Chapter 1- My connection, the problem
Hello. I'm Alice Brownlee. I'm now sixteen years old. I'm going to lead you through the life of my best friend, Mai-Len Anderson. Mai-Len is seventeen. We go to the same high school, and live in the same dorms. Mai-Len and I are like sisters, twin sisters. We love everything the same. We are on our way to going to a big University in Australia to study Marine Science.
I've know Mai-Len since second grade so I know every secret about her. Mai-Len was born on July 29, 1991 in the small town of Americus, Georgia. Her father, Anderson, and her mother, Anderson, were both born and raised in Greece. When Mai-Len was three, they moved here to Temple, Texas. Mai-Len went to school and met me in second grade. She was always on top of the class making the highest test and homework scores. Everyone loved her. She was kind and graceful, and bought lunches for her friends who forgot their lunch money. She would win Student of the Month every month, and won student of the year. The next year, Mai-Len was taking out of our school because she got in to the Imagine Program at another school. To get into the Imagine Program, you have to have excellent grades and behavior, which she had. Then you had to take a test. She passed with flying colors. She promised not to forget anybody and left us in tears.
I kept in touch with her through all the years. The program got shut down in seventh grade because they couldn't pay the extra teachers. She moved to a new house and school and was put into the gifted classes. In tenth grade, she went to a high class private school and met me there again. We were happy and were dorm mates. Even though we were happy, I could sense that something was wrong. She would write in a journal for hours and then look relieved. I didn't know what to do comfort her.
I started to notice this distant look in her eyes in eighth grade. I went to her house, and I noticed she looked sad, but content in her own body. Not really out of it, but more like scared to come out her shell. I also noticed that her patients had decreased. She didn't wait sweetly anymore. She was quick and cautious, like a ninja. She would get mad when I called her silly or funny, and say she wasn't. She was cautious with the way she put her words. I guess it was so she wouldn't say anything hurtful. I didn't know what was wrong, and thought maybe she was mad her dad was making her study during her summer break. She was still nice, just very careful about it. She cooked for me instead of giving me junk food like chips. She was not the stereotype thirteen year old. She was different somehow.
I always looked up to Mai-Len. She inspired me to be a Marine Scientist. I always wanted to be just like her, but I never could. She was so mature, so shy. I was babyish and loud. I was very annoying and I always asked irritating personal questions. I try my best, and she encourages me and never lets me give up. But even so, I still wonder what that look in her eye is, and what she writes in that journal. She doesn't put a lock on it. She doesn't hide it. She leaves it on her desk, but no one ever looks in it. It's like there is a spell on that journal to keep people away…