Out of the Sidelines
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Prologue
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“Not all those who wander are lost”
-J. R. Tolkien

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Nathaniel Hawk looked in the mirror before he poured water to his face. The white light gave a phantasmagorical aura to his slightly tan skin. His hazel eyes appeared as two puddles of soft green in his reflection. He yanked his chestnut hair one last time before getting out of the bathroom. He slipped out and a slender girl entered inside of it quickly, grazing her body with his slightly as she did so. He kept walking displaying a white smile he had learnt to perfect in the past years. The music was humming so loudly that it annoyed his ears. He made it to the stool to grab a drink. He mixed a bit of orange juice with Vodka and tasted the sweet liquor sliding down his throat. It didn’t take him even two minutes before his best friend appeared next to him grinning happily.

”Golden boy!” he piped out as he pat Nathaniel’s shoulder

”Golden boy indeed” he smiled as he embraced his all-time friend cheerfully.

“We made it! Survived Junior Year” Sid clasped his beer against his friend’s cup.

”And being valedictorian too” Nathaniel added.

“See you are still modest” Sid teased.

“As modest as a man my rank can be” Nate joked.

”Ow please kick his head hard so we can bring Mr. Self-Righteous back to Earth” Karen appeared from behind Sid and fixed her arm around his shoulders.

“Right away” Nate smirked and they all laughed.

“So… valedictorian huh?” Karen smiled as she stroked Sid’s hair. “What about next year?”

Nate shrugged. He didn’t want to think on what next year had in store for him. To think it was his last year of High School, that after that, life would really begin. How had he waited for it to begin. To say he was afraid would have been an understatement, he was terrified of what the future held out for him. Suddenly with that question, he was self-aware that after the next year everything would be an alteration of the life he had known. The life of always expecting the unexpected. After High School he would venture to the unknown. He was the hero, the golden boy of a small proportion of water puddle, not of the whole ocean. He didn’t know what he wanted to study, which collage he should be attending. He knew what people around him expected of him and he was too afraid of throwing the dices. Would he be a six or a one? A big play or a barely noticeable dot? He smirked cockily “What about it?” was his reply.

He was tired of thinking, he still had one year to figure things out. But he could have never guessed what that year would be like, had he known back then he wouldn’t had smile when that question was asked.