Prologue

"Dele!" I tap my best friend's shoulder.

"Ya?" Adele asks, pulling out her earphone.

"Let's do one last lap," I say. She nods, and I stick my earphone back into my ear.

"I got my ticket for the long way round," Adele sings, still running.

"Two bottles of whisky for the way," I join in, even though I think that my lungs are gonna explode.

"And I sure would like some sweet company but I'm leaving tomorrow, what d'you say?"

We keep running along the path, the Eiffel tower getting bigger and bigger in front of us. We jog around the whole structure before tapping one of the base poles and sprinting back down the path. We collapse onto the green pastures in front once we've run down the path, dodging through tourists. Have you ever noticed the similarity of the words tourists and terrorists? When I was eleven I used to the tourists were the one causing sieges. Woah, I was one dumb cookie.

I pull on the bottom of my sports tank top and tug my Nike leggings up onto my hips. We lie down on the grass and look up at the fluffy white clouds. Adele points to one.

"That one looks like a rooster pooping," she says and I laugh before pointing to another.

"That one looks like Oprah with Botox," I say. Its her turn to laugh.

"That's a snowglobe with a star in it."

"That's a pineapple with sunglasses."

"That's a dragon farting."

"That's a hut where Grug lives."

"Grug?" she questions, turning her head to me so that her maroon brown hair falls into her eyes from her ponytail.

"You know Grug, right? Grug? He used to be a tree and then he turned into a... um... creature!" I say.

"Nope," she says.

"Really? I'll show you a picture of him," I take out my phone and google Grug.

"I've never seen him," she says after looking at my phone. "Must be an American thing."

I sigh and roll my eyes. This is her answer for basically anything. I lived in America before moving to Paris when I was nine. It was for my Mum's job as a fashion designer. Adele and I live in the same apartment building and have for eight years. We're best friends. To be honest, I like Paris more then America, I don't know why, though. Adele isn't a European, her parents migrated from Australia when she was six and they've lives here ever since.

I pull my sweaty, long hair off the back of my neck and sit up. Adele does the same. A couple of boys sitting near us turn around and wink at her, she rolls her eyes and stands up, pulling her crop top and bike pants down.

While she prefers more skimpy outfits like crop tops and short-shorts for our runs, I'm always wearing a tank top and three-quarter sports leggings.

She pulls me up and we walk back to the apartments. We plug in our headphones again and click play on our apple watches. I follow her playlist and we've somehow made it play start to finish, so that we can listen together.

Adele and I both love music. We bonded over it actually, over 'let's get ridiculous' by Redfoo when we were attending a function in the lobby.

We run up and down the stairs a couple of times before calling it a day and walking inside. We start dancing in the lift. I feel like the dude from that vine dabbing in a descending lift. At least I'm not dabbing. Speaking of dabbing, Usain Bolt CANNOT play soccer. Sorry Usain.

"I heard that life get's hard when you're older!" I scream. Adele groans and unplugs her earphones. I added the song just to annoy her. She might have had a tiny crush on Jacob Satorius when we were fifteen, but after he started going out with Millie Bobby Brown she's rejected him and refuses to speak his name. Whenever his songs came on on her playlist she'd skip over them, much to my delight. I laugh at her and we both skip the song.

The lift dings and I wave goodbye to Adele.

"See ya, babe," she says and proceeds up to the penthouse.

I walk into the hallway and over to room 38, unlocking the door and walking inside, stinking like a rotten potato from our run. I listen to the song currently playing on my phone, which is strapped to my arm.

"Hey! Where's the drum? Ooh girl you're shining, like a 5th avenue diamond. And they don't make you like they used to. You're never going out of style, ooh-" I'm cut off by my Dad yelling at me from his study. I sigh and take my earphones out, walking to his office.

"Yeah Dad?"

"Hi Natalie," my Dad greets me by my full name. This can't be good.

"Ok... Hi Nicholas?"

"Nat," he lets out an exasperated sigh. "I have some bad news."

"Like that wasn't obvious," I roll my eyes.

"Natalie, attitude," he raises his eyebrows sternly.

"Sorry, Dad, continue," I say, sighing, I've never been a fan of bad news.

"Your mother and I have decided-"

"Please don't make me move out! I love it here, let me wait a few years! I'm not even eighteen, and you need my help with the twins!"

"Nat, no-"

"Oh! Dad! If you think I have a boyfriend I don't! If you don't want me to date until I'm older, you really can't do that!"

"Wait, do you have a boyfriend?"

"What? No!"

"Ok, well, Nat-"

"Oh, if you're going to throw Bernie down the sink I'm fine with that. He's an old fish anyway. If you're making me diet please don't, I can't survive without my gummy bears! And please don't throw out my ice-cream, I haven't been eating it that much lately! Oh and if you're telling me I can't go to my school anymore that's fine, I can transfer to Adele's! And if you're not going to let me go see the English screening of Mamma Mia with Matilda then that's fine, it'll probably come out on Netflix! Oh, please don't stop me from watching Miraculous Ladybug, it helps me with my French. I know its a kids show bu-"

"NATALIE!" my Dad yells.

"Er, yes?" I shrink back, guilt written all over my face.

"Sweetie, we're moving-" he sighs.

"What? To where?"

"Back to America."

"WHAT?" now its my turn to shriek.

"I've been called over there for a job."

"For how long?"

"We're not coming back."

***

"NAT!" my best friend screeches over the beeping noises of the airport. She runs full speed up to me before crashing down onto me with a giant hug.

"Adele, I knew you'd come!"

"You think I wouldn't be here to farewell you? Wouldn't miss it for the world." she winks, and we laugh.

"You got a farewell speech for me?" I ask her.

"Um..... you got one for me?"

"Yup," I pop the 'p' and pull a slip of paper out of my bag and clear my throat. "Adele...You've been the best-" a tear slips down her cheek. I smile when I realise I can't pull this off without having her burst out crying, looking like a red tomato being squeezed like she usually does when she cries. That would be offensive, but that's the simile she used one day when she looked at herself after breaking up with her boyfriend, Dean. "Nah, jokes, this is a receipt," I turn the paper round to face her, showing her the printed piece of paper that we received after buying a bunch of gum and chocolate from the 7-11 equivalent, but in Paris.

"Ah! you annoying weirdo," she shoves me lightly, wiping her wet eyes. "I do have something for you though," she pulls a box out of her bag and hands it to me.

I open the lid and gasp at the small silvery watch that glitters under the airport lights. "Adele, you didn't have to do this. This looks like its made out of diamonds."

"It is, you learnt your minerals, that's diamond, gurl. Would you expect anything less of me?" she points to herself, raising an eyebrow. I smile at her.

"Its diamond?"

"We live in one of the richest hotels in Paris, Nat. We have money."

What she says is true, both her and my families are loaded, my mum is a fashion designer and my dad's some kind of tech-savvy person, he knows Bill Gates. Adele's parents own a Magazine company.

"I have one too," Adele continues. She pulls out a gold watch, the exact same as mine – but gold. "See, like friendship bracelets, only with watches!"

I laugh at her childishness.

"I got something for you too, it's not as good as this, though," I take out a bunch of Polaroid photos and hand them to her. "There's three from each year, I wrote stuff on them too," I tell her. "Sorry, it's not as awesome or as expensive as-" I'm interrupted when she flings her arms around me, I hug her back.

"Ok," she begins as she pulls back. "I'm gonna give you a couple of rules, K?" I nod. "Rule number one: make sure you come visit me. Number 2: Call me at least once a week. Number 3: Make sure you look good everyday at school, there'll be boys. Number 4: Update me on boys. Number 5: Ask for my advice on fashion. Number 6: Be confident. Number 7: Be yourself. Number 8: Send me birthday presents. Number 9: Don't go wearing hoodies to the first day of school. Number 10: Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Wow, some of them got pretty crazy there. Be yourself? Update me on boys? Really Dele?" I ask her, eyebrows raised.

"NATALIE!" I turn to see my mum signalling to me from the gates.

"I wrote them all on a sheet of paper," she thrusts a perfumed sheet of paper at me and stuffs it in my bag when I don't take it. She fastens on the necklace to my neck and when I turn around I come face to face with my teary best friend.

"I'm going to miss you so much," she pulls me into a crushing hug and I try hard to swallow the lumps in my throat.

"I'm gonna miss you too," I tell her, the tears spilling down my cheeks.

"NAT!" my mum keeps yelling. We pull apart.

Cue the bestie version of Be Alright by Dean Lewis.

"I'll be back," and then I walk away.

*******************************************

Hope you enjoyed the prologue. The story doesn't surround Adele and Natalie but its hard for them to part so I included it. I'd really appreciate it if you kept reading, to see where the story goes!

Updated 5/11/18: Yeah. This is the worst chapter of the ENTIRE book. Please keep reading! Its basically a cute but cringy story about a boy and a girl... blah blah blah. She meets him in chapter 1! Please keep reading, it'd mean a load! Thanks!

Byeeeee!