Ariana had just finished getting ready for school and waited for her mom to finish getting ready. She took her phone out of her pocket and opened the group chat titled: "EEEAAKDM's Group Chat". She hit the text box and begun a new message: Yo are y'all up yet? She laughed at the phrase "y'all". She and her friends randomly started using this phrase to call each other. None of them knew why, but it just caught on. Her phone begun to ding with responses.
    Near Ari's house, Ellie was scrolling through Instagram while sitting on the old, faded couch. She did this every morning while waiting for her ride to arrive.
    She was aimlessly scrolling and double-tapping when she came across the worst post to see in the morning. It was posted by an account under the name: "the_gems". She waited for the video to load and heard five girls singing "Royals" by Lorde. "the_gems" was an account made by five popular girls who attended Foot Hill High with Ellie and her friends. The names of the five members were Geneva, Evelyn, Marcella, Summer, and Reese.
    Before Reese had joined their group, their names formed the acronym "GEMS". Then, they invited Reese to join. Ellie and her friends realized that if they added Reese's name into the acronym it would be "GERMS". So, this is what they called them behind their back. They did this because of how poorly "the GEMS" treated Ellie and her friends.
    After smirking and scrolling past "the_gem's" post, Ellie heard a ding signaling the first text of her and her friend's group chat. Ellie looked up at the notifications bar and saw:
EEEAAKDM's Group Chat
Ari:
Yo are y'all up yet?
    Ellie read this and then clicked on the bar to take her to the "Messaging" app. She clicked on the text bar and typed: Waiting for my ride to get here. Taking FOREVER!! The usual. She tapped send and returned to her aimless scrolling through Instagram.
    Farther away in town, Emma was petting her cat, Tonnie, while watching  Netflix. She always did this in the morning because her parents took forever to get ready. She had the time so she though, why not?
    A ding resounded from her phone which was sitting to her right. She found the remote and clicked pause. She then reached for her phone, trying not to make Tonnie leave her lap.
    Once she retrieved her phone (successfully keeping the purring cat on her lap) she saw a text from her friend, Ari. She quickly read the text and type her response after seeing Ellie respond. Waiting for my parents to finish getting ready of course. She sent the text and continued staring at the TV screen.
    A few blocks away, Esmeralda was just heading out the door to leave for school. She was opening the car door when she received three texts rom her friends. She sat down in her spot and read the texts she had received. She nodded her head at her friend's situations she often read about. She replied: Just got into the car. Hope your parents finish getting ready soon, Em. She let the text send and then laid her head on the headrest behind her.
    Near Foot Hill High, Adrianna was just waking up. She lived a five minute walk from her high school, so she was able to wake this late. She stretched and yawned and let all the joints in her body pop like fireworks.
    Her phone let out a ding and she was quick to pick it up. Ari had sent a text asking if they were all up yet. A few of Ads friends had already responded. I live five minutes away from school. I just got up of course XD.
    Across from Ads' house, Kylie was just waking up as well. She was already walking down her hallway to get some breakfast, phone in hand. Right on schedule, the phone let out a ding and Kylie was quick to see the text. She saw Ads' text and typed: Same over here, Ads. She walked into the kitchen and saw that her sister had already finished her breakfast.
    "Why didn't you get down her sooner, Kylie?" Charlotte asked.
    "Because I need my beauty sleep," she simply responded.
    "That doesn't make any sense!"
    "It doesn't need to. Why don't you go get ready or something?"
    "I already am!" Charlotte stood and displayed her outfit to her sister.
    "That's lovely, Charlotte," Kylie smiled and patted her sister's head.
    On the opposite side of the school from Ads, Delia had woken up a few minutes before. She was throwing on some clothes and getting her school supplies together when she heard her phone ding. The first text of the day Delia thought and found her phone. She read all the texts and replied to Ads and Kylie. Same of course!
    Next to Delia's house, Maranda had woken almost at the same time as Delia. She was making her bed and trying to get her dog of so she could finish the task. 
    "Please, Jake? I need you to get off so I can make this bed! Do we really have to do this every morning?"
    Jake just stared back at her with curious eyes, not understanding anything she said. Just then, her phone dinged and Jake barked and ran to the source.
    Maranda sighed and said a silent "thank you" to her friends who had just made Jake retreat from her bed.
    After completing this task, she found her phone (with Jake still barking at it) and turned of the ringer. She then looked through her new texts and responded: Just finished making my bed. Jake wasn't helping like he never does XD.
    By about 7:50, all of "EEEAAKDM" had arrived at school and were hanging out in their usual spot for their free period, a seemingly abandoned corner of the lonely school library. Their school had an unnecessarily large library and from the corner they met in, no one could hear them and the librarian never "shushed" them. This corner was know to then as "the beanbag corner". The carpet was soft and there were comfortable beanbags ad chairs all around.
Esmeralda, or Essy, was the last to make it to their special spot. When she did, she was greeted by a chorus of hey's. She plopped her stuff down and pulled her phone out of the pocket of her hoodie.
"Guess what I watched this morning, y'all?" Ellie asked all of them and began searching for something on Instagram.
"Is it something to do with the GERMS?" Ari guessed.
"How did you know?" Ellie sarcastically wondered.
"I saw one this morning. Was it the Lorde cover?" Emma contributed.
"Yup."
"I couldn't check Instagram this morning. Jake again. I already told y'all," Maranda said.
Just then, Ellie found what she was looking for. She placed her phone in the center of the circle or beanbags for everyone to see. Sure enough, all five of the GERMS appeared on the screen and sung "Royals" by Lorde.
"Well that's something. They're all together for once," Essy said.
"Yeah, I guess they had a sleepover or something," Kylie said and shrugged.
They all returned to their phones. Just then Delia piped up.
"Hold on a second," Delia began looking for the video herself on her phone.
"What is it?" Mara asked. She was sitting next to Delia and she leaned over her shoulder to see what she was doing. Delia found the video and showed it to Mara.
"Do you see what I'm seeing?" by now Delia had everyone's attention.
"What?" Mara had no idea what she was talking about and neither did anyone else.
"Their necklaces!"
"What about them?"
"Marcella isn't wearing one!" Delia finished. Delia handed her phone to Mara so she could see. Geneva, Evelyn, Reese, and Summer each had a gold locket with different colored roses around their necks. Marcella, however, did not.
"I see it," Mara said and her mouth dropped.
"That's--that's just--wow," Kylie said and looked down.
"I feel so bad for Marcella," Ads said. "They seem to leave her out of everything."
"What if she joined our group?" Ari said.
Ellie shrugged. "Would that really happen though?  I mean, she has sat with us at times. Like when they were fighting that one time, but she has never been permanent."
"We just need to stay open and if she ever needs us, we should let her come to us," Emma said. Everyone nodded at this.
"Let's just hope they treat her okay. I would feel terrible if we found out they were mean to her twenty-four seven," Essy added. They all feel quiet. Everyone was suddenly brought down at the though of how terribly they could treat her and were reminded of the girls who had once been members of their group.
Last year, they had had two other girls in their friendship group. One day these two girls, Hallie and Delilah, decided to leave the group. It was subtle enough, they just sat at the popular table one day and never came back. No one even knew why. It had just happened. They were all thinking the same thing: why did they even leave?
The bell rang, interrupting all their ideas as to why they left.
"See y'all later!" they all said at the same time. They split into three groups as they all walked to their own classes.

Authors' Note
In case you didn't realize, it does say "Authors". As in plural. As in there is more than one of us. I am joining with my friends to write a story that is somewhat based on real life events. The main plot is definitely not based on a real event. (You'll see why when we write it.) We are all REALLY excited for this and we all hope you enjoy!