I'd Rather Be in Love than Dead

Chapter One

for inspiring us to write a fanfiction for The Maine(;

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Hey guys! 

The time has come at last for us to post.

We have been working extremely hard on this for all of your enjoyment, and if I must say so, it's our best writing ever (I'm assuming it's because we're working together) and I really hope you all enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed writing it!

There are lots of POV in this story, as you will notice, but in the first few chapters we'll do you the favor of not confusing you into the next century by telling you who's perspective it is at the moment. 

The order of points of view will vary, though it's quite a simple thing to understand (if you think about it); Odd number chapters go Chasity, Garrett, Alayna, John; Even numbers go Alayna, John, Chasity, Garrett. But just in case that's hard to understand, we'll tell you what's going on.

So thank you all for your support - it means the world to us - and I really hope you enjoy!

~Anna

Chasity's Perspective:

I drove through my new home of Tempe, Arizona, looking around for a place to park at the fundraiser me and my best friend, Alayna Johanesburg would be working at today. She finally pointed at an open spot by the car wash, her straight, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail for work. I went on to complain about how it was all the way across the fairgrounds from the dunking booth we’d be working at to raise money for her little brother’s disabilities. Her brown eyes shone at she stared me down and I finally groaned and parked.

“Fine,” I said. “But you’re getting dunked first.” She grudgingly agreed, but quickly lightened up when she realized there was a pretzel cook off (what the hell?!), so she quickly excused herself to go and try one.

I sighed and grabbed the large cardboard box full of hackysack balls we had been asked to bring for the opening of our booth in a half hour. We were late. I yawned into my shoulder and silently cursed the earliness before deciding to only volunteer for evening events from then on.

I flipped a strand of brown hair form my face before checking my wrist for a hair band to tie my hair up as soon as I arrived at the booth and was able to put this down, but in my moments of not watching where I was going, I felt myself collide with someone. The beanbags spilled everywhere and it wasn’t until I was on the ground, completely soaked, that I realized I’d been walking through the carwash.

“Jeez, sorry,” I muttered as I hurriedly picked up the spilled hackysacks, avoiding the face that the large hands helping me belonged to. I felt calloused fingers brush the palm of my hand as the figure placed the last of the balls in my hand and stood, putting a wet hand out to help me. I gratefully grabbed the hand and stood, still looking anywhere but the face of the person I’d embarrassed myself by running into.

After thanking him (it was a boy), I looked away from his skinny jeans, t-shirt, vest, and converse and finally met a familiar pair of blue eyes. I gasped and my eyes shot up instantly to his hair.

“Chasity?”

“Garrett?”

We stared at each other for several long moments and I let my mind wander far from where I stood, soaking wet with a box of beanbags in my hand until Alayna returned with her pretzel.

“What, a girl can’t even get a pretzel without missing something?” She asked and I looked at her, exasperated. Reading my look, she took the balls from under my arm and stalked off towards the dunking booth.