St. Augustine

Chapter 1

Brielle

The light shone brightly on my face. The metal table my hands rested on felt too cold to make any sense, considering how hot the room seemed. There was a quiet ringing in my ears and I felt almost sick to my stomach.

"I know this is stressful, but I just need you to answer a few questions, Brielle. Where were you on the night of July 20th?" A blonde lady in a grey tux asked me.

I remembered vividly where I was that night. But there was no way I could tell her. This situation was too complex to understand unless you started from the very beginning.

September 8th, 1 year before - - -

My first day of school begins at 7:30. Well, technically it started at midnight. I'm really not that nervous, school never comes hard for me. I struggle in certain subjects, especially Chemistry, but I manage to get by. I never have struggled to socialize, but naturally, there are people I keep closer than others.

It's my fourth year at St. Augustine, I have been the top of the class for three years in a row. St. Augustine is a very competitive school, but somehow, even after all my internal breakdowns in my science class, I ended up on top.

Nadine and Phoebe have been my closest friends since third grade. Thankfully, we all have lunch at the same time and a few classes together; Social Studies and French. I just knew it was gonna be a long day of socializing and being overly nice to everyone in my class so group projects wouldn't be insanely awkward.

My first class is Math, which I'm looking forward to. I put on my uniform, brush my light brown hair and head out of my room to meet Phoebe and Nadine.

We've shared a room since freshman year, it's been both torture and a luxury.

Nadine hands me my usual caramel iced coffee and we walk out the door and down the stairs.

"Who's excited for their first day of school?" I say, putting one arm around each of them as we walk out.

"I'm only excited for english and art," replies Nadine.

"It's literally the same every year," says Phoebe groaning.

We walk into the main building and break apart as we near our first classrooms.

A woman with cleanly cut, shoulder length hair greets me as I enter, "Name?" She asks with a kind smile.

"Brielle Merriweather." I respond and look around the room at the familiar faces taking their seats. I fidget with my tie. Thankfully we only had to wear these on Mondays and Fridays, they were nice but quite uncomfortable.

"I'm Ms. Rice. It's nice to meet you, Brielle.
Take a seat in the third column, back row."

Just great, assigned seating and I was in the back row. I sat down with a quiet sigh and fished my glasses out of my backpack. Don't get me wrong, I think glasses are cute, but I hate wearing them. And there's no way I'm putting contacts on my eyes.

There's a few new students, one sits directly in front of me. I can't see his face, of course, but on the back of his head I can see his black hair going in all different directions.

Class is mainly filled with introductions, as if we haven't been with mainly the same crowd for four years. St. Augustine was a prestigious boarding school. Students rarely got in except for the stranger who sits in front of me and what appears to be his friend, a few seats away. I heard someone say before the start of class that there was one more, a girl, but I haven't seen her.

Only a few people raised their hand to share and Ms. Rice spent most of the period talking about herself, because what else would we do in Math class. James, the guy who sits right next to me, shared that his favorite food is escargot. This disturbed me on a spiritual level, I never understood how someone could eat that overpriced slime.

The bell rings marking the end of the first period. I take off my glasses and my eyes lock with Rebecca. She does track, we've been competitors since freshman year when we first joined. I'm all for girls supporting girls, but she is a class A bitch. I ignore her and talk to James and we walk out together. He tells me about his fish, unfortunately one died over the summer. He thinks that one is Pinocchio, but he can't tell for sure. I offer my condolences to him and rush to the first place I can think of to go to meet Phoebe and Nadine; Nadine's locker.

Phoebe is there waiting. "Looks like Rebecca is in my math class." I tell her. She makes a face and Nadine walks over.

"How was your first period?" I ask both of them.

"Boring as hell." Phoebe rolls her eyes. She had Science first period, I pity her.

"Horrible." Sighs Nadine. She had just gotten back from gym class, somehow looking as fresh as this morning.

"Off we go to social studies." I say sighing.
It's not my favorite and it's quite boring, we get taught the same things every year. Just like English.

"Ah, yes. The home of changing the narrative to act like history wasn't as bad as they say it was." Nadine says, making air quotes.

We walk down the hall, we're not the most popular in school but we fit in.

And that's perfectly fine with me.

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btw! to help you get a better feel what some of the characters look like <3

Phoebe is played by- Isabella west

Nadine is played by- Clairo Cottrill

Athena is played by- Hannah Kleit (but with septum, glasses, and tattos)

Kalen is played by- Lorenzo Zurzolo

We hope you enjoy this story as much as we do:)