-Laelyn-

"Alyrica, you're ridiculous. I can't do that!" I protested, waving off the idea completely.

"You've liked him for over five years, Laelyn!" Alyrica said, exasperated. "You have to do something soon, you can't just sit back and let him find someone else."

"Chanson doesn't like me, Lyric. He never has. He's my brother's best friend, and that's as far as our friendship goes." I sighed. I really did like him, but it would never work. I wish my best friend would just let it go. We'd had a sleepover the night before, and we had to go to school in about ten minutes.

"How do you know?" She asked playfully, drawing the words out. I rolled my eyes. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"What're we talking about today?" I hear my brother ask behind me.

"Nothing!" Alyrica and I answered together.

"I know it was something. You can't keep anything away from me, Lyn." He looked at me pointedly, furrowing his eyebrows in concentration. He wouldn't figure it out, not this time.

"If you really want to know, Link," I began, winking at Alyrica, "We were talking about how funny it is that you haven't figured out that your shoe is untied." He looked down in panic, then gave me a glare when he found it to be a lie. We were twins, so we had the same bright green eyes.

"Ha ha, very funny." He said sarcastically, stomping off down stairs. Alyrica and I were sitting on my bed in my room. I had gotten a room to myself after twelve years of sharing with Link, which usually gave me some privacy, but Link really had no concept of my privacy it seemed. Not that I minded too much, since we're twins we've always been super close, but we don't talk to each other about this kind of stuff. I didn't even know who he liked.

"Alright, back to the problem at hand," Alyrica continued. She was my best friend, and rightly so. She was beautiful, intelligent, and the nicest girl you could ever meet. Of course, that meant that guys followed her wherever she went, but that didn't particularly bother me. Besides, Link really liked her too.

"It's not a problem!"

"Who's the ridiculous one now?"

"It's the truth. I'm fine, and I don't need to progress any relationship I may have with Chanson." I said, trying to get through to her that this wasn't something I wanted to talk about.

"Lyn-"

"Lyric. I don't need help with this." I cut her off, and she looked disappointed.

"Okay, fine." I almost felt bad. She never got to talk about boys like all the other high school girls, because I was her best friend. Honestly, this was the first time we'd had that long of a conversation about them. I decided to try to be more excited about it, for her.

"Who do you like?" I asked. She instantly blushed and looked down at my quilt.

"Oh, no one." She mumbled, playing with her hands.

"I don't buy that for a second, and you know it. Spill."

"Just someone. You probably don't even know him." She said earnestly, and even though I didn't believe her, I let it go. After a pause, I decided to break the silence.

"So, are we ready then?" I asked, jumping up off the bed and grabbing my backpack from where it sat in my laundry basket.

"Sure, why not." She sighed. We ran down the stairs and met Link in the kitchen, stuffing his face with the cookies I'd made the day before.

"Link! Those were supposed to be for the bake sale on Friday!" I chastised.

"I couldn't stare at them for two more days!" He said through the cookie crumbs.

"Now I have to make them all over again!" I said, exasperated. I swear, I could put cookies in a bomb safe shelter and he would find a way in. "Do you know how long those took me?"

"Two hours and 12 minutes." He answered.

"Wait, what?"

"I had to live with the smell of chocolate chip cookies without the promise of cookies later, I think I know how long it was." He said matter-of-factly.

"Alrighty then..." I trailed off. I knew my brother was crazy smart, but sometimes he could be a little creepy. I grabbed cookies for Alyrica and me- hey, they were almost gone anyway!- and tugged her out the door. We were walking to school today, and Link could deal with walking alone.
"Well that was interesting," Alyrica laughed beside me.

"Welcome to life with my brother. It gets exhausting, I tell you." I explained.

"Hey guys!" I heard Link jog up behind us and groaned. "What's the topic this morning?"

"How incredibly annoying you are." I said decidedly.

"He isn't that bad," Alyrica chimed in.

"Yeah, I'm not that bad." Link repeated. "Wait, not that bad? What is that supposed to mean?" He feigned offense. I laughed.

"It means you're annoying, but we still keep you around."

"Hey!" He hit me on the shoulder, and I hit him back twice as hard.

"You guys are so mean to each other." Alyrica said.

"Nah, she loves me." Link replied, wrapping his arm around my neck and putting me into a headlock. I got out of it easily and punched him in the arm again.

"Sure. Love you bro." I rolled my eyes. Of course it was true, but we joked with each other so often it was hard to break the sarcasm.

"Why do you guys mess around so much?" Alyrica asked. "Someone who didn't know you would think you hate each other."

"That's not entirely false." Link said, laughing.

"There's something we can agree on."

"You guys are awful!" Alyrica remarked, joining in on our laughter.

"And he's gonna be late to practice." I reminded. Link checked his watch frantically.

"Crap, you're right!" He realized, bolting off ahead of us.

"Tell Chanson that Laelyn said hi!" Alyrica called.

"No, wait!" I hollered after him, but he was too far away to hear anything I said by that point. I turned my attention back to Alyrica and nudged her heel with my toes. "You're terrible."

"You'll thank me one day," She told me. I doubt that.

Author's Note!

Hey guys, this book is something I've been secretly working on for quite awhile. I know that this chapter didn't have too many interesting bits, but it's essential to understanding a few key characters. (Side note- totally in love with these characters, seriously. I've got like twenty full out character maps, this is gonna be a proper storyline, something I personally don't do all too frequently.) But I sure hope you guys love this story, I know it's a bit different than my other stories. As always, lots of love, and be sure to comment and give me your thoughts and your [constructive] criticism! I need it! (Another side note- the name at the top of the chapter will be referring to whose point of view it is lol XD)

Savy Pearson