INNOCENT - paige bueckers

INTRODUCTION

JULIANNE FAYE IRIDESSA, known mostly as "faye" or "julie" among the students at Hillsborough High, located in Tampa.

Faye was one of the more popular girls, only because of her spot as captain of the girls basketball team, and of course the fact she was best friends with Hillsborough's "it girl", Cecelia Collins.

The two were complete opposites, to say the least. Cecelia, or "Cece", was known for her striking beauty and outward personality. Julianne, on the other hand, was a more closed off person, too invested in her studies and playing basketball to worry about her social status.

That didn't mean she wasn't admired in her school. She was pretty, not as outwardly pretty as her best friend, she held a more reserved and gentle look. she was also an extremely like able person, you just had to be close enough to her to see that side.

The differences between the two girls didn't make them any less close. from the time they met in a 6th grade history class, they were inseparable. they did everything together, every milestone that one of the girls completed, the other was there to witness it.

When Cece had her first kiss in the 7th grade, behind a row of lockers with a boy who's name she couldn't even remember, Faye was in the closest hall bathroom texting her the whole time. when Faye had her first game during her first year of high school, Cece was there cheering her friend on in the stands. They got their licenses together, took trips with each others family, prepared for tests together, and rode to school together every single day for 6 years.

But, for the first time since they were 12, the girls would be separated. Cecelia would be going to Stanford University for Sociology, and Julianne would be going to Uconn for Phycology, on a full-ride basketball scholarship.

As sad as it was to be apart, they were both extremely excited to start a new chapter of their lives at college, even if it was for slightly different reasons.

The reason Julianne wanted to go all the way to Connecticut ran deeper than just wanting to go to frat parties and going shopping.

Julianne's family wasn't the healthiest in the world, in fact, their dynamic would be considered quite toxic.

Her parents both came from money, and so did she, but that didn't make them a perfect white picket fence family. her dad, a successful Harvard graduate lawyer, was a raging alcoholic, who had a tendency to get violent when he consumed liquor. her mother, once a free spirited and wild woman who was now trapped in a loveless and borderline abusive relationship, turned to substance abuse as coping mechanisms. she'd been in and out of rehab more times the Faye could count, and although she knew her mom loved her, there was a distance between the two that could only be described as mutual detachment.

Her brother, who was 16, had died years ago when Faye was only 11. he'd committed suicide using pills he found in the medicine cabinet. he was the only one in the family she was close with, and her death almost destroyed her.

She doesn't talk about him much anymore.

Nonetheless, she was happy, happy to be started a new chapter in her life, one where she wouldn't be around alcoholic fathers and drug addict mothers, she would be able to live a life worth living.

And that was exactly what she was planning on doing.