"Zo, would you stop being such a wuss and get on with it?" I groaned, irritated, insisting on her for possibly the tenth time now as she adjusted her already well-fit helmet.
She turned around with a slight glare in her eyes directed towards me. "I'm sorry if I don't seem eager enough to get myself injured," she retorted with a weak reply to hide the fact that she was actually scared. "I cannot believe I let you talk me into doing this shit."
I had been begging Zoya to let me teach her how to skate. I loved skating, always had. I had been practising all life and had mastered it, without a doubt. So, the natural and impatient teacher in me couldn't wait to train her in the specific sport as well.
It had been two years since I had started calling this town my home. It wasn't where I had lived all my life. On the contrary, I had very few memories here but some significant ones. Zoya lived on the other side of the town, and the distance between our houses was very inconvenient if we ever desired to call an emergency meeting or something as such. She didn't even attend the same high school as me. Our friendship didn't start as the primary kind.
I met Zoya at a movie theatre that I had spontaneously decided to go to the next evening after I moved into this town and call it fate, but both of us ended up sitting right next to each other, and we talked a little during the movie and a lot after. It had been two years since that little meeting, and although we lived far, we made sure to keep up the contact very well. Fortunately, Zoya had moved a lot closer to my house just last month, and for the last year of high school that we were going to be starting next week, she had taken admission into the same school that I went to.
Zoya Carleton was a badass, to put it simply. She was a perfect and equal combination of leather jacket and martial arts. Even though she was very different than me, we had found some common ground. She was amazing in every way. Zoya's dad was French, and her mum was a Muslim who had always lived in London, yet she ended up here, in this insignificant little town in the States. Her culture never ceased to amaze me. She had accepted both of the familial identities of her parents perfectly equally.
Her parents were the most generous set of people I had ever met; they possessed so much of the said quality; it was unbelievable. Zoya had an older sister who was married and lived in London, I had only ever conversed with her over video calls, but we had come to call ourselves friends as well. Both the sisters had a striking resemblance to each other, and yet they were polar opposites.
She stood tall and confident at the height of 5'10. Much to my dismay, she was an inch or maybe two taller than me, and she knew how much it annoyed, so she never let me hear the end of it. She had thick, brown, and shiny hair that I would sell my soul for. Her hair fell a little below her shoulders because of the recent stunt she had pulled. She had chopped off all her Rapunzel-like hair in one swift go, making every person in her life shout at her, including me. But she rocked this look as well, so there was very little any of us could tell her that would truly convince her that it was a bad decision. The colour of her eyes had synchronized themselves with that of her hair.
Her long legs were now staggering to keep themselves intact as she tried to step onto my skateboard, tightening her hold on my hands so much that I wouldn't be surprised if all the blood supply stopped. "Zo, I got you; I won't let you fall," I assured her, standing in front of her and making sure her form was steady. I had pulled her to the nearest park from our house, which was a place that I spent a great deal of my time at. For some reason, I knew that our first lesson would turn out to be the last one as well. She wasn't enjoying this one bit.
"Hailey, I swear on Thor, if I fall, you're setting yourself up for an early grave," she threatened me. Oh, and did I mention? The movie we both ended up watching together was Avengers: Endgame. I laughed off her warning because I knew she would fall at least once, but she was more than protected for it anyway. She was up for the most adventurous activities, and she was scared of a little skating is what humoured me the most.
"Okay, if that's what it's gonna take for you to learn skating, I'm glad I'll be dying for our friendship," I replied, shaking my head a little bit and looking up at the sky to increase the dramatic effect.
She rolled her eyes at me, still in the process of steadying herself. "Oh, get lost, you absolute idiot," she said, her British accent striking in her voice. "I'm the one who's battling death."
It was my turn to roll my eyes after she said that. "No one dies from trying to skate, Zo," I told her, putting a little more emphasis than it was required on the word trying.
"Yeah, well, who knows, I might be the prototype. I mean, everyone very well knows I was born to make a difference," she said, inflating her own ego and letting out a sort of scared shriek as my skateboard dared to move forward. I nodded my head lightly because even though I would never admit it, I really did believe that too.
As supposed to her life story, mine was very boring. My parents had both lived in America their whole lives, and no one was French or British in the slightest degree. I had hair that was a lighter shade of brown compared to hers, and while it was nothing close to resembling that of Rapunzel, I still loved it just as much. They were wavy and fell until my mid-back. I had bluish-grey eyes, a maternal trait, and I was far too bored with it. My height came up to a meaningful amount of 5'8, and although that's not where I wanted it to stop, I was still tall than most of the girls my age.
Zoya didn't know any of my friends at school, she knew them by names, and she was familiar with their faces since I had told so much about them to her and vice versa. They had just never met and hung out properly, but I knew she was going to fit right in. Zoya was a very chill person; you could easily grow accustomed to her.
I held her hands and tried to move her forward, my eyes focused on my favourite skateboard that I had very reluctantly let her use. It was about seven years old, and its market price with the current condition would barely total up to two dollars, but it was my most prized possession. Just as we were making a little progress, something hard hit the back of my head suddenly. Breaking the staring contest I had going with my skateboard, I stumbled forward, and after a good three seconds of my feet keeping me up, the ventral part of my body hugged the ground, making me fall firmly.
I got up immediately; my jaw clenched as I picked up the orange ball that the boys of my school were too proud of scoring baskets with and my eyes darted around the park to find the culprit. Before I could spend any more time doing that, Zoya groaned a little away from where I was standing. She had fallen sideways and removed her helmet as she fell. I could see a small cut on her elbow and little grass and sand smeared over the vintage ACDC T-shirt she was wearing.
I helped her up. "Dammit, what is it with all the sports hating me today?" she complained, running her hand through her hair.
"That ball is mine, and if you're done staring into oblivion, I would like it back," I heard a deep voice speak behind me immediately turned around lately, intrigued because the sound of his voice was sexy but also a little annoyed because his tone sounded domine. Maybe I sensed a hint of amusement as well, but that could've been an analyzing mistake.
Upon turning around, I faced a gent who was around my age, and he was so beautiful that I momentarily forgot what was going on. The soft curls on his brown hair fell onto his hair as a droplet of sweat travelled down from his temple to that cheek of his. His cheeks were crimson in colour as he huffed, maintaining his breath. His eyebrows itched into a frown as he saw both Zoya and me looking at him like this and a second after, cockiness was all over his face as he realized we were silently fawning over him.
His eyes, a completely different shade of blue than mine, darted over my face and a smirk made its way as he curled his plump pink lips to one side. The shorts he was wearing fell at the end of his knee, very obviously flaunting the toned calves that I assumed he had spent a great deal of time in the gym for. His white tank top falling loose over his upper body which his biceps evidently told me was soon worthy. In no way, did he seem like a gym junkie and neither was he super built but he had made sure to maintain a hot body.
His sleek figure crossed both of mine and Zoya's height. My brain involuntarily came up with an approximation of his height to be around 6'2. What topped off my curiosity was the fact of how familiar he looked to me. Before I could spend a second more at directing my thoughts towards remembering why he seemed so familiar, his hands moved forward to take the basketball out of hand and thankfully, regaining my composure, I moved it out of his reach, and he let out a chuckle.
"What the hell are you doing with a basketball in this park? There's not even a court here," I asked him and mentally cursed myself for coming up with something so dumb. The way the sun was shining upon him, making him look a lot more tempting than I would have liked, my brain had halted the process of thinking. So, he was completely to blame here, I mean, I was helpless.
"Why? Is there some sort of rule that prohibits me from playing basketball in this park without there being a court?" he questioned me in return, coolly.
"No, but there definitely should be if you're going to go around hitting people on the head like that," I retaliated, fairly annoyed at how he was able to look so calm and cocky at the same time. I never really paid any attention to the concept of harbouring a crush, but I think it was starting to make a little bit of sense now.
"Well, I didn't intend for that to happen," he simply said, his eyes darting to Zoya for a second and then staying put at me.
Not breaking the eye contact for a second, I spoke up. "Well, it happened it anyway." Tossing the basketball to Zoya who caught it without any effort and folding my arms over my chest.
His lips momentarily stretched into a lazy smile, and he moved forward, lessening the distance between us as he took two steps forward. His towered over me at the expense of his height and spoke as his breath hit my face with a cool wave. "Maybe you should be a little more aware of your surroundings then," he said, mirroring my action and folding his arms as well. "Have we met somewhere?" he suddenly questioned, making me realize that I wasn't the only one feeling the familiarity.
Before I could utter one more word, Dexter came running towards us, huffing loudly as he stopped and smiled at the boy in front of me. "I saw the van pull up near your house and then I saw you running towards the park. I thought you were coming next week, man!" he excitedly said to the boy. Dexter was one of the people I had luckily become friends with at school. He was a proper jock and could be a serious dimwit at times, but he was also the most amazing friend.
"Surprise," the boy muttered slowly.
Dexter moved forward and put his arms around the boy. The basketball dude returned Dexter's excitement and seemed equally happy at the sight of him. "I can't believe you're moving back here, man."
Moving back? Did that mean basketball dude had grown up here? I reckoned that if he knew Dexter, it was a huge possibility, he knew the rest of my friend group at school as well. I'm not sure if I was happy or not about the fact that we might see a lot of each other during our last year of high school.
"We missed you, Rio," Dexter confessed, breaking off the hug.
Rio? Why the hell did that name sound so familiar to me? Rio? Where had I heard that? Rio? My mind repeated the name numerous times as I watched Rio respond to Dexter saying he had missed him too.
"Dex, you know this guy?" Again, very dumb question but my mind had taken off to a holiday today.
"Oh my God, Hailey!" Upon realizing that I was here as well, he captured me into a quick hug. "Yeah, he's my best friend," Dex answered. Weird how he had never spoken a word about him.
Rio looked taken aback as he heard Dexter. "Wait, you're Hailey? Hailey as in The Hailey Marsden?" he asked me, and I nodded in response. His astonished tone once again confirmed that I wasn't the only one feeling the familiarity. "Damn," I think I heard him mumble.
"Rio, man, what the hell? Mom told us to help, and you ran off without saying a word. She's so mad at you, bro," I turned around again upon hearing the voice and my heart was beating so loudly I could count the number of times it was beating. As I saw the owner of the voice, everything made sense. Every single thing. Why I was feeling so familiar about Rio, why I had a feeling that I knew him and all the other thousand questions that had formed in my mind.
The boy stopped as he saw me, the shock on his face as evident as mine. "Hails," he said as he saw me.
"Fanny," I muttered, pretty sure that my eyes were deceiving me right now.
Zoya turned to me as she heard me and I'm sure she was as shocked as well because she knew my life story. The basketball met the same fate that we did a few minutes ago as it left the hold of her hand and fell on the ground.
"Shit," Zoya said.
"Shit," Dexter said as well, and something told me he knew a lot that I didn't and everything was about to be a lot more complicated than I had anticipated it to be.
"This should be fun," Rio, or should I say, Phoenix, spoke up and walked to stand right next to his brother and my best friend, Fanny.
Oh, dear god.
Author's Note:
There you go! I'm finally done with the first chapter of this book, I hope you loved it, and if you did, please don't forget to VOTE and COMMENT!
I know all of you are very confused about what the hell is happening, but I promise everything will be a lot more clear in the second chapter, I made sure of it!
Alright, I'm very proud of this book, but I'm really nervous since this is the beginning part of the book and I'm just getting back to writing, it would mean the world if you could take a few seconds off and comment your thoughts! Please be expressive!
Stay safe and wear your masks, kids ;)
faye x