My name is Arabella Parker. I grew up in a horrible town, a suburb . A place where kids were snatched from their front yards, where people suddenly went missing without a trace. Luckily I was smarter than the average kid in this area, my parents taught me everything I'd need to know about our little town, but nothing about the big world outside of it. I knew nothing about anyone famous, I didn't watch TV or listen to the radio. I grew up reading books, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe. Yep that's me, little miss bookworm. I spent any free time I had reading a novel, sometimes Romeo and Juliet, other times Hamlet or Macbeth. This story, is of my life after my childhood. I have finally decided to go out into the world, I got into a good college, despite where I come from. Now I'm going off to college, and I'm going to experience the rest of the world.

Arabella, 1st Year Alone.

It was officially my first year of college. I got into the University of California, Los Angeles. It was my first time going to a new place and I planned to use every moment of it to my advantage. As I walked to my dorm, I began to wonder, Who will I be sharing a dorm with? I hope they are nice. I wonder if they could show me around. Yeah I was that girl, I didn't know anything about California, much less Los Angeles. Looking up, I realized that I was fast approaching my dorm, and to my surprise, my heart began to race. I knocked on the door, my dorm advisor had told me that my new room mates would have a key for me. The door opened and in front of me stood a girl with bleach blonde hair and large emerald eyes. She let go of the door and wrapped her arms around me in one of the tightest hugs I have ever felt.

"You must be our new roommate, Arabella is it?" Her voice sounded really happy and I was relieved to have a nice roommate.

"Yeah, I'm Arabella. You can call me Bella though." I explained, hoping she would call me Bella instead. My parents had named me Arabella because it was unique but I always thought my full name was so formal and I always insisted on people calling me Bella, though my mother refused, my dad always called me Bells.

"Bella it is." She laughed, "Please come in and meet Jessie. Oh oops, I totally forgot to tell you, I'm Alexis, but everyone calls me Lexi." Another girl came from down the hall and Lexi laughed, "This is Jessica, although she prefers to be called Jessie."

Jessie gave me a smile, it was nice to feel welcomed somewhere. I looked at both of them, "Thanks for being so welcoming. I can already tell it'll be great being roommates with you two." After that they showed me to my room and left me for a couple hours to get settled. As I didn't have much to move in, I was out of my room in about a half hour. They had already been able to tell by my lack of bags that I didn't have much. As I walked back into the main part of the dorm I saw Lexi and Jessie waiting for me. Lexi piping up immediately said, "Jessie and I are taking you shopping."

I looked at Lexi and Jessie, "I don't really have any money to buy things though." This just caused them both to laugh.

Jessie smiled at me again, "We are buying everything for you today. After we are done shopping, Lexi and I will help you find a job and then you can pay us back later. We will be spending the next four years of college together so you'll have plenty of time."

I just stared at them both in shock, tears in my eyes, "Thank you so much. No one has ever done this for me before."

They both beamed at me and then grabbed my arms and pulled me out of the dorm, practically dragging me to the mall. As we entered the mall, I gasped in awe, it was absolutely huge. We went to tons of stores and by the time we were looking for a place to find me a job, we were carrying around about 30 bags from maybe 20 different stores. I had no clue how I'd pay them back. We walked into a Starbucks with a 'help wanted' sign in the window and walked to the counter. I turned to the guy at the counter and smiled, "I was just out with some friends and was looking for a job and conveniently saw that you were hiring. Any chance I could fill out an application?"

The guy looked at me for a moment and shook his head, "No, actually if you could just answer a few questions now, we could get you a scheduled shift and figure out the rest later."

I nodded almost too eagerly and waited for him to ask the questions, the first few being my name, age, and current living arrangements. I answered these all too easily, "My name is Arabella Parker, Bella for short. I am 18 and I currently live in a dorm at University of California, Los Angeles. I am a first year college student." I added that hoping it would be helpful. He just nodded jotting the information down.

At last he turned to me and smiled, "Your first shift will be Friday at 4:00. I will be working then so I can train you in and show you the ropes. We will be here until close since we have been in need of an employee to stay for closing for quite some time now." He handed me a form that I would fill out the rest of later then looked at my face, "I'm Kyle by the way."

I took the form from him and started towards the door with Jessie and Lexi, when I reached the door I turned my head back, "Thanks Kyle," then walked back towards the dorm with the two girls I was sure would become two of my best friends.

When we reached the dorm and set down all the bags, Lexi turned to me. "He was so hitting on you." She giggled.

I laughed, lightly punching her arm, "No, he wasn't." I denied, although the pink tint on my cheeks probably spoke otherwise.

Jessie threw a pillow from the couch at me, "And you totally think he's cute." She seemed to already know me so well and I had only known these girls for a few hours.

I blushed even brighter, then looked at Jess and Lex deviously, "he wasn't just cute. He was hot."

They both laughed at me, Jess falling backwards onto the couch and Lexi grabbing the back of a chair for support. I glanced at the clock, suddenly feeling tired, today was Wednesday so I had another day until Friday when I would go back to my new job and see Kyle again. I decided it was time to turn in for the night, as it was almost midnight. "Hey, I'm gonna get some rest for tonight, I'll see you both in the morning."

They both nodded and watched me go to my room before gossiping more about me and Kyle. I hoped that something might happen, maybe Kyle would ask me out, but I also knew it was a bad idea. A messy breakup later could lose me my job, then I would have no way of paying back Lexi and Jess. I sighed, running my fingers through my long raven black hair to pull out any tangles before pulling my hair back into a high ponytail on my head and changing into a tank top and shorts so that I could sleep. I pulled back the sheets on my new bed and lay down, just thinking about the day's events and what would come of tomorrow. I was a little bit stressed thinking about some things but managed to push those thoughts out of my head. I would deal with that later, right now I wouldn't think about my family and my old friends, right now I would think about my new life that I'm creating. Peacefully, I let sleep overtake me and let my thoughts turn to dreams. Soon enough it would be the second day of my new life and I planned to make it a great day.

Hey, I hope you enjoy the prologue and the first chapter. I know it's a bit short but I think that it'll get better. Thanks.