Y/n stood in front of the high school. Just another day of brainwork ahead of her. Several adults had told her that her life right now was easy. She knew that, but she didn't care much about what they said. It was her life and she could choose how she thought about it.

Taking a deep breath, the h/c haired girl walked inside the building. Inside other teens bustled around, talking to friends, opening lockers, and trying to get to class before the bell rang.

Without any thought, Y/n walked over to the locker in the very corner of the hallway. No one paid attention to this part, and Y/n was relieved. She didn't need people watching every second of her life and posting it on social media for all to see. She much prefered her privacy over fame.

Y/n put in the combination for her locker and opened the metal box. Inside sat her textbooks, binders, and a few pictures of her family and her small friend group. Her favorite was a combination of both groups.

She stood in the middle with her mom and dad to the right. Her two best friends, Sarah and Melody, were on her left. Everyone was wearing the birthday cones on their head and in the background was a table covered in food and balloons.

The balloons were all different colors, and a few of them spelled out the number 12. While Y/n had a giant smile on her face, her two twin brothers were in the background photobombing.

Those two were surely something. Chris and Kris L/n were both the troublemakers. Rarely were they ever not being lectured about something they did wrong. Their names were almost as troubling as the owners themselves.

No one knew which one was which. Both their names sounded the same, they both looked the same, acted the same, and sounded the same. Even their own parents had a hard time telling them apart. The only one that didn't was Y/n.

Although they sounded the same, Kris with a K would have an undetected crack in his voice. Chris with a C hadn't gotten to that point in life yet. Even though they would wear almost the exact same outfits, Y/n knew that Kris liked to have a messier appearance. When they were younger, their parents called them Kringle and Cap. They didn't look like the two characters at all and their parents would still mess up their names.

They had both tried many times to confuse Y/n, but no matter what, they always failed. They had decided to make it their life long mission. That is, after making a YouTube channel and posting videos of them doing hectic pranks and dares to both each other and others.

Y/n's other siblings weren't in the picture. In total, she had 5 other siblings. Leo was the youngest of them all. He was currently five years old. Lori was a year older than Leo, but had the exact same energy as him. Charlie was always joking. Almost every second he would come up with a joke and you would either groan or laugh. Y/n was the oldest and the twins were almost two years younger than her.

Both of the twins had once had a crush on Sarah. Once she had told them she wasn't interested they moved on, and they did so pretty quickly. Sarah was the one of the friend group that was considered the pretty one. Most boys had a crush on her. Little did they know that she didn't want anything to do with dating or love.

She was a person that loves to read romantics, but hated watching them and being in one. She had tried it once, but then came to the conclusion that "The only perfect boys are fictional." Then again, the only romantic relationship that she was in ended up with the guy cheating on her, so that didn't help with her opinion on boys.

Melody was the outgoing, confident friend. She was also the mom friend. Whenever they were out socializing—which was usually just between themselves—she would always make sure that Y/n and Sarah weren't doing stupid things. She would always ask why they didn't have as much common sense as she did.d

Now Y/n. Y/n was the gamer. She had started with the simple Nintendo games; Super Mario, Kirby's Adventure, Tetris, Pac-Man. The old school games. She played Call of Duty once, but never really got into it. Then in November of 2011, one of the most popular games came out. Minecraft.

It was a pretty simple game. It wasn't a very in depth game, but they were still working on it. It had been three years since it had been released, and Y/n was the best in town. She had defeated the Ender dragon too many times to count. Several others in her school, mainly boys, had tried to defeat her in PvP, but it never worked. She would always find a way to beat them all.

Eventually everyone just accepted the fact that she was better than them all, and gave up trying. Because of this, Y/n had turned to online gaming to get better. She would win some and lose some, but she gradually became better. Minecraft had also lost some of its popularity, but it was still standing strong.

Y/n grabbed the books she needed for her next few classes and closed her locker. Sarah walked up to her from behind with Melody trying to catch up. "Sarah, how do you have so much energy?" She said, trying to catch her breath. "I don't know! Also, Y/n, any big news?"

Y/n's dad had been trying to find a new job. They couldn't find anything in Ohio, so they ended up having to look outside of the state. Y/n hadn't updated her friends on what was going on since she had actually told them that they were looking for a new job. Y/n's father had ended up finding a job in Orlando, Florida. This news was given to the family just yesterday, and Y/n had cried herself to sleep that night.

The school year had just started and she was in her sophomore year. She couldn't just up and leave to somewhere completely different, but she had no choice. She wasn't old enough to leave her parents yet. She was sixteen for crying out loud! She still had two years until she could even be considered an adult.

She looked up towards her best friends with regret obvious on her features. At the sight of Y/n's face, both Sarah and Melody immediately became concerned about the news that they were going to hear. It wasn't often that Y/n reacted like this to a question. In fact, the last time that this had happened was when they asked her how her grandma was, and that was over ten years ago.

"What happened?" Melody asked in a gentle voice. There was a moment of silence. Y/n took a deep breath and looked at her friends and looked at them with a neutral face. "We're moving to Orlando in a couple weeks." Her monotone response took them a while to process.

"So you're leaving in a couple weeks to a place that takes at least a 16 hour driveーwithout stopping, mind youーand is right next to the ocean?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

"Welp. Now you can't be the best gamer in the town. Guess somebody's gonna have to step up." Sarah smirked. "Hey! No one can beat me! Even when I'm gone I'll still be the best!" Y/n said in an annoyed tone, which didn't match the smile that she had on her face. "At least tell me that you'll call us at least twice a week and update us on what's going on." Melody said.

"Of course I will. You guys are my best friends. Why wouldn't I?" The trio hugged each other and the bell rang. Melody's eyes went wide. "WE'RE LATE!" The two others laughed and they all ran towards their classes.

Published February 7, 2022