Nicole

Stumble through your senior year.

I love sitting alone on the bus. It's a perfect way to unwind after a long day at school. Read an article on that new TV show. Get lost in some sci-fi novel or another. Hell, you could just take a fifteen-minute nap.

In other words, I was typical eighteen-year old loner nerd. Though I never think of myself that way, I'm smart enough to know how other people saw me: a guy with no social skills to speak of and far too many opinions about Star Trek.

This is the story of Nicole and I. How we became friends. Lovers. Occasional enemies. Not necessarily in that order.

Our story starts, as most do, on an unusually normal day. It was 72 degrees and cloudy that day in Ewing, California -- at least according to the popular kids that ran the PA announcements during first period -- and just about the only occurrence that was out of the ordinary was when my math teacher sprung a surprise quiz on us. I assume, given how I have presented myself, that you can guess how that went.

No, the day was downright forgettable until I met her. When she happened to sit down next to me on the bus.