Safest in your arms

one

SAFEST IN YOUR ARMS | I
" close your mouth, you're drooling "
{' PILOT '}

BEING ADOPTED AND HISPANIC IN A SMALL TOWN LIKE WELLSBURY WAS RATHER LONELY.

At least that's how Samantha always felt. She had never really felt like she fit in with her siblings or in her family, really. Ellen and Clint had problems getting pregnant early into their marriage, in fact they thought there was no hope so they adopted Samantha as a newborn. Then two years later Ellen ended up pregnant. It was a miracle, a happy miracle. Samantha would have siblings and that's all the Baker parents really wanted.

Growing up Samantha was alone most of the time, she went a school with mostly white people, only a handful of kids that could relate to her. Not even her siblings could understand what she went through. It was hard being shoved into a stereotype while not knowing anything about her culture. Thankfully that all changed once she started middle school. She had met the twins, Oliver and Nia, first during the first day of sixth grade. Samantha was going to sit alone like usual but Oliver saw her and sat at her table no questions asked. Nia followed after her brother and soon they became best friends. Mathew came into their lives only a couple of months later during their gym class. He was considered popular, he even played on the football and basketball team but even then he chose to hang out with the three best friends. It wasn't hard to understand why, they all had one thing in common; being outsiders.

The four became inseparable, even when Oliver joined the football team or when Nia joined cheer or even when they all started high school. It was as if they were a small family. They fought sometimes, like normal friends do but it never escalated into anything serious.

It was freshman year when Natalie and Jade joined their friend group. Oliver had a crush on Natalie so he asked her out and the group accepted her without much thought, Oliver seemed to really like her so they didn't find a reason to give her or him a hard time. They had met Jade one day when they were at the skate park hanging out, she had approached them speaking to Samantha in particular and from then on she seemed to linger with them more and more to the point in which she just hung out with them everyday.

Oliver and Natalie dated most of their high school years, they broke up briefly during their junior year which wasn't surprising. Junior year was known for being the most academically challenging. Oliver had practice along with keeping up with his AP classes and Natalie had an after school job so they didn't have much time to hang out. Regardless they made it work and got back together just four months later.

Senior year changed things for the group of friends. They all applied to a handful of colleges, some were even a thousand miles away and even though they knew they weren't going to accept the offer, they figured at least applying wouldn't hurt. Samantha got into almost every single one, she got a little carried away and applied to harvard and other prestigious schools that were definitely overshooting. That didn't at all mean she wasn't smart, she had straight A's and took a lot of AP classes during her junior year but that wasn't necessarily enough for her to be accepted into such prestigious schools.