CHAPTER ONE
The late September sun casted a gentle warmth down on the Canterwood Crest Academy campus, and I tried to soak in as much as possible as I walked from the science building to the humanities building. My black Jeffrey Campbell booties made a soft thud with each step I took on the cobblestone walkways and I shouldered my hunter green Longchamp tote.
"You would think Canterwood makes enough money to buy class sets of an 800-page book for us poor students, but no, we have to carry around our own," a voice rang out from behind me. I grinned and slowed down slightly so Brielle Nichols, one of my friends in my history class, could catch up.
"Honestly, it's like administration said during budgeting, "let's make the lives of advanced history students even harder and not give them a class set of a book they'll need every day" or something."
Brielle laughed as we climbed the stairs and entered the humanities building, walking along the marble floor and up another flight of stairs to the advanced hallway. All of the advanced English and history classes were held on the second level in smaller, more intimate classrooms. We walked in and took our regular seats. Our other bestie Olivia Calloway, who was also my roommate and we called Liv, was already seated.
"Was that reading last night killer or what? I practically had to have Kennedy chain me to my desk to finish it," Liv rolled her eyes, and I laughed at her dramatics. She definitely kept things interesting, and I loved the comic relief, especially when it came to school stress.
"I'm already looking forward to throwing away this book at the end of the semester and it's only September, S.O.S.," I groaned, getting out my history notebook, a black ballpoint pen- I hated writing in pencil- and our crazy huge textbook on world relations throughout history up until the Cold War written by a former politician. According to our teacher, Mr. Roberts, the book was critical for our understanding of this course, but we all wanted to throw it out a window. Not the most riveting read. Luckily I loved history and hoped to pursue a career in politics some day, so whenever I lacked motivation I just imagined receiving my dream internship in the White House and how this class would inevitably help. Maybe I'll meet a cute boy in the White House and our first conversation will be about Cold War diplomacy. I'll definitely sound smart if I can drop some facts, I thought to myself.
"Hello, Earth to Kennedy? There's no way pre-Cold War relations make you smile like that, so what's up?" Brielle teased, poking my shoulder with her pen.
"Just trying to motivate myself, that's all," I shrugged as Mr. Roberts walked in, his worn copy of our textbook in hand.
"Hmmmm, so it's not pre-Cold War, but could relations of another kind be "motivating" you?" Liv asked under her breath, a slight smirk on her face.
"You guys are impossible! Now shh, class is starting," I whispered, feigning seriousness.
After class ended, Brielle, Liv, and I all walked back to Hawthorne, our dorm hall, together. Brielle and I had to change before our riding lesson and Liv needed to change before her track practice. It would never get in the way of any potential friendships, but I loved that my friends and I were all athletes. We understood how hard we all worked and how committed we had to be to our sports. It also kept us on a pretty similar schedule, which was convenient. Liv's soccer practice ended around the same time Brielle and I finished up with our lesson.
"Meet you downstairs!" Brielle waved at both of us as she entered her room further down the hall, and Liv shut the door of ours. We fell into our routine, me slipping into my breeches, tall boots, and a long-sleeve gray shirt with CCA's logo on the back in white. I quickly put my long, thick red hair into a French braid and lightly dusted my face with translucent powder to mattify the oily spots that had popped up throughout the school day.
"Ready to roll out?" Liv asked, dressed in a loose-fitting white Nike tank top, black running shorts, and her fave gray Nike fly-knits that had been a back to school/congrats on becoming a varsity runner present from her parents. Her hair was in a high ponytail and any trace of makeup, except her mascara and eyebrows, was gone. Sweating in makeup was a no-no, especially for Liv's acne-prone skin. It wasn't hot enough for me to need to take mine off, so I nodded and we both grabbed protein bars and headed out the door.
"That was an excellent round, Kennedy. Leo was engaged the entire time and your timing was spot-on. I can tell you've been working on that," my riding instructor, Mr. Connor, nodded at me as I trotted Leo away from the course, patting his neck in praise. Leo tossed his head, as if he could understand the compliments himself. I smiled once I was back in line with the other five students in our class. Leo, my 17hh steel-gray Thoroughbred gelding, was the love of my life. My parents and I had rescued him from a horse adoption facility specifically for off-the-track Thoroughbreds. Leo had been a racehorse for a few years but never really took off, so his owners dumped him at the rescue facility with no remorse after a year of living in a field in their backyard with limited resources. It angered me to think of him neglected like that, but the rescue facility was able to train him and make him a great lesson/competition horse. I adopted him three years ago and it's been harmony ever since. Our specialty is cross-country, and I loved that even though the racehorse was trained out of him, he still had the competitive spirit, which matched well with mine. We were unstoppable together. I named him Leo after my favorite show, The West Wing, and one of its characters, Leo McGary.
"Alright, Katrina, you're up next," Mr. Connor gestured to Katrina Baxter, another rider on the 10th grade advanced team. She cantered her mare, Ruby, in a circle before taking on the first of the eight jumps Mr. Connor was taking our class through. I loved stadium jumping, don't get me wrong, but I was itching to go out on the newly revamped cross-country course with Leo. Mr. Connor, along with his two stable hands Mike and Doug, had built some new obstacles and extended out the course. It opened at the start of the school year but Mr. Connor hasn't taken our class out on it yet. Getting adjusted to the pace of Canterwood classes kept me busy enough and left little free time, seeing as school had started only two weeks ago. A few of the obstacles were in view of the stable so Mr. Connor was okay with us jumping them when we felt like it, but if we wanted to take the entire course, we had to be in a larger group and let him know. Brielle and I were in the process of getting a group together over this coming weekend to hopefully try the entire course out.
"Great ride, Katrina. Ruby rushed the last fence, but you seemed prepared and were able to check it immediately. Continue to work with her on her pacing," Mr. Connor said as Katrina got back in line with the rest of us. The 10th grade advanced team consisted of me and Leo, Brielle and her gelding Harley, Katrina and Ruby, Amber Jennings and her gelding Harley, Chase Kingston and his gelding Zeus, and Ross Hartford and his mare Nala. We were the top riders in the 10th grade at Canterwood, and we were all very close with each other. As individual riders, we all had our specialties, but as a team we were hard to beat.
"I'm very impressed with how much everyone has improved over the summer and even over these past couple weeks. I know getting back into the swing of lessons every day on top of classes is difficult, but you all show strong evidence of hard work over the summer. Please take some time to cool your horses and check your emails when you get back to your rooms- we will be running through a sample dressage test for tomorrows lesson and I would like you all to familiarize yourself with the test beforehand," Mr. Connor smiled at us before exiting the arena.
"Be prepared for domination from Harley and I tomorrow," Amber teased as she hopped off her bay gelding. Amber and Harley excelled at dressage and were easily the strongest pair in that arena. We all cooled our horses and brought them back into the stable for grooming. The beautiful stark white stable with black trim looked straight out of Kentucky in it's spot between scenic rolling pastures, horses contained with white fencing. After grooming Leo, I turned him out in one of the pastures and he quickly trotted over to a palomino gelding and began grazing next to him.
Later that night, Liv and I were in comfy clothes and tackling the mountain of homework we had been assigned throughout the day. I had on black Lulu Lemon leggings and a cozy pale yellow Wildfox sweater. Liv had on gray terrycloth pajama shorts and an oversize black Nike quarter zip-up.
"How much do you have left? I have math and a few English questions and I'm done," Liv asked, tossing her science notebook aside. I scanned my planner and took note of any assignment left without a check mark next to it.
"The English questions and a worksheet for health," I told her, taking out a piece of notebook paper and my copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It was the book Liv and I were currently reading in our English class, and our teacher, Ms. Fenton, had assigned a ton of short answer questions about what we had read so far in the novel. Luckily, we got work time in class, so I only had five left to complete.
"Awesome. There's a new peanut butter pretzel brownie at the Sweet Shoppe that I've been dying to try. I say we reward ourselves for getting through the third Monday back at school with a dessert trip once homework is done," Liv grinned as she flipped through Cuckoo's Nest.
"That only sounds like the best idea ever!" I nodded in agreement. Liv and I both got to work on our last assignments, a little quicker now that we had motivation of the chocolate variety.
Here is Chapter One of my new story, Now or Never. It's a Canterwood Crest fanfic, so there will be some references to things in the original CCA books and characters (ex: Sweet Shoppe, Mr. Connor, etc.). And you never know, they might end up meeting Sasha, Heather, Lauren, or some of the others! I chose not to start the story off with Kennedy's start at CCA because I feel like that's what everyone does and I didn't know how to make mine more original. Plus, Kennedy and her friends have been attending CCA for a couple years, so starting off with them a couple weeks in and comfortable felt more realistic. Plus, that gives me the opportunity to reveal things like what their room looks like, relationships, etc. in later chapters, which I think is fun.
Thank you so much for reading, and be expecting regular updates! I can't promise a specific schedule, because I'm sure there will be some weeks where I upload 2-3 chapters and some weeks where I can only get 1 uploaded. Just be checking in :)
I would LOVE and seriously appreciate reviews- the good and the bad. I know I'm not the best writer but I love to creatively write, so any praise and constructive criticism would be wonderful!