golden love

chapter one

                         "is she having a stroke?"

15-year-old esme micheal awoke from her sleep at 6am on monday morning. the brunette groaned as she looked over at her beeping alarm clock. "for fucks sake" she mumbles, pushing the agitating clock to the floor.

the beeping continued, and esme stirred in her bed. after about ten seconds she huffed and got herself up. today was the first day of her fifth year at the lady immaculate college in Derry. her mother, 'sister michael' , was the head mistress of the school. she became a nun when esme was four years old.

esme got together her school clothes that messily scattered around her bedroom, and got herself ready. after she was dressed, esme grabbed an apple from her kitchen table and headed on out. her mother always left for the school at 5am, and esme left at 7am.

the walk to her best friend clare's house was a continuous part of esme's morning routine. esme hated walking alone anywhere, so clare agreed to walk with her one day in the 2nd year. it became a thing they did every day.

and today was no different. esme strolled down her usual 3 minutes to her childhood best friends house, and arrived. the two talked for a moment inside, and went went outside and started waiting.

esme and her three friends had agreed to try and wear denim jackets on the first day of school, to express their individuality. the night before this morning, esme asked her mother.

"don't be stupid, esme."
right. that's all that needed to be said. so it was so surprise when clare saw esme without her jacket on. clare was wearing one, as her parents were always super chilled out. esme was jealous of that.

the two girls saw the shadows of two people walking round the corner, then followed by the familiar faces of cousins erin quinn and orla mcool. they (to no surprise) were also not wearing their denim jackets. clare let out a deep groan and ran up to the girls. esme quickly ran catches up.

"what's this?!" clare exclaimed angrily. "i thought we were being individuals this year?". "look, I wanted to clare but my mam wouldn't let me." erin spoke sadly.

"well i'm not being an individual on my own!"
esme laughed as clare threw her bag at her to catch, before taking off her jacket. the three girls decided to walk down to denis's sweet shop near the school.

the three girls walked into the shop, and began looking at the selection of sweets at the check out area. esme noticed clare looking oddly at the sweets. "you're not getting anything?" she questioned. clare looked up at esme before glaring back down at sweets, "i'm trying to do this fast of Ethiopia." esme shrugged and nodded.

"Christ sakes! what is it with you and Africa?" erin butted in as she plopped a strawberry sweet in her mouth. "will you two sponsor me?" clare ignored erin's question but sounded quite hopeful.

"how much?" the two girls asked in sync.
"two pound".
"two pound?, catch yourself on!" erin laughed. esme continued to look at the sweets, putting some mini eggs in her small bag.

"what's happening over there is really lousy, erin." clare started, "father conway showed us a video. there's this one wee fella, kamal. he's only ten, and every morning he walks 25 miles to the nearest well."

"does he just really enjoy wells, aye?" orla suddenly appeared, clueless as she so often is. esme couldn't help but laugh which caused a confused expression to appear on orla's face.

"25 miles, how far is that?" erin asked with her arms crossed.
"far." clare bluntly answered.
"like how far are we talking?" esme asked to hopefully spark some conversation about wee kamal. "from here to buncrana?" she asked.