1 The Beginning

Ever since he was boy, Mason Lard has always taken a keen interest in his environment, the people around him and the day to day happenings around him. His perception of life might not be perfect but he has always believed he had the definition of Life down to a T.

Mason is the first born in family of two children. Mason and his younger sister Margret were born to Samuel and Allison Lard. Who are both hard workers and although they are not very rich, they live a pretty good and comfortable life.

Mason is two years older than his sister but he considers her more of a friend than a younger sibling because aside from being beautiful, she's also smart and quirky, the kind of quality that he associate with in a friend.

The Lard siblings are both students of Princeton High, one the most popular and quite prestigious school in Lake City and although they run in different circles, they are both popular in a different way. Whilst Margret belongs to the" All Know Popular" Mason belongs to the "Calm and silent" group because he doesn't interact much; that privilege is only reserved for only a select few outside of his family.

Margret's beauty, and outspokenness was what earned her a place in the popularity stream in the school while Mason's steams from his genius mind, handsome look and the air of mystery he carry about him that just attracts attention; not his social interaction because he doesn't socialize much.

His day to day routine are simple; go to school, attend classes, interact with his friends during lunch break and return back home with sister. Well.... at least most of the time as she is involved in a lot of activities in school that sometimes run longer than normal school hours and on such times; he usually leave her to catch a bus home.

People generally believes that there is nothing more important for young guys his age than to spend their time partying and appearing in as many social gather as possible; and maybe that's true for the majority. But for the minor odd numbers like himself who enjoys spending their time reading than coveting the typical teenage life; such frivolous lifestyle had never appealed to him.

The funny thing about the situation is that despite his lack of interest in socializing, he is still one of the most popular guy in his school. A fact that had always bothered him but one he couldn't help nor change.

He has four close friends in school; three guys and a girl. The guys, Jake Langston, Daniel Pitt and Henry Knox are big time social animals. They party hard and really enjoy the privilege that comes with belonging to the popular group in school.

Their attitude and lifestyle are so different from Mason's that people might be wondering why he is friends with them. For Mason it's simple, despite their affinity for the party scenes and loud social lifestyles; his friends are intelligent with a great sense of humor and great comamaderie spirit that complements Mason's calm nature.

The girl, MarryAnn Wright; the only female in the group and his best female friend is not so different from Mason. She spends most of her time reading and hardly socialize except for the few occasions when she's hanging out with his other friends.

She is beautiful with nice feminine features that could easily attract guys if she ever chose to explore them. But she rather prefer dressing and acting like one of the guys.

Her family like Mason's are upper- middle income earners; a nice family with moderate financial capability. She takes care of her body well enough, but doesn't really fancy all the girly stuffs like making up her face, painting her toes or nails; her only indulgence is applying lip gloss that smells like strawberry and mint. Or that's what he thought it smells like anyways.

Mason met May like he normally called her in their third year of highschool when he had to take part in at least one mandatory non academic class; which is a tradition in Princeton High. He was given different options of activities from which he could choose from and he chose Art because he thought it was the least invasive activity on the list.

However, he found the reality a little more disconcerting than he had expected. He was good at reading; dissecting every words and sentences and drawing conclusions that usually impress his teachers, but Arts is an uncharted territory and he felt completely lost when he started.

His first few days in the class were uninteresting and very boring and he's always ending up sitting by himself; because he is clueless about Arts and nobody wants to work with him. One day after class; the teacher, who must have noticed that he wasn't doing too well in the class; called him to talk about his challenges.

She lectured him about the importance of Arts and how it has the power to shape human perspective and thought process. She reprimanded him about his lack of interest and made him promise to make better effort to learn.

Getting reprimanded by a teacher was a first for him and he felt bad about it, so made a promise to himself to start paying more attention in class. The following day he was sitting by himself trying to practice what they had been taught in class when May approached him and introduced herself, then offered to assist him with his work.

He had noticed her in class the past few days he's joined and from what he has seen of her work, he knew that she could really help him. But he was still hesistant to accept her help; because he wasn't the best conversationalist plus he's always a little awkward around girls.

And he was going to say no to her until he remembered his earlier promise to himself and more importantly to the Art teacher, so he accepted her offer and from then on they became best friends.

Her friendship and careful teachings made the class a lot more enjoyable and tolerable; he didn't suddenly become an Art genius overnight but he was a little less clueless, and got better with time.