Project Marlee

Chapter One: Paper Boy

Author's Note: Hi everyone! I'm super excited to be writing this story. I'm already shipping the characters and falling head over heels with the setting. I hope you like it as much as I do. I plan on updating a chapter every Sunday & Wednesday, so keep an eye peeled. If you care to give it a listen, the link to the soundtrack I've put together is in the external link. Oh, and watch the trailer above - sweet Belle (GlitterandDust7000) made it for me; she's amazing with trailers! enjoy! :) emily // march 2, 2016

I AM BAD at a lot of things.

Public speaking terrifies me. I am most definitely not an athletic person. Oh, and I'm not musically talented by any stretch of the imagination. Socializing in general isn't my strong suit.

But falling in love is.

To put it into perspective: sometimes, I go to the Kroger ten minutes down the road on Thursday at five p.m., because I know Anthony will be there. I slap a pack of gum down on the counter and he rings me up and I smile and go home.

And sometimes, I check the mailbox at three o'clock on Saturday afternoon because that's when Jake comes home from soccer practice. The mail doesn't come until four-thirty.

Sometimes, I walk past the table by the third window from the left in the cafeteria at twelve-oh-three. Because that's where Jason sits.

It's pathetic.

Especially considering my social skills - or rather, lack thereof. My social life, in general. Basically non-existent.

I'm hopeless and I know it but I can't help but hold onto the hope that someday, someone will watch me walk by and think, "My God, I want to marry that girl."

Like my mother and father's love story. Theirs was the greatest.

My mother was in the middle of an argument with her ex in a shoe store parking lot. Dad had just been getting off his motorcycle when she grabbed his helmet, slapped it on, saddled the back of the bike and said "Drive." She hated motorcycles; it was her first ride. The first of many.

He'll be perfect. He'll sweep me off my feet and make me laugh and wrap his arms around my waist and care.

Unlike my father, who couldn't give a damn about me. It's just as well; the feeling is mutual.

six feet tall. I scratched the words with a dull pencil inside my leather-bound notebook. The pages were practically falling out; I supposed I could have bought another with the poor minimum wage I got working at Joey's, the local burger joint, but I didn't know where I'd be without that notebook.

Wait, no. That's wrong. I erased the words "six feet." Now that was just being petty, I thought, and instead replaced the line with "brown hair."  Then, hesitating (would it be too much to add "messy"?) moved onto the next line. blue eyes. It wasn't likely; brown hair and blue eyes is a rare combination. But I could hope. I allowed myself that much.

Besides, no one would ever be looking in this old thing. I shifted the notebook an inch on my knees so the passenger next to me wouldn't get a glimpse of what I was writing.

I peered out of the window to my right; it was exhilarating to be up this high. Surrounded by nothing but blue sky and wispy clouds.

I rode a plane twice every year. On May 27th, the day after the last day of school. And September 4, one week before the start of the new school year.

It was my annual visit to aunt Peggy's. Lovely, wonderful, angelic aunt Peggy. I couldn't wait to see her again. It had been a year.

Her home on Seaside Beach was enough to make you feel like you were in paradise; but you only had to be in aunt Peggy's presence to feel at home. I missed her like crazy, and not for the first time I ached for her to visit us.