Memories, eh? Too Overrated!

Chapter One

Note: This story is set in two fictional places: Iridis and Wishword City. Iridis is a small lake town, the main character's hometown, and Wishword City is a big city she will move to, and it's about a four and a half hour drive between the two places. I hope this will help you not get confused ahead in the story.

Picture on the side is of Emily Rudd, character inspiration for our heroine. What do you think of her?

I hope you'll have fun reading this chapter. :)

Chapter edited by crystaltmlinson.

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Chapter One

The thought of chasing after those perfect moments was a paralyzing one, because once the moment had passed, the perfection of it ceased to exist. Looking back at the last few years of my life, I realized that it was a series of 'it's just how it's supposed to be' morphing into 'that's not how it should have been.' If only the changed feelings could change the past.

Walking into the high school with my two best friends on either side of me, smiling back at a senior, going to sit at the popular lunch table that I was invited to, walking away from it for my crush, wearing that cute black dress for my first date, getting my mom to do my hair, having my dad threaten my date on our porch, gushing with my best friend about how it went, letting that new friend comfort me for never receiving another call; it all seemed so perfect then, but now, it only felt like misconceptions, and it would do me no good dwelling over it yet again.

Smiling like I had been listening the whole time, I dropped the photographs into the pile that they had previously rested in and tuned back into what my best friend was saying.

"Don't pretend like you've been listening, Raelyn." Ah, a second too late.

Shayla's eyes were as angry as her voice was calm. Snatching the photographs from the pile, she shoved them back into her bag and muttered an incoherent pseudo-curse under her breath. She knew exactly what I was thinking about.

Picking up another photograph from the pile that littered my blue sheets, I put it on top of the neat stack that Shayla had made on my left. "You sure we can't change getting a tattoo to getting betrayed? I can put double ticks on that..." I trailed off as Shayla made a face at me, all amusement drowning out of my voice. "Too soon?" I cringed at her expression. It confirmed her answer before her voice could.

"Too soon."

Sighing, I flipped to the next page of our 'Bucket List Scrapbook', reading out loud the task written in bold letters on top of it. Shayla and I had decided to make a joint bucket list of '23 things to do before you turn 23' when we were sixteen, and Shayla, being the fervid one, made us a beautiful scrapbook to frame the photographs of us doing those tasks. It had been a tradition ever since that we tallied our scores as to who had crossed more things off of the bucket list each year on our birthdays, and today was mine.