Thirty Years

Flashback

Flashback

    Elegant music floated out of the large wooden doors of the extravagant party. Youth dressed in designer materials laughed with one another. Even in the new dress that she spent hours debating on, Via felt underneath these elites. She was so excited and proud to be invited to the debut of Gavin Royce, heir to Royce Corporations, at Theradin, the elite private school she worked so hard to get into. But standing at the entrance, she was intimidated by the confident and wealthy young people.

    "Is something wrong miss?"

    Jumping in surprise, she turned around to see a well-dressed boy around her age. His was dressed in a dark navy suit that complemented his dark hair and sharp features. In her 16 years of life, she had never seen such a beautiful being. Flustered, Via turned away, walking into the party.

    Although he had wanted to follow the cute girl, Gavin was distracted by his friends as he entered his own party.

    "Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Mr. Gavin Royce." Gavin blushed as the spotlight was turned to him when he entered the party. From when he first learned to talk, he was taught to be modest and could thus never get used to the attention on him and the dean's son and the heir of his father's world-renowned corporation.

    "And now a few words from Gavin Royce." Gavin stepped up to the platform, looking at his friends and classmates with a gentle smile.

    "First I want to thank you all for coming and I hope to follow in my father's footsteps to lead the school and Royce Enterprises to success." Although he said few words, Gavin's graceful, modest manner of speaking was met with an uproar of applause.

    So that's Gavin Royce. . . How embarrassing, he must think I'm so strange!

Not wanting to meet Gavin personally in fear of embarrassing myself, Via spent most of her time near the tables, admiring all the delicious desserts his family and set out. Although her family's kitchen plain compared to the Royce's, she used to love baking pastries and decorating them for her family to have. However, as she grew older and had to work harder to study to get into a good school, she had to give up many of her hobbies.

Splash

A red splotch spread over Via's white dress as a young girl knelt beside her, trying to clean it up.

"It's alright," Via said with a small smile. Even though this dress was the most expensive clothing she had ever worn, VIa was in no position to yell at the young girl, who looked like another rich heir.

Sadly in this world, those with money had the most power.

This girl, she noticed, was just as beautiful as Gavin Royce, with her sleek dark hair, light honey brown eyes, and incredibly smooth skin. She was dressed to almost look fairy like in a simple light blue dress with a shimmery design on it.

"Oh I feel so bad, my name is Molly Royce by the way." Seeing that Via wasn't angry, Molly seemed relieved and quickly introduced herself to me.

Via quickly learned that unlike her gentle quiet brother, Molly was bubbly and outgoing. She kept by Via's side after lending forcing Via to borrow one of her own dresses. And contrary to her first perception of her, Molly was truly kind and modest about her wealth.

Riding home, Via smiled to herself, thinking of the beautiful and kind girl she had met.

Maybe Theradin will be better than I thought.