If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my limited experience, it’s that in high school, there’s always that one couple that everyone just knows is going to live happily ever after. You know the ones. The Troys and Gabriellas. The Percys and Annabeths. The Rons and Hermiones. The Bella and Edwards. The ones that just seem made for each other, as if God looked down on the eldest of them and said; “You are so amazing, I must make everyone envy you!” and then gave them their soulmate.

And apart from those two, every other couple might as well live out their high school sweetheart roles, because that’s all they’ll ever be.

Lincoln sat back from her computer with a less-than-contented sigh and rested her head in her hands. For all the stories of hers that made it to the bestseller list, it was surprisingly hard to write an autobiography. Her autobiography, for pete’s sake! It didn’t even have to be that long!

“It only has to be ten to fifteen pages,” her editor had said. “Telling us about your first love. You can do that, right?”

It had seemed easy at first, but now that she actually got sat down to do it, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

She took a moment and began clicking back and forth between the lone two tabs on her laptop. One was of the latest book in her series that she was in the middle of, and the other the pathetic opening to her autobio. She was so close to getting to the climax. Maybe she could just…

No. She had already wasted God only knew how long going on a writing binge with that story and putting off the autobiography. If she didn’t have it in by the end of the summer, Sara was going to murder her. So until she managed to finish it, she would just have to eliminate any other obligations. This decision led her to closing the tab with her other story on it and sighing.

She stared at the two paragraphs for another second before reaching for the remote that sat amongst the piles of notes she had collected over the past three years and bending backwards over the back of her chair, pointing it toward the camera that sat in the corner of her office and clicking the on button. An orange light, so dim that you could probably only see it if you were looking, flickered on. When it didn’t turn green after ten seconds, Lincoln sighed and straightened back up. So it seemed Michael wasn’t in his little security room at the moment.

Oh well, she supposed it was time she left her nest anyway. One could only live off of Go-Gurts and cold hot dogs for so long.

So she pushed herself from her chair and opened up the lone door in her office, which led to her bedroom. Her black out shades were pulled shut as they had been for the most part since school got out and with her complete lack of a clock in her room, she had no clue if it was even light out. For all she knew, it could’ve been the middle of the night and everyone else was fast asleep.

However, she was greeted by a great beam of sunlight coming through the window at the end of the hallway when she opened her bedroom door. She squinted her eyes and threw a hand over them as she turned toward the stairs. Dammit. She had forgotten how bright the daytime could be.

“And after a week, the spell wore off and Sleeping Beauty woke up.” a voice called out when she reached the bottom of the staircase.

Lincoln turned to see a man about her age with chestnut-blonde (yes, chestnut blonde. There was really no other way to describe it) hair and bright blue eyes laying on the couch so that his feet hung off the side. He had a magazine about cars or something held up in front of his face, just barely taking the time to glance at her over it with a raised eyebrow.

“It couldn’t have been a week.” she frowned, even though she knew full well that it actually could have been. Time passed in a blur when she went on a writing binge. She only slept when the need hit her and that wasn’t a very useful way of keeping track as her energy could last anywhere from seven to nineteen hours.

The man shrugged. “Five days.”

She sighed, and put a hand to her head. “Great. I’m surprised they didn’t come drag me down.”

“They were going to, today.” Michael lowered the magazine and rested it on his chest. “There’s leftovers in the fridge from last night.”

“Pizza?” Lincoln vaguely remembered smelling Little Caesars waffing up sometime in the middle of one of her last sleep cycle.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Of course you would know right away.”

She smiled and pointed to her nose as she turned toward the kitchen. “Like a dog, Mikey, like a dog.”

“So how’s the autobiography going?!” he called out as she moved toward the fridge.

Lincoln scowled at the memory. “Please, dear god. Don’t remind me.”

“Really that hard?”

“Mmhmm!” she opened the fridge and quickly caught sight of the pizza box.

“How is writing ten pages about your life hard?!” she pulled out the box and set it down on the table.

“It’s complicated!” she sighed at the contents. “Really?!”

“What?! There’s practically a whole pizza in there!”

“Yeah, but it’s pepperoni! You guys know I don’t eat pork!”

“Next time don’t disappear for a week!” Lincoln sighed and moved to grab a plate. “Now seriously, how is it complicated!”

She felt herself frown again and close her eyes. There was no way she could tell him about why she was having trouble writing her autobiography and it wasn’t because he was her best friend’s husband or because she was the maid of honor at his wedding.

It was because of who his best man had been.

Hoping that he would let it pass, she set the plate down on the table and began putting pizza on it. After four pieces had been loaded, she threw the plate in the microwave and put the pizza back in the refrigerator.

“Girl, did you hear me?! Or have your ears been damaged due to how amazing your nose is?!”

Lincoln winced before leaning back against the table and closing her eyes. She should’ve known better. Kayleen’s husband was never good at just letting things go, even back when they were in high school and everyone thought they would break up before graduation.

“It’s about… my first love.” she forced the words out through clenched teeth.

For the longest time, Michael didn’t say anything. The silence lasted up until after the microwave had beeped and she had taken the pizza out. In fact, it wasn’t until she was picking off the pepperonis that he finally broke it.

“Are you going to talk about…?” he didn’t say the name, but he didn’t have to. It wasn’t like anyone-especially him-could forget about her first love.

Lincoln sighed. “I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.”

“No, no,” she re entered the living room just in time to see him shake his head. “I’m just happy it’s an autobiography instead of an actual novel.”

She raised an eyebrow as she sat down in the love seat across from him. “Excuse me?”

Michael shrugged. “Well, isn’t one of the basic rules of novels that they have to have an ending? Not necessarily a happy one, but some sort of conclusion?”

“Yes, but I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Well, this is actually something that we’ve all talked about.” he grabbed the magazine again and raised it back in front of his face. “Your guys’ story never felt like it had a clear hand.”

Lincoln snorted. “Oh believe me, there was a definite ending.” after all, she had been the one to end it.

“I think you’d be surprised how often you think something is over when it really isn’t.” at that he disappeared back behind his magazine, but not before Lincoln caught the glint in his eye which gave her the unnerving feeling that he knew something she didn’t.