Chapter 1- Foundation

“Magdalena Nguyen!” A loud voice called across a grass field. A boy wearing a blue plaid short and shirt outfit strutted across the grass and to a small group of Asian kids. Inside the group were two boys and two girls. The boys were Harrison Nguyen and Ricky Fong, eighth graders at Cardinal Valley Middle School. The two girls were Magdalena Nguyen, a taller eighth grader with short hair and Alexis Le, a really short girl with a premature cynical personality.

“Don’t call me by my full name dimwit.” Magdalena ‘Magda’ Nguyen replied, she was the tallest girl in the group. The rest of the crew muttered their ‘wassups’ before turning toward their original destination, the library.

Chance was a high school student nearby, and he hung out with his crew almost everyday after school. They were all a mismatched bunch who became friends due to some debate that none of them could even remember anymore. Chance looked behind him sporadically before following them in, trailing behind with Magda.

“So C, did you get it?” She asked quietly, using his nickname and careful not to let anyone else hear. Chance held the door open and let her pass through, answering a simple,

“Yes, will she be here?” Chance smiled as Magda nodded. Chance held the next set of doors open for Magda before walking into the large library himself. It was the hangout for his little group that oddly enough, consisted of middle school students. The people in his group were the four he had just met, they hung out after school every week, though more people came and went intermittently.

He headed for the back corner in which they had taken up residence nearly everyday after school, Chance hadn’t been there in a while actually; he just started his job at Famous Dave’s Restaurant and didn’t have free time like he used to.

“What’s wrong with you?” Alexis asked as she stood up from her seat. She had been getting a notebook out of her backpack.

Chance looked up quickly. Apparently he had been zoning out because everyone was looking at him,

“I’m fine, perfect, I just think I’d be better if I had a certain J-Pop CD in my possession.” He said, glaring at Harrison, who was supposed to be making him a CD. Harrison looked down and mumbled something about Kikimasu, a new music-downloading program being offline, “Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say!” Chance said and sat down at the nearest computer; he needed to check out his stories.

Chance wrote a lot of stories and poems, though his poems were mainly for show, he couldn’t write from the heart like other people he knew. He had a story about a boy who moved to a new town and met some new girl with some mystery thrown in, and he had one with a girl who went back in time from the future. Basically, he had a lot of stories, and all of them were romance. He was a helpless and hopeless romantic . . . on the down low.

“Any new poems?” Magda asked as she peered over his shoulder.  She was like his own personal shrink. Chance came to her and talked about everything on his mind, which was great because she wanted to take up a career in psychology.

“No, not really, you read the one about SARS?”

“Shut up about SARS, you do not have SARS, you are not starting a SARS club, and you will not call our group the library SARS crew.” She retaliated very quickly. Chance had a slight infatuation with claiming to have SARS, give SARS and an all around obsession with the respiratory disease. He even opted to call their group the aforementioned SARS involved name, but that was shot down quickly.

“Okay, wanna see my pictures, hold up let me get on Sexual Mocha Latte’s homepage.” He said. Sexual Mocha Latte was Chance’s Internet alias, and the name of his website in which he kept all his pictures. He claimed the name fit him to a tee because of his half black and half Asian heritage. All that really meant though was that he had mocha colored skin. He went to the site and began to show Magda some pictures to waste time,

“I like that one, what about that one.”

“I don’t really feel like clicking on that one.” He said, skipping over a small icon. Magda wrestled the mouse out of his hand and clicked on it anyway, bringing up a picture of Chance and a medium height Asian girl with dark caramel colored eyes, and round face, and two long strands of hair coming down the side of her face. Her name was Kaila Tran.

Kaila was a freshman at Coolidge High School, the same school that Chance went to, though he was a sophomore. She was also Magda’s best friend, and the person the two had mentioned earlier. See, the thing is Chance liked Kaila, he liked her a lot, and unbeknownst to her, Magda and Chance bought her a silver necklace with diamonds and Blue Aquarius, her birthstone on it. The necklace actually ate up two months of paychecks, literally, but it didn’t matter to Chance, she was worth it.

“When are you going to give her the necklace?” Magdalena asked over his shoulder after she was sure no one else could hear. Chance shook his head,

“When she comes I’ll pull her aside while you guys are doing whatever, just hopefully I’ll get a chance to do it in person because asking a person to Homecoming over the phone is really impersonal.” Chance finished as Magda looked up to him with a weird look; at times he even thought she liked him a little.

“Well, here’s your chance, there she goes, and hurry up before anybody else sees her.” Magda said, smiling and pointing toward the door. Chance looked around at the others, who were occupied in something he could only assume would be childish.

Chance hopped off the stool in front of the computer and speed walked to the door, stopping in front of Kaila.

“How’d you get that note to me?” Those were the first words out of her mouth. She was referring to the note he got into her Spanish folder, which was weird because he only saw her in the hallways and never had time to slip a note in her folder.

“I have my ways.” He smiled, neglecting to mention that he had operatives in all her classes; he had a way of knowing everything she did, “I need to talk to you about something serious though, can I-“ He was cut off by a shrilly yell of the name ‘Kaila’ ringing throughout the library.

After being told to be quiet by the manager of the library, Alexis came running over to Kaila, hugging the girl and swinging a little,

“I haven’t seen you in like forever!” she called out and directed Kaila to the corner where everyone hung out. It seemed Chance was going to have to wait to give up his present.

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“Hello, is Chance there?” Magdalena’s vice echoed through the phone lines and into the receiver on Chance’s ear.

“Yes, this would be him, may I ask who’s calling?”

“Magda, and stop being stupid. Did you ever get a chance to give it to her and ask her?”

“No, I didn’t. Alexis ran up and then you know, we went to the game and she left. I think she was kind of mad at me actually.”

“Yeah, she was. Her and An were actually, because An, Carolyn and Samantha said you were trying to be a pimp.” Magda said defensively. An, Carolyn and Samantha were some of Kaila’s friends who happened to have a certain disregard for Chance. Chance laughed it off though.

“Yeah, I know. I just got offline; An cussed me out. Who the hell is she to say what is flirting and what isn’t though? I mean I have a lot of female friends, that’s my business, no one else’s.”

“Yes, well they said you flirt with everyone and you hug a lot of girls.”

“Whatever, not that that’s any of their business anyway, but how would they know, I’m in a Freshman free zone, no Freshmen are in any of my classes.”

“They said they see you in the hallways. I know it’s kind of bogus, but Kaila listens to her friends.”

“That’s stupid, not that I actually go out with her anyway . . . why should I have to be loyal to someone who I’m not even in a relationship with?”

“Yes, it’s not fair, but things work out the way they do? I mean if prisons are supposed to be rehabilitation centers, then why are ex-convicts more likely to be convicted a second time?”

“I know your views on our judicial system, but this isn’t the O’ Reilly Factor! I’m having a problem, my potential girlfriend is mad at me because of something that not only I didn’t do, but I could do anyway.”

“Stop being selfish C, she can’t really help how she feels. I mean emotions are stronger than logic.” This was an argument that the two had going on for months. Chance was a logical thinker; he wanted to be a Lawyer. Magda was under the belief that emotions overpowered logic; alas, they argued about it.

“Okay, pretending you didn’t say that, I understand, and I’ll tone it down at school, I’ll try to stop flirting . . . which I don’t do anyway.”

“I know, now back to important matters, did you do anything new with Teen Issues?” Teen Issues was a story Chance was currently writing on a website. It was a mystery; he loved mystery.

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Chance hopped off the school bus and walked toward the library. It was a Wednesday so he had plans. He had to leave at 3, but if he hurried he could talk to Kaila before he had to go. Alexis, Ricky and Harry were all busy at the moment.

Kaila was sitting alone at a table reading a book on Japanese geishas. Chance crept up behind her and placed his hands around her head, covering her eyes.

“Guess who?”

“Um, Will Smith?” She said jokingly. Chance released his hands and she leaned her head backwards to look at him. He stared at her for a moment, checking out her face. She had the most gorgeous eyes; they were caramel and gel like.

“So what’s up?” She asked, smiling afterwards. Chance forgot what he was going to say as he got lost in her smile. This was the one person in the world that could cheer him up no matter what happened to him.

Chance wanted to be a lawyer, and the only downside he had ever seen to it was first hand experience to the cruelty that people subjected others to. Kaila however, Kaila made him feel that the human race had redeemable qualities.

Basically she made him feel that there was still good in the world.

“Hey, I was wondering if you had a date to the Homecoming dance, and if not do you wanna go with me, and if so, do you wanna dump him and go with me.”

“Oh, that’s an interesting proposition, but I’m afraid nobody’s asked me, so I guess I can’t really dump anybody for you. I will however go with you to the dance.” She finished just as Magda and Alexis came toward them.

“C, I didn’t even know you were here, what’s up?”

“Aw, you know the usual, I just finished exterminating a pack of aliens and the world is going to be destroyed in approximately three hours if I don’t go stop it, but my ride doesn’t come until three. So here we are.”

“You dimwit, it is three.” Magda pointed at the clock on the wall. Chance turned from it and glanced at the doors, looking out them at a blue focus waiting. That was his ride to the Mall where he played Pump It Up, a dancing arcade game. Chance excused himself and ran out the door.

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Chance hoped for nothing more than for Kaila to be waiting outside the doors of Coolidge High School. It was five minutes after the Homecoming dance started and he hadn’t talked to her since the day after he asked her to it. She had been avoiding him in the hallways at school, at least the days she was there, and when he called her house he kept getting the disconnected message. He even called some of her friends; most of them were about as clueless as he was to the matter.

But it all swept away from his head as he saw an angel for the first time in his life.

He turned the corner to the doors that allowed entry to the gym and saw her. Kaila Tran was standing by the door, looking away from Chance. Her light brown hair swayed with the wind and her elegant pose kept him transfixed for several seconds. She wore a long white dress with white heels and a tiara that suited her more than she could’ve guessed.

In essence, she looked like an angel.

“I didn’t know if you were going to show up, I thought you were mad at me or something, you hav-“ Chance went into a small speech he had prepared in case she did show up. He had one for if she didn’t too, but that one was basically two words . . . and one of them was ‘off’. It didn’t matter though because she cut him off,

“It’s okay, I know. I’m not mad, I’m just going through some things right now, I needed to get away, but I couldn’t stay away form you C.” She nearly whispered.

“I’m sorry if-“ She put her hands up t his lips though,

“It’s okay, really,” She was smiling like the Kaila that Chance had always known now, “Let’s just go inside, I didn’t dress up for nothing. You look nice by the way.” She said.

“You look nice too.” He said before opening the door for her and letting her walk in front of him. Watching her walk in front of him.

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Chance sat down once again for the night, looking left as Kaila sat next to him. They were both tired from dancing, but the dance didn’t end for another hour.

“Chance.” She said, using his full name. Chance turned his attention from the floor where people were humiliating themselves to Kaila. As he looked her in the eyes he could tell one thing for certain; he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

“Huh?”

“There’s something you should really know. Have you called me this week?”

“Yeah, but your phone was disconnected. You were like gone from school too.”

“Yeah, I was, it’s because of something, see I can’t see you again; I’m moving.” Chance stared at Kaila. It was an odd reality that just hit him; it seemed like so much had happened in so little time. It went from him buying her a necklace to her getting mad to her dramatically moving in what seemed like a few seconds.

“You’re moving, like leaving; where?”

“Virginia, but it doesn’t matter. I wanted to tell you something that I had been planning on telling you tonight. I just wish it wasn’t our last.”

“Last? You’re leaving tonight?”

“Yeah, just listen though. For as long as I can remember, at least about you, you’ve always been there when I was in trouble. Every time you had a problem you never discussed it with me because you didn’t want to bring my mood down. You gave up your one chance at being an intern at a law firm just to talk to me when I was depressed; you even moved out of town and then back just to see me; even though it meant breaking up. Our relationship has had the most ups and downs that I’ve heard of, but you’ve always been my parachute. You stop me from falling to fast and you land me safely. Promise me Chance, promise that you’ll always be my parachute.” Kaila looked desperate now; her eyes were slowing bulging out; at least more than normal.

“I promise.” Well, Chance now had one option; work on his imagination.

A/N- Yeah, a lot happened in that one chapter, the way I work on the story will build off of this instead of a story with a lot of “flashbacks” it seems so much more in depth than a flashback story. I don’t know, what does it read like? It goes real fast to me, and it seems unprofessional, but please pretty please review it for me as I work on chapter two, tell me if I should give this story a try.