AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Prologue
River
Ten Years Ago
Lexi Huntington is the sun, and I’m a planet in her orbit, powerless to resist her gravity.
Or is she the moon and I’m the tides?
The shore, pounded by the waves the tides create?
No. The sun. That’s the better metaphor. It fits her—she’s as bright and brilliant as the ball of fire in the sky.
I scribble the phrase in my sketchbook.
She’s the sun, and I’m a planet in her orbit.
There’s no rhythm to the words—not yet. They need shading. Shaping.
Artistic ability runs in the family, but I lack Grandma’s skill with words. Pictures are more my speed. Princesses with golden curls. Fire mages with white-blonde hair. Acrobatic monks with flaxen locks.
Of course, I draw a lot of curvy blondes. I have inspiration from the girl next door.
After I sketch the scene, I fall back onto my bed, study the glow-in-the-dark star stickers struggling to hold onto the popcorn ceiling. As with everything in Huntington Hills, our house is a bit gaudy.
Grandma curses the nineties architecture but, deep down, she loves the neighborhood. She loves the town. She loves living next door to the family who owns a third of Orange County and half the city.
Thankfully, my room is a refuge. It’s small—only a desk, a bed, a bit of floor space, and a big window overlooking our backyard and the next-door neighbor’s—but it’s mine. The white desk is covered in multicolored sketches. The bed still rocks Spider-Man sheets (under the plain red bedspread, of course). The Roy Lichtenstein posters blend perfectly with the shelves packed with graphic novels. One entire bookshelf is filled with modern classics. Another with adaptations of classic literature.
That’s sort of what I’m doing now, trying to turn my thoughts into a story, the way Grandma does. The visuals I adore—castles with grand towers, knights slaying dragons, waves crashing into cliffs—and the words she adores.
My cousin Fern and I are working on a project for Grandma’s birthday. A small graphic novel, where a butt-kicking adventurer destroys evil and finds love. It combines all of our passions.
Only, Fern is more of a reader than a writer. Which means I’m here, picking up the slack, struggling with how to write the perfect sentence.
Would the love interest say this?
She’s the sun and I’m the planet, powerless to resist her orbit…
Sure, why not?
It’s what I would say, anyway.
I rush back to my desk, pull my large sketchbook—a different one—from on top of my art textbooks, and I draw. Three panels where the love interest, an adventurer, stares at the sky, professing his love for the princess. But not to her, not yet. He’s practicing first.
The second I finish and drop my pencil, I hear it: music next door.
The Huntingtons are having a party.
That isn’t a notable event. The Huntingtons have a party every week, it seems. But I know this isn’t any old party.
This is Lexi Huntington’s Sweet Sixteen.
TheLexi Huntington’s Sweet Sixteen.
Only three days after my birthday. That’s fate. Kismet. Destiny. Whatever word you use, it means the same thing:
We belong together.
