Kim Crawford POV
CHAPTER 1
Fall is the time of year you can think that the sun shines the brightest. The yellow-red leaves glow as the sun shines through them to fall in sparkling beams on the dense forest floor. The cottage was the prettiest at this time, the brick red walls we repainted the same color every summer already worn from weather, and the cozy front door opened to the scent of cinnamon buns after I came home from school, the scent seeping through the cracks in the foundation and wafting through the woods. From where the bus dropped me off after school, the light hit the cottage perfectly so that the shingles on the roof shined and the window in my room glowed like there was someone waiting for me. But by the time I walked home, I knew there would never be anyone there. I, Kim Bethany Crawford, have never had a best friend in my entire 14 years of life, that is, until Bella moved here.
I had spent a long time waiting for someone to move into the cottage that my parents had built only half a mile away. That I could see from my favorite view from the tree that grew next to my house and branched in front of my window. I could feel the scar in the wood where I had carved my initials with a pocket knife when I was 7, and the shelves that took 3 hours to smuggle up the stairs and install in the crook of a branch without mom realizing that the strange lump under my shirt was not a mid-afternoon snack the summer before fifth grade. This was the place I could find peace outside of my schoolwork, karate practice, and parents. Here, where no one knew where I was, I could gaze off into the distance to the small cottage that no one wanted, that is, until Bella moved here. When Bella came, my life changed, completely flipped, like someone had performed a perfect spinning back kick square into the back of my head. I knew for once that this year was going to be different.