fun of me, especially for stuff like this."

The bell rang.

The light in her dark eyes changed slightly. "Oh. Okay. So it's something about you being a hopeless romantic. Please tell me that you didn't manage to fall madly in love with some poor girl in the hour since I last saw you."

I looked up, meeting her gaze, then quickly back down again.

"Oh. My. Gosh." She started giggling, the amber colored skin of her cheekbones taking on a red tinge.

“Just kill me now.” I hit my head against my desk four times, one for each word.

"Don't tempt me." A monotone voice said. Kole Ferreira, my supposed best friend, took his usual spot on the other side of me. Kole had stayed exactly the same since I met him in middle school. He wore the same monochromatic black clothes, styled his hair in the same pitch black windswept curls, and listened to the same early 2000s punk rock music.

He looked at Salem over my shoulder, smiled to himself, and started unloading supplies from his bag.

"Mr. Ferreira, late again?"

Kole just grinned at our old, seemingly grumpy AP Literature teacher. "You know how it is, Mr. Cohen."

I seriously doubted that Mr. Cohen knew, or even wanted to know, why Kole was chronically tardy. But this short interaction had been a staple of our English classes since freshman year, so no one pointed it out.

As Mr. Cohen started to lecture on the importance of character's names and how it influenced the reader's perception of them in classical literature, Kole leaned over my table and threw Salem a crooked smile.

"I have another one."

This was another staple of our English classes. Every day, Kole would come with another literary pick-up line. I knew for a fact that this was part of his four-year plan to make her fall for him. Salem probably knew it too, but I think she was afraid that if she called him out on it, he'd stop doing it.

She tried, and failed, to suppress the dopey, lovesick grin that took up her entire face. "Okay."

"It's no wonder Big Brother is watching you. On a scale of one to ten, you're 1984."

Salem blinked, then blushed, then burst out laughing.

Mr. Cohen looked at her disapprovingly, but didn't say anything about it.

"Anyways," Kole said. "What were y'all talking about?"

Salem started to explain that I finally found someone who lived up to all my expectations. Kole seemed to find it extremely amusing. I tried to pay attention to Mr. Cohen.

"So," Kole turned to me once Salem was finished. "Who's the lucky girl?"

Salem replied with a sigh. "I don't know. He hasn't told me yet."

Kole raised a questioning eyebrow. I shook my head and went back to my notes. Mercifully, Mr. Cohen gave us an assignment due at the end of the period, which kept Salem and Kole occupied up until the end of class.

When the bell rang, I jumped out of my seat and ran to my next class, ignoring Salem and Kole's protests.

"Lorelai Lupei? Are you serious?" Salem was indignant, and Kole was falling off of his seat laughing.

It was lunchtime. Salem and Kole had just pelted me with baby carrots and bits of stale bread until I finally told them what they wanted to know.

"This is why I didn't want to tell you," I whined. "I knew that you'd make fun of me."

"Forget the teasing, I'm mad."

"Why?" I asked, sending Kole a glare while I was at it.

Salem groaned. "Because you've made the dumbest decision in your entire life. Lorelai isn't a one-and-done type of girl, Rex. She dates a guy, then dumps him a week later. I don't hold that against her, because Lord knows all the guys here are stupid anyways, but she's going to break your heart."

"I'm not in love with her, okay? Infatuation is not love."

Salem just gave me a pitying glance and looked away.

I tried to avoid Salem and Kole for the rest of the day. It worked out pretty well, probably because Salem was avoiding me as well.

After the final bell, I sat in my Jeep for a few minutes, my head against my steering wheel. When I finally got myself together and started my engine, I started to drive home. The second I turned the corner into the south parking lot, my heart stuttered, then started to race.

Lorelai's friend, the one who reminded me of a doll, stood all by herself in the middle of the empty parking lot. She was on the phone, so I was reluctant to pull up next to her, but then I realized that she was visibly shaking.

I stopped my Jeep right behind her and rolled the passenger side window down, leaning across the console. She turned, her green eyes blown wide.

"Hey, do you need a ride?"

She wouldn't meet my gaze, but she nodded, her cheeks flaming red.

I opened the passenger door and pushed it as far out as I could without undoing my seatbelt and climbing into the passenger seat. "Come on. I'll take you home."

She paused, as if weighing the pros and cons. Finally, she got into the car.

I waited for a moment before I said anything. "You're Lorelai's friend, right?"

She nodded, but she still wasn't looking at me.

"I feel bad, I don't know your name."

She didn't answer, and she kept her eyes set firmly on the horizon.

"You do know that you're going to have to tell me where to go, right? Talking is inevitable. You might as well tell me your name while you're at it."

She was silent for a few minutes, but she kept taking really deep breaths, like she was trying to calm herself down.

"Thank you. And turn left up here at the light."

I glanced at her. "No problem. Are you going to tell me your name?"

"Verity."

"It's pretty."

"What?" She looked as if she genuinely didn't know what I was talking about.

I stared, completely confused. "Your name. It's pretty."

"Uh, thanks? Keep your eyes on the road." She said, like she was trying to figure out if I was making fun of her or not.

"It was an honest compliment, Verity. I'm not trying to trick you."

She bit her lip and looked away. "Okay. Take the next right."

She gave me directions, but I didn't press conversation. She was obviously on edge.

"Which house is yours?"

"The blue one." She closed her eyes briefly, as if cursing herself. "But, uh, drop me off at that metal building over there."

For basically the first time the entire ride, she looked straight at me. "Thanks again."

I clenched my jaw, looking down at the steering wheel. I could feel the heat spreading across my face, and I inwardly cursed myself. People thank people all the time. There was no reason that this was any different.

"Oh my gosh, are you blushing? This is actually the worst day of my life."

I looked at her in surprise. It was the longest string of words she'd said to me, and it sounded completely unfiltered. "How exactly are those two related?"

She blushed, trying to hide her face behind a curtain of auburn hair.

"Goodbye, Rex." She shut the door and walked towards the building, pulling the door open to expose an older, smiling man and a really old truck.

She didn't look back as I drove away, past the school, and to the opposite end of town.

It was no secret that I have a big family. At a football game, when you see a horde of children, ages 8 to 15, barrelling towards me, you can automatically say “Oh, those are all the Kumar kids.”

There are seven of us, me being the oldest. Next are the twins, Israil and Meriel. They’re fifteen, and not that close to me or each other. After them is Alara, who is thirteen and the sweetest person you will ever meet. She’s hands-down my best friend, even before Salem and Kole. Finally, there are the Three Musketeers. Wren is eleven, Eren is ten, and Cora is eight.

I walked in the door to my family's house, and I was immediately surrounded by Wren, Eren, and Cora. I could hear loud electronic music pouring down the stairs, probably from Israil’s room.

I grinned. "Whoa, guys, slow down. One at a time."

Wren spoke up first. "What happened to you?"

I wasn't really surprised that she noticed something was wrong. She got my mother's intuition and my father's candor.

"It's been a weird day," I said. "What are y'all so excited about?"

Cora smiled and bounced on the balls of her feet. "Grams is coming down for Thanksgiving, and she might stay until New Years!"

I raised my eyebrows. My dad's mother was one of my favorite people. She used to visit all the time, but after Gramps died, she moved back to India and she hadn't been back since.

Alara entered the room. I looked at her for confirmation. She smiled and nodded.

Eren cleared his throat and looked up at me. "You don't look happy."

I messed up his hair and grinned. "I am happy. We haven't seen Grams in a really long time."

He frowned. "You didn't believe us."

I laughed. "Of course I did, I just wanted to make sure."

Alara walked into the kitchen, and I followed her.

"How was your day?" I asked, leaning over the counter.

She shrugged and smiled at me. "It was okay, I guess. Mar sat by us at lunch, so that was good, but she still won't talk."

Mar was a foster kid in Alara's class that she'd been aggressively trying to befriend since the first day of school.

"Just remember what I said, Lara."

She nodded. "Don't pressure her into anything, she's probably been through a lot. I know, Rex."

I leaned just a bit farther, stretching my hand out to mess up her hair and grabbed an apple from the fruit basket. Alara rolled her eyes and handed me a water bottle from the fridge.

"Get out of here."

I grinned at her as I left the kitchen and headed up to my room. "Love you too, sis."

I stuffed my basketball shorts and my favorite ratty t-shirt into a duffel bag and left the house once again. I'd forgotten that it was weight day, and I'd rather not lift in my jeans.

The rest of the jerks on the football team were seriously starting to piss me off.

"Hey, dude, did you go to that party on Friday night? It was wild, man."

One of the linebackers snickered. "Yeah, you would've known just how wild it was if you hadn't passed out after two drinks."

I raised my eyebrows at Coach, who wasn't paying any kind of attention. So I did what I always do- I jammed my earbuds further in and turned up my volume. I'd probably have major hearing problems later, but whatever the other guys were talking about would probably scar my mind beyond repair.

"Kumar," I heard one of the second string players bellow.

I let out an annoyed sigh and looked up, pausing my music. "What?"

"Are you going to the bonfire?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

The bonfires were a tradition. After every football game, the team and who knows who else gather by the river to light a bonfire and eventually puke their guts out beside a Russian Olive. I'd gone to a few last year, but I didn't make a habit of it, and I wasn't going to this year either.

One of the nicer guys on the team smiled at me. "Everyone else is going. You might as well show up for half an hour."

I just shook my head and turned my music back on. In my head, I was thinking that maybe he was right. I could show up for a little while, right after the game, before it got too crazy.

Really, what was the harm?

When I got home, the house was quiet. Alara was reading in the living room, but everyone else had already disappeared into their bedrooms. I ate leftover lasagna and fell asleep before I even took a shower.