Free What's Meant To Be by Kels Barnholdt

Chapter 1
    I never sleep before the first day of school, ever. I always convince myself I’m going to sleep but it never happens. Instead, I toss and turn all night, overthinking every little thing that could possibly happen the next day. When I say every little thing, I do mean every little thing.
    Is the outfit I picked out cute enough? Will it send the message that I was trying too hard? What if I don’t know anyone in my lunch well enough to sit when them? Will I have to go to the library and pretend I have work to do? On the other hand, no one ever has work to do on the first day of school, so everyone would totally know I was only in the library because I was a loser and had no one to sit with. What if I don’t have any classes with Alexa, my best friend since freshman year?
    The list goes on and on and by the time I have to get up in the morning I’m in worse shape than the night before. This is because now not only am I extremely tired from being up all night but I have a knot in my stomach the size of a large rock from all the worrying I’ve been doing.
    The night before the first day of my junior year however is way worse than any year I can remember. Not only do I have the normal things to spend all night worrying about, but somewhere deep down in the bottom part of my soul, in the very very back of my mind, I know I’m sure to be seeing Austin.
    Now, as I sit in homeroom the next morning, I can’t help but still worry about it. While a tiny part of me is excited, most of me is just absolutely terrified.
    Should I go up to him? Should I text him and ask him to meet me somewhere?
    Will he text me?
    The sound of someone slamming a notebook down hard on the desk next to me snaps me out of my thoughts and I turn to meet my best friend Alexa’s sharp blue eyes.
    “Oh my god!” she gasps as she takes her blonde hair and twirls it up into a loose bun. “It has been the morning from hell!”
    “Shhhh!” I whisper as I look around our homeroom at the few people who are now looking at Alexa like she might be a little crazy. “What happened to you this morning? You were supposed to meet me in front of the office, I texted and called you.”
    Alexa lets out a little bit of a sigh and flops her body down in the chair next to me. Well, flops as much as she can considering she’s only a hundred pounds. “I know! I’m totally sorry, I could not decide what to wear this morning, then I had to stop for a Starbucks and the line was totally long and then when I got here well… there was a whole Karli situation to deal with.”
    It takes me a minute to fully wrap my head around everything Alexa just shot out of her mouth. She’s talked this way ever since I’ve known her. I always tell her to breathe in between sentences but she just laughs like I’m joking.
    “A Karli situation?” I fake shock, but I know what’s coming before Alexa even starts to explain. Karli is Alexa’s little sister. She’s a grade younger than us, and is always getting herself in trouble with girls in her grade. This is because Karli is just as little as Alexa with dark blonde hair and the same intense blue eyes.
    Anyway, someone’s always thinking Karli is looking at their boyfriend or flirting with their boyfriend or liking one of their boyfriend’s pictures on facebook. This really wouldn’t be a big deal, since girls will be girls, except that Karli cant seem to let anything go. Which means she has no problem going up to whatever girl is upset with her and saying things like, “I don’t like your boyfriend at all, so maybe you should work on your insecurity issues.” Then walking away like nothing is wrong. Which in turn usually means the girl ends up wanting to kick Karli’s ass, and Karli never seems to be scared or worried about this even if the girl is twice her size. This is usually around the time that Alexa steps in.
    “Yes!” Alexa screeches. “No way was I letting her get into a fight on the first day of school. I