I had grown up on the Great Lake Erie, and while the area attracted people from all over the world, its main attraction for me at the moment was a craft show. With a tall, white lighthouse marking the area where I was to set up my booth, my roommates Alex and Blake followed close behind me with our plastic table and chairs.

They had their own interest in helping me, that I would sell as much stuff as possible and give us a little more room in our already cluttered house. But I would take all the support I could get. It was a long journey ahead to be able to financially support myself with just my crochet, but dreams had to start somewhere. For me, it was Instagram and Facebook, and now, an in-person craft show. Was it a step up? I had no idea. But it was a step that no one could take from me.

"It's still technically summer, you know," Alex said, and she gestured at my pumpkin spice latte in my left hand. I wasn't sure why it was a conversation topic since I was also carrying a box of hats in the other hand, so I wasn't being useless.

"A little PSL never killed anyone," I said.

Alex thought for a moment as she and Blake set down the table, then pulled out her phone. "I can guarantee you that it has. Just give me a second and I'll find a story."

I turned to Blake and shook my head. Whether Alex found such an article or not, it didn't matter to me. There wasn't anything wrong with a taste of fall in the middle of September. It was practically Halloween anyway when every day blurred together all the same.

"You do that, Alex. Don't worry. I'll handle all the hard work of helping MG set up her booth," Blake said. He rolled his bright blue eyes and flipped his hair out of the way. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we definitely left that Justin Beiber style in 2010, especially since he seemed convinced that guys found it attractive.

What did I know about that anyway? Maybe they did.

"See? Right here. Pumpkin spice latte causes anaphylactic reaction in Starbucks employee, dies," Alex read from her phone. She tossed her long strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder with a smug grin on her face.

An employee? Didn't they know all the ingredients in a pumpkin spice latte? Weird.

"Okay. You were right," I said as I held up a blanket I had made up to the light to check that all of the colors looked the exact same as I remembered them. The navy, burnt orange, and beige all did, so I folded it in half to hang on a makeshift clothesline behind my booth.

She crossed her arms. "You didn't even look, Marigold. Have you ever heard the phrase trust but verify?"

I didn't look up from what I was doing. "Nope."

"Well, that was a Russian proverb before Ronald Reagan ever used it, but his administration made it known in America."

"That's super interesting, Alex."

"It's okay. You don't have to pretend like you care," she said.

It wasn't that I didn't care; it was that I had other concerns at the moment, like making my booth presentable and attractive, so I could sell as much as I could. It had taken me months to produce everything I brought with me to lay out on the display, and with the season just beginning to turn to fall, I hoped people would want to buy something crafted with love.

And by crafted with love, it meant that there were pieces of my hair crocheted in with the yarn. I usually liked to use darker colors of yarn, though, so they wouldn't stand out. Alex and Blake thought my lack of a degree made me stupid, but the joke was on them.

A silence fell over us, but it didn't last long before Alex got distracted with a new thought. "When we're done with this, I'm gonna go look at the fossils in the rocks."

There were big rocks that probably weighed five times more than her lining the shore, just out of the lake's wave range. But the last time we were here, she told me something about how the area used to be under an ocean some millions of years ago, so all of the fossils were of saltwater creatures. That super old ocean idea wasn't hard to believe, either. Lake Erie extended far beyond the horizon and seemed almost like a freshwater sea. In fact, the only thing that was visible besides water were roller coasters that belonged to Cedar Point.

With our table upright in the grass, Blake spread a table cloth, the cutest one we could find in a twelve-mile radius. It was bright yellow and orange to catch the eyes of any passersby, but the event wasn't set to begin for another couple of hours, and either there weren't a lot of people interested in taking part, or everyone was running late to set up their booths. I frowned. I knew I wasn't going to magically make enough money to quit my job after just one day of sales, but I was hoping for enough customers to sell at least a few items.

Of course, we were also located front and center in a popular state park with limited competition, so maybe that would actually work out in my favor.

I took a sip of my latte. The last thing I wanted was to go right back to work after such a long day of preparing and chatting and hopefully selling, but crochet didn't pay the bills. Yet.

Blake and I had known each other since high school, but neither one of us was really the type of person to spend much time at the lake. But what I did like about it was that the entire town of Marblehead tried so hard to have a beach-front vibe to it, which made it a perfectly charming place to be. Blake never cared for it, though. He always said that you couldn't take the Ohio out of Ohio.

As Blake and Alex went back to the car to get more of the goods I was hoping to sell, I straightened out what we already had on the table and let my eyes wander over the boulders and out to the water. For mid-September, there were still plenty of boats out on the lake, but out in the distance, just close enough for me to see it, there was a red sailboat that caught my eye.

That was the most adorable thing I had ever seen.

The red sail was a stunning pop of color upon a blue and green background, and unlike some of the other boats that zipped through the water, it just bobbed up and down with the small waves of the lake. Although it was hard to see so far away, I could only see one person on the boat. It seemed like a great place to be, but I wouldn't want to be by myself like that. It would be a lot better with friends.

I could see it in my head. What could be better than a peaceful summery-fall day out on the water with friends?

"Alex, Blake, look at that sailboat out there. Isn't that the most aesthetic thing you've ever seen?" I said.

"That I've ever seen? No. Is it up there in the top ten or so? Also no," Blake said and put the box down on the table.

I wasn't quite sure how it didn't grab his attention as it did mine, but there was something about that boat that I wanted for myself—something that I couldn't put my finger on, but something nonetheless.

I tilted my chin down and looked up at him. "You don't have to be so critical of it. I just thought it was cute."

"When you can afford a boat, let me know."

That would probably never happen, but I let my eyes gaze back out on the lake to find that red sail once again. I needed new friends.

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Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading this first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love to hear any sort of feedback you have. It makes the writing process so much easier for me, which makes for a better reading experience for everyone!

I like to ask questions at the end of my chapters to start conversations (Wattpad is great for interaction like this!). Sometimes they're fun and personal, and other times they relate to the story. So for today's question, what do you think about the characters so far?