A/N: So this is going to be a story a little different than most, so bear with me as I try to perfect it. I originally thought it was going to be from just Emily's POV, but the more I started playing with where the story was going to go, I realized I would probably have to bounce from Emily's to Paige's and so forth. You will always have a heads up and it will most likely stay consistent in the chapter and only change POV between chapters, not within them.

I've read so many fanfics where coming out was the big problem - was the big climax of everything. This story will have big obstacles - some major ones, but I don't necessarily think 'coming out' will be that. I am rating this M just so I don't have to change the rating later. It will be M for smut (later on), but also for some other things that may be closer to the beginning of the story. I hope you will all like and review. I'm a bit nervous writing this because I've not ever written something to this magnitude before - at least not with this kind of plot. Of course, the first chapter is just some background, but there is a big question in this chapter - and once you read you will see. I'd love to hear your thoughts about why you think this particular event happened. Trust me, you'll know when you see.

Anyway, happy reading and I hope you all will like it and comment.

-Lyn

Emily's POV

She was probably the strongest swimmer I'd ever seen, at least in person. I stood on the side of the 52 meter x 25 yard pool at the Spieker Aquatics Center just watching her as she cut through the water like it automatically parted to allow her entrance. Each next stroke was just as smooth as her last. This was definitely a girl I'd not only be competing for top spots with, but a girl I wouldn't mind training with. There were 25 of us on the team all together, but there were only about 6 freshman, including myself and this girl that I could not stop watching. I had seen her around – at the orientation and at the first team meeting, but all I knew was that her name was Paige, and apparently, she was designed to be in the water. We hadn't met in person yet, but she completely floored me with her form. The sun had started to come up over the horizon – practice was almost over. We had all met in the locker room at 4:45am and we had been swimming in groups of 5 for the past hour and a half. While meets didn't occur until the spring, practice was never ending. We had coached practice once a day for two hours each on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and twice a day for 2 hours each on Tuesday and Thursday. On top of the coached practices, we needed to individually log in between 10 and 15 hours of pool time each week in order not to have a guaranteed spot on the bench during meets. It was much more than I had had in high school, but to be a part of the Bruins, well, I would continue to do anything.

It was the first week after courses had started. I had taken a leap and moved across the county from my hometown to Los Angeles on a semi-full ride to UCLA. UCLA had been my dream school since I was little and my parents did everything they possibly could in order to get me there. When I started getting scouted, I was offered a full ride to Penn State University but I turned it down when I was offered the partial ride UCLA at the encouragement of my parents. They promised me that regardless of the money, we would get me there if that is where my heart was. Sure enough, I was granted a scholarship based on my academic merit, and another scholarship from my dad being in the military. And so, two weeks before courses started, my parents and I flew to Los Angeles and set me up in a dorm while also taking some time to do some touristy things. The one thing my mom and I had always talked about doing was the Walk of Fame and to watch a movie – any movie in the Chinese Theatre. When I was younger I was always running around the house pretending to be a movie star. I loved to put on little performances for her and that is when she started introducing me into the really old but really good movies. It was after seeing all of the old movies and being exposed to people like Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, and Marilyn Monroe that I started becoming obsessed with going to Los Angeles. When I started swimming in middle school, I realized that not only did I want to go to Los Angeles, but I wanted to swim for the UCLA Bruins. The day my parents promised that we'd find a way to get all my tuition and cost of attendance covered, I couldn't have been happier. They knew what this meant to me and I honestly believed I was the luckiest girl on the planet to have the parents I did. They always wanted what was best for me and they just wanted me to be happy.

My dorm was in De Neve Plaza and as far as I could tell, my roommate was amazing. We were so very different, but we seemed to get along just fine. Her name was Hanna and she was a bit more…bouncy than I was used to. We had some amazing one on one talks about college and "what we wanted to do when we grew up". Hanna was very "LA". She had grown up in fashion, and boy you could tell. She always talked about different labels and designers – something I knew nothing about. However, it was fun watching her as animated as she was. We did have two major things in common though -our love for coffee and the simple fact that we had zero idea what we wanted to actually do with the rest of our lives. I knew I wanted to do something where I could help people, though I wasn't necessarily sure it was social work or anything related. I was told I didn't have to declare a major until next year and that I could use my freshman year as a way of 'exploring my options'. I came from a very headstrong family where it was always engrained into us to have a strong worth ethic and to do the best we could at any given point in our lives. My parents never expected or even wished perfection upon me, but simply that I would do my best each moment of every day. Hanna gave me that feeling that it was okay that I didn't have it all figured out yet and that we'd end up figuring it out together.

Anyways, De Neve Plaza was a bit of a "deluxe" residency hall and even though I promised my parent's I'd be just fine in the regular halls, my dad didn't think it wise that I possibly get stuck with having a triple room. Instead, he'd rather I get a certain double room with a little more security and closer access to more amenities, not to mention it would be more likely that I sleep with only one roommate instead of two and considering how much practice was kicking my rear, I was going to need that ability to sleep. So I wasn't going to complain, but I did want them to know I wasn't expecting to be living the "high life". Just the fact that I was able to go to UCLA was beyond the highlight of my entire year. Scratch that. Entire decade. It was everything I had dreamed of. My classes were going to be rather trying as I was taking 16 credit hours – English Composition I, College Algebra, Intro to Psychology, Western Civilization: Renaissance to Enlightenment, and Women in Film and Culture. It was going to be a rather rough first semester, but I was bound and determined to succeed.

Coach blew the whistle indicating practice was over. We all piled into the locker room to shower and change. As I came out of the shower, I watched as coach posted our best times on the board. I pushed my way through the crowd of swimmers – some exclaiming with joy and others holding their head low. I had done alright. My times were fairly consistent and that was all that mattered to me. I wasn't the fastest, but I wasn't the slowest either. I did notice that Paige seemed to have beat my time be 5 whole seconds. I was flabbergasted. She was a freshman. I had expected the faster times from the upperclassmen but I was the fastest at my high school.

I quickly toweled my hair dry enough that I could just pull it back into a pony tail. My hair was rather long and instead of standing in the locker room for a half an hour getting it to dry, I had plans to go back to my dorm, throw on some actual clothes and then fix myself up. I threw my running shorts on and a clean shirt before packing up. I packed up rather quickly as I knew that Paige was sure to leave soon and I wanted to at least introduce myself to her. I figured if we were going to be on the same team – and we were both new recruits – we might as well at least know each other.

I walked around to the other set of lockers and saw her sitting on the bench facing away from me putting her things into her Nike gym back.

"Hey," I called to her.

No response. She just kept putting her stuff in her bag.

"I'm Emily. I just wanted to tell you that your times were absolutely fantastic. You're really talented."

Still no response. She zipped her bag up.

"Paige?" I said a little more loudly – trying to get her attention. She didn't look like she had ear buds in – surely she could hear me. However, instead of turning around to greet me, she simply stood up, threw her bag over her shoulder and began walking forward and out of the locker room.

I stood there completely dumbfounded. I mean, even if she didn't speak English she'd know someone was talking to her.

"That was rather rude," I said to myself.

I was a rather nice person. I mean, I definitely had my bitchy side, but I would never not talk to someone who was making an effort.

I made my way back to the dorm only to find Hanna still sleeping – that hadn't been exactly abnormal for her. She grumbled in her sleep as I put my bag down on my bed and I looked over to find her lying with one eye open and one eye closed.

"Good morning sleepy," I joked.

She groaned and covered her face with a pillow.

I laughed lightly and went to my closet to find a pair of jean shorts and a tee.

"What time is it?" I heard behind me.

"Almost 8."

"UGH!"

"If you get up now and get ready we will have time to grab a frappe before class…" I cajoled. The moment 'frappe' left my lips, I saw her push away the covers and attempt to get out of bed. I had learned that Hanna's magic word was "coffee".

On Monday's Wednesday's, and Friday's, Hanna and I didn't have class until 9, and luckily we had the same class. English Composition wasn't exactly my favorite, but it was Hanna's arch enemy. The only class that was worse than English for Hanna was her math course. She was in College Algebra, but we had it at different times. However, we found that the professors taught it roughly in the same order, so we were able to study together.

It took us about 15 minutes to finish getting ourselves together. Hanna was finishing up her makeup while I curled the last little bit of my hair.

"Ready," she asked as soon as I turned off the hot appliance.

"Absolutely!"

I grabbed my bag and we headed down the stairs. We were only on the second floor, which wasn't a problem for me, but I had a feeling had we lived on the third or above, Hanna would have insisted we use the elevator. She wasn't much for physical activity, though I promised her I'd get her to run with me. I hated running alone. My best friend back home, Spencer, and I always ran together and I missed having someone to keep me going.

In the past week, Hanna and I about tried every single coffee shop that surrounded campus. Neither of us had a car, so we couldn't go very far. Every coffee house but one was mediocre. The only problem – the coffee house we loved the most was on the exact opposite side of campus from where our English class was. We hurriedly grabbed our coffee and breakfast and began rushing towards the other side of campus. I gave it to her – she didn't like to run or be very active, but when she had to be somewhere, the girl could hustle. We got to the building where class was being held with about 15 minutes to spare so we each took a spot on the half-wall which closed a bunch of landscape and pulled out our breakfast. I had grabbed something small before swim practice, but that didn't mean I wasn't starving by the time English arrived. I pulled out my sausage burrito and began chowing down on it while Hanna started demolishing her egg white with Gouda on ciabatta.

"This is so backwards," she said sporadically.

"What?" I quizzed after gulping down another mouthful of food.

She laughed. "You're the athlete. Aren't you supposed to eat like really healthy or something?"

"Pft. I eat what I want. I work out enough that I can consume nearly anything. And hey, I like sausage. And burritos."

As we were finishing out breakfast and getting ready to head into the building, I saw Paige out of the corner of my eye walking with two other girls. She seemed perfectly chatty and like she was having a good time.

I must have made a frustrated noise because Hanna turned to look in the direction of which I was staring.

"What was that about, Em?" she asked.

"Just a girl on the swim team. She had some amazing times today and I went to introduce myself but she completely blew me off."

"Did she say something rude?"

"No! That's the thing. She acted like I didn't even exist. She didn't talk, she didn't even nod. And then she just walked away."

"That's weird. Did she have music on?"

"I looked around to see if she had ear buds on, but I couldn't see any."

"Maybe she was just in really deep thought?"

"I guess so, but I tried to get her attention like three times."

Hanna just shook her head as we walked into the classroom.

I wasn't sure what was going on, but I didn't like being ignored - especially when I hadn't done anything.