SIXTEEN

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FROZEN STARS
SIXTEEN
i remember that night, i just might regret that night for the rest of my days.

            THE DAY Marley Munroe met Tate Harper was mundane, to say the least

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            THE DAY Marley Munroe met Tate Harper was mundane, to say the least.

            She was sat by the same window that she always sat at. It was where she sat when she needed to relax or clear her clouded mind, something which she had found herself needed more and more frequently. Her favoured spot was beside a gigantic window that spanned from the floor to the ceiling - through it, she had a clear view of the glittering stars and ever-so-enchanting allure of Earth.

            The window was in the rec room, which was oddly quiet for once. Usually, it was filled with people laughing, joking, talking. Just relaxing on their breaks from work or school. She liked the noise - it made her feel like she wasn't alone. She didn't like being alone back then. She just had no choice.

            Marley's knees were tucked halfway into her chest as a book - an old book that she didn't even know the title of due to its worn-down covers, which her grandmother had given her shortly before her death - lay balanced on her knees. She'd read the book a thousand times over (she could probably recite passages perfectly just from memory) but it reminded her of her grandmother and how she used to read to her as she fell asleep. It offered her comfort and familiarity. Currently, she was scanning the tattered pages idly; her mind was somewhere else, wondering, racing and for no other reason than from lack of sleep from the previous night.

            Her parents had been up until four in the morning; they stood screaming flimsy arguments and insults at each other over a bedsheet that her father had accidentally torn whilst making the bed that morning. Marley had tried to sleep through it - she'd managed it before, it wasn't as if the arguments were a strictly one-time thing - but this time was different. She had never heard her mother and father argue over something so small. Yet there they were pulling each other to pieces over the smallest of inconveniences.

            Marley had given up trying to focus on the book in hand and was twirling a strand of her brown hair around her index finger, staring out of the window at the hauntingly beautiful vision of the sky which stretched forever in front of her. She loved how it always seemed to be changing and shifting right in front of her very eyes. Nothing ever made her feel as calm as the vision from the window.

            "Need some company?" A low voice questioned, snapping her from her daydream.

            Marley turned towards the person who had spoken, her eyes squinting to adjust from the darkness of space to the stark bright white lights of the room they were both within. The silhouette of a boy came slowly into focus.

FROZEN STARS    ,    (    t. 100 ¹    )Where stories live. Discover now