Junior Lila Fetter didn’t know her words were about to come true as she sang the lyrics to “Let’s Fall In Love” at CHS Jazz’s Arctic Blast concert last winter. Just a few feet away from her, Henry Collins-Thompson sat playing the piano. Fetter and Collins-Thompson have now been dating for a little over a month.
It all started the night of the concert when the jazz combo Fetter was a part of went to NYPD to celebrate.
“We ended up hanging out one on one because everyone else went home,” Fetter said. “It’s funny because it’s rare for two people to start liking each other at the exact same time, but that’s what happened for us.”
After the two finished eating, Fetter offered to give Collins-Thompson a ride home. On the way to his house, the two decided to make a quick stop at Insomnia Cookies. To their dismay, Insomnia Cookies was out of most of their cookies. So, the two went home, both certain this wouldn’t be the end of the friendship they had started.
A week later Fetter woke up to a text from Collins-Thompson.
“He was really slick and said ‘Hey, do you want to hang out? I still owe you a cookie,’” Fetter said. “I was unsure at first because I had never dated anyone, but once I actually got to know who he was I was like ‘wow, I really like him.’”
Fetter and Collins-Thompson spent the next few weeks getting to know each other as friends with strolls near the river and more pizza from NYPD. Although she tried to avoid it Fetter knew the time they spent together had romantic undertones to it.
A week later Fetter was at the library with Collins-Thompson when she felt an undeniable urge to tell him how she felt. Fetter told Collins-Thompson she was going to text him something and then run away. After typing out how she felt, Fetter ran around the corner and waited. Her waiting was quickly rewarded with a text back from Collins-Thompson reciprocating his feelings for Fetter.
“It was really sweet,” Fetter said. “We’re both each other’s first relationships and I’ve always wanted that.”
That night the two spent hours on FaceTime talking.
“The most meaningful part of our relationship is that we have both helped each other become more confident in ourselves,” Fetter said. “We love the parts of each other that we don’t love about ourselves.”
To this day, Fetter and Collins-Thompson continue to bond over music and are always up for $2 Tuesday at NYPD.
Margaret Alpern, senior, met her friend back in preschool, where they were fast friends, constantly spending time together and always getting closer. For one of Alpern’s birthdays, her friend bought her a big fuzzy pink blanket.
The close-knit friendship continued through elementary school. But after going to different middle schools, the two friends drifted apart. Despite the distance between them, they stayed close through playing soccer together. Once the two got into high school, they rekindled their friendship and are as close as ever.
Both Alpern and her friend treasure their matching blankets, a marker of their long lasting friendship.
“[The blankets] represent us,” Alpern said. Now, over ten years later, the same blanket can be found in Alpern’s bed.
Leo Wywrot, junior, feels as though he’s been adopted into the family by one of his best friend’s dad, Patrich Jett.
“He treats me like a third son,” Wyrwrot said. “He considers me as a third son.”
Sometimes he has even been given the keys to the Jett house. The two met in fifth grade, when Wywrot and Jett’s son first became friends.
“He is a figure of authority as a parent,” Wywrot said. “But he is still just a friend, and someone who I feel like I can hang out with.”
Wywrot often sees Jett when he goes over to visit his son, and sometimes accompanies the family on their trips to Glen Arbor in the summer.
One memory with Jett that Wywrot remembers fondly was a highlight of one of those same trips. Jett ordered an entire cherry pie from the original Cherry Republic and challenged Wywrot, his two sons, and another friend to see how much pie they could eat.
Freshman Ellena Biermann was hit with a wave of guilt as she found out she was accepted into CHS’s class of 2026. Her twin sister Sylvia was sitting next to her heartbroken that her name wasn’t on the list of accepted students.
“I felt bad because she wanted to go more than I had,” Ellena Biermann said. “But when I had that opportunity, it made me want to go.”
Although Sylvia had not gotten in, she was delighted for her twin.
The two spent much of the summer in a state of uncertainty about where they would be going to high school. That is until they got one fateful call in the middle of August: Sylvia had gotten off the waitlist and was now being offered a spot alongside Ellena to go to CHS. The twins were ecstatic to be going to the same school.
Sylvia’s willingness to be happy for her sister is just one of the reasons Ellena loves her sister.
“She knows me so well,” Ellena Biermann said. “When she goes grocery shopping she will bring me flowers because she knows I love them. I’m also a clean freak and she knows that so she always makes sure that everything is clean so I am comfortable.”
One of the many interests the sisters share is their love for the outdoors. A trip to Olympic National Park strengthened their relationship even more.
“When we went backpacking together we just walked ten miles,” Ellena Biermann said. “But, it didn’t seem like that much because it was so nice to be out in the wild with each other.”
She loves the constancy of the love she has for her dogs, and the love they have for her. They have been a constant and reassuring presence throughout her life.
“They’re always there to greet me when I come home, and they’re just always there,” says Izzy Stevens, junior. Her three dogs, Quincy, Bernie, and Rosie, come close to loving her as much as she loves them. Every night she falls asleep with Quincy at the foot of the bed, and whenever she sits on the couch one of them will immediately claim their place lying on her shoulder.
Her dogs don’t seem to want to miss out on even a scrap of her affection.
“[Bernie] is really territorial,” Stevens said, “If Quincy’s getting pet—even if she’s getting pet too—she’ll start fighting with him [over me].”
Quincy and Bernie are more recent additions to her family, but Rosie has been there since kindergarten. She’s been there for all the most important years of her life.
This is Serena's third year of journalism, and her second year as a Print Editor-in-Chief. She loves to be outside, whether that's running, hiking, biking, swimming, or just lazing around in the sun. Work takes precedent though, so you're more likely to find her writing, editing, doing copious amounts of math homework, or taking a break to play her mobile game of the week. She is beyond excited for another year in Room 300!
Anjali Kakarla is a senior who split-enrolls between Community and Skyline. This is her seventh semester on staff and her third as one of the Web-Editors-In-Chief. When she's not doing schoolwork, playing basketball and golf, or running track for Skyline, she enjoys hanging out with her friends, listening to music and baking. She loves to write and is very excited for journalism this year!
