Author's Note: This is my first fan fiction. It is an AU based on the idea of what might have happened if Wade and Zoe had met in high school (I am a sucker for a high school romance). If they seem a bit out of character it might be because I am trying to imagine what they would have been like in high school. Some aspects of their adult personalities seem a bit inappropriate for freshmen in high school.

There will be more explanation about how Zoe ended up in Bluebell in future chapters.

She had no idea what people would be wearing at this new school. She could safely guess it would be nothing like what people wore at her old school – because that was a private school and had a strict uniform code. This was a public school. Plus it was in a tiny country town at the other end of the country. People here probably didn't even know half the brands her old classmates liked to wear when they got the chance. So she knew it would be a lot more casual, but how much more? Did the girls wear jeans or skirts? What about makeup? She was well aware that she was going to stick out like a sore thumb anyway as the new girl at a small country school, but no one wants to be the only girl wearing a skirt when everyone else is wearing jeans, or the only girl wearing no makeup when everyone else is perfectly made up. That would only make the whole thing worse; even more unbearable than it was already going to be.

She wondered what her mother would have said. Well, actually that wasn't helpful at all. She would have said that Zoe should dress to impress. Definitely makeup. Definitely heels. Make a splash. And that was the last thing that Zoe wanted to do. She sighed and decided that she would wear something that she always felt comfortable in. These people were probably going to think she was weird anyway so she may as well be comfortable. It could be like her armor.

So what did she feel comfortable in? Well, heels made her taller, which gave her confidence, but she could be clumsy and she did not want to risk falling over on her first day of school. Sneakers were too casual for her – plus they made her feel awkward unless she was actually exercising. She decided on her maroon Gucci loafers – perfect. Now that she had decided on the shoes everything else was pretty easy. After all, the shoes make the outfit.

Harley called out from the top of the stairs, "Zoe, I'm just going to get the car out of the garage. I'll meet you out the front when you're ready."

"Okay," she replied. She was not at all sure how she felt about Harley, but she had to admit he was making an effort to give her plenty of space. He wasn't rushing her, and he wasn't coming anywhere near her room. At least that was something. As long as he didn't interfere with her plan she thought she would be able to get along with him just fine for as long as she needed to.

Ten minutes later she stepped out of the house onto the front porch. She had teamed her Gucci loafers with some twisted seam Calvin Klein jeans and a simple white top with a cute Black DKNY bolero jacket. Her old school had had a strict no jewelry policy, and she wasn't sure what the policy was going to be here so she had gone without any just to be safe. As for makeup, she had put on a little mascara and some lip gloss and left it at that. She wanted the teachers on her side so that they would agree to let her take the rather heavy course load she had picked out for herself. She saw Harley waiting in his navy blue sedan in the driveway to the side of the front yard. He smiled shyly at her through the open driver's side window. She was about halfway down the steps when she realized that the front door was not locked. She didn't have a key though, so when she got to the car she said to Harley, "Um, I couldn't lock the door because I don't have a key, so it's still unlocked." Harley looked at her in confusion for a second and then he smiled and gave a light chuckle.

"Oh, we don't worry about locking doors much here in Bluebell. I can't remember the last time I used that key. In fact, I'm not sure I even recall where I put it…"

Zoe was a bit taken aback. But she just mumbled back, "Oh, okay then I guess I'm ready," before walking around to the passenger side of the car and hopping in.

Less than ten minutes of silence later they were pulling up in the high school parking lot. This wasn't the first time she had wished that it took a little longer to get around Bluebell. She would have liked some more time to prepare for this moment.

Harley looked over at her and smiled. He had a kind, concerned look in his eyes as he asked her, "Shall we go in?"

"Sure," she replied. It sounded a bit shaky so she tried again once Harley had gotten out of the car and closed the door, "Sure." That was a bit better. What was that thing her Mom used to say to her clients? "Fake it until you make it. If you act confident then people will think you are confident." Well Zoe hoped that she could act confident because she didn't feel confident at all.

She got out of the car and forced herself to stand up straight and square her shoulders before walking up the path with Harley. As they got closer to the buildings she thought how much this school was unlike her old school in New York. For one thing it was only two stories high. At least it shouldn't take her too long to learn her way around.

Harley opened the door for her and they were immediately greeted by a loud chanting:

"DO IT!

DO IT!

DO IT!"

She walked through the door and saw that they were in a covered walkway lined with lockers that wrapped around an enclosed courtyard with wooden picnic tables and benches. She guessed it must be where people ate lunch. The chanting was coming from a crowd of people facing the middle of the courtyard, where a tall, blond boy about her age was standing on top of one of the tables. He was wearing worn blue jeans and a gray t-shirt and holding up a plastic water bottle containing some murky looking liquid. The boy started to speak.

"Alright, Alright! Hush will ya?! The moment y'all 've been waiting for is here! Wade Kinsella is about to chug this appetizin' lookin' concoction of pond water, milk, hot sauce, maple syrup, coffee, and mayonnaise… and collect that there lovely pile of money kindly donated by all of the idiots who don't think I can do it!" Zoe stood on her tiptoes and glimpsed a grimy looking baseball cap overflowing with bills. She looked sideways at Harley and was surprised to see that he was trying to suppress a smile.

"Aren't you going to stop him?" she asked. "He could get sick… Actually, he's definitely going to be sick if he drinks that!"

Harley just shook his head and said, with a smile in his eyes, "Oh it's just Wade being Wade. Those Kinsella boys have stomachs of steel. Besides, I doubt if I could stop him if I wanted to – he's about as stubborn as stubborn gets."

Zoe looked at him in shock. She had never seen an adult happily admit that they had no control over a kid. And she had certainly never seen an adult, a doctor at that, stand back and let someone do something that was this obviously stupid.

Meanwhile, the boy, Wade, had continued on with his show.

"Well then, let's do this thing!" he cried, and the kids cheered as raised the bottle to his lips and started to drink. They started up their chant again: "DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!"

Zoe watched the level of the murky liquid in the bottle go down surprisingly quickly. She saw that his eyes were screwed shut and his Adam's apple was moving. She couldn't believe it, but he was actually going to do it. He was going to chug the whole bottle in one go. And she felt queasy just watching him.

And then he was done. He had drained the bottle and he held it up high and turned it upside down to show that he had finished it all. He kept his eyes tightly shut until he had swallowed the last of it though. Then he opened his eyes, threw the bottle high in the air and leaped off the table with a cheer. She lost sight of him in the crowd as everyone rushed in to congratulate him and she turned to Harley with a look of absolute bewilderment on her face.

"Why on earth would anyone do that?" she asked, kind of to Harley, but mainly to herself.

Harley still looked amused as he replied, "Well Wade Kinsella has never been shy about being in the spotlight. And he has always had a knack for cooking up crazy schemes. I can't even begin to tell you the number of times he has turned up at the clinic with some crazy injury and an even crazier story explain it."

Zoe had never met anyone like that. She was still trying to process it all as they walked along the walkway towards the door at the end labeled "Office."

Thirty minutes later they came out of the office with her timetable and a photocopy showing where the classrooms were. They had agreed to let her take all the classes she wanted to after seeing the stellar transcript that had been sent over from her old school, which meant that everything was on track. The principal led her down the walkway and they said goodbye to Harley at the door they had come in through earlier. He smiled kindly at her and said, "Have a good day. I'll be back to pick you up after last period." She was so nervous by now that all she could do was mumble a quiet, "Okay." He shot her one last concerned glance and then he was gone and she was following the principal down the walkway again.

They reached a door labeled 103A, which she knew from her photocopy was her homeroom, and before she had a moment to compose herself the door had been opened by a woman in her early thirties, wearing a floral skirt and blouse. Not only was she wearing an actual blouse, but it was buttoned up, tucked in, and she had a broach pinned to it near the collar. Zoe suddenly felt a bit too fashion forward, even in this outfit that she had so carefully planned to be casual. She did not even want to look at what the other kids were wearing, so she focused her attention on the teacher.

"Zoe Hart. What a pleasure to meet you. I'm Miss Foster. Now come on in and take a seat. Your desk is that one in the middle there."

Zoe tried to smile as she was now forced to look out at her new classmates and locate her desk, but she wasn't exactly successful. Her face was twisted into a strange kind of grimace as she saw the empty desk in the middle of the classroom and quickly headed that way. She could not wait to sit down and not be the center of attention anymore. She noticed that the boy she had seen chugging that awful concoction was sitting in a desk diagonally in front of hers. She couldn't believe he was sitting in class looking just fine. She would have thought that he would be bent over a toilet bowl somewhere being violently ill. Instead he was looking at her appreciatively, smiling widely, and she felt her cheeks get hot.

As she swung her enormous Jansport backpack off her back so that she could sit down she accidentally slammed it into the head of the guy in the seat beside hers. He had mousy brown hair and a nice smile and looked like a jock, but strangely he yelped like a baby when her bag hit him. She got all flustered and started apologizing and trying to maneuver her bag out of the way without causing more trouble, while the boy rubbed his head and tried unconvincingly to reassure her that it hadn't hurt a bit. She regretted putting all those heavy textbooks in her bag now, as she struggled to get out of this situation gracefully. She could feel her face burning red by this stage. Then suddenly she was aware of the boy in front standing up and turning around.

"C'mon George Tucker. Man up! How could a little thing like this possibly hurt a big manly football player like yourself?" he grinned as he shook his head in mock disdain at the boy and reached for her bag. A look of surprise came over his face as he felt the weight of the bag.

"Girl, what the heck is in this thing?! It must be about as heavy as you are."

But despite his complaints about how heavy it was he scooped it up with ease and settled it on the floor next to her desk. She shot him a look of thanks and sat down, her face still burning.

Wade winked at her and gave her a grin as he sat back down, but he didn't think he caught it. She was looking down at her desk, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

Damn she was pretty, he thought. She was a tiny delicate little thing with long brown hair, worn loose. She had on some funny little jacket thing and jeans, but her white top under the jacket was tight and he could see that she had a great little figure.

"Mr. Kinsella, could we have your attention please?" Miss Foster's voice brought him back and he swiveled to face the front of the room and grinned at the teacher.

"I'm right here Miss. Sorry, I wasn't aware I was needed…" he said cheekily. She just sighed. She was used to Wade.

"So class, welcome to senior high school. I know that since most everything but a few of the classrooms and teachers are the same as for junior high it might not feel like a very big deal, but I can assure you it is. From this point on things start to get serious. Your elective subjects, and your extra-curricular activities are more important now and you will notice that you will get quite a bit more homework." They all groaned at that. "It won't be long before those of you who are planning to head to college will be filling out applications, or meeting with scouts as the case may be…"

Wade tuned out. He wouldn't be heading to college. He had three years left before he would be out in the real world and he intended to make the most of it. The way he figured it these three years were a chance to have some fun before he would have to get a full-time job and start acting like an adult. Of course some of that adult stuff he was looking forward to. He certainly wouldn't mind being able to go to bars without worrying about fake IDs. Plus some of the older girls he had his eye on wouldn't let him near them until he was out of school – others did not have such high principles.

He slouched in his chair as Miss Foster droned on and cast his mind back to yesterday afternoon, and the fun he'd had with Lou Ann in the back of his Dad's truck… Lou Ann would have been a senior if she was still in school, but she had dropped out in her freshman year. She had told Wade she was training to be a beautician and he knew she worked at the salon in town, but based on the haircut she gave him before they'd messed around yesterday he didn't think she was very far into her training. In fact it seemed quite likely that she was still just sweeping the floors. She was quite experienced in some other areas though – must have been thanks to that guy she had been dating from Filmore a while back. Suddenly, he was distracted from his daydreaming when he heard Miss Foster say the name "Zoe Hart." That was the new girl. He wanted to find out more about her.

"So, Zoe comes to us from a very good school in New York City and she has recently moved down here to live in Bluebell. As I'm sure many of you are already aware, her father is Doctor Wilkes, and he has asked 'specially that you all give Zoe a warm welcome and help her adjust to life here. Zoe, am I right in thinking that your first class today is English?"

When Zoe nodded yes, Miss Foster continued, "Well then I'm sure Wade Kinsella here will make sure you find your classroom, given that he has already shown us how he is capable of carrying that heavy bag of yours."

Wade was surprised. Teachers didn't normally ask him to do this kind of thing. They normally asked George. But maybe Miss Foster thought that would make Zoe feel uncomfortable after the whole hitting him in the head incident. Anyway, he sat up straighter in his chair and said, "Yes Ma'am."

The bell rang and he was quick to pick up her bag before she could do any more damage with it. She looked a bit surprised and when they got out into the walkway she turned to him and reached for the bag, saying, "Here, I can carry that."

"No need," he said as he swung it over his shoulder. "So, New York City, huh?"

"Yep. Have you ever been?"

He laughed. "I can't say I've ever been any further than north than Atlanta. I sure would like to go someday though, 'specially if all the girls are as pretty as you are."

Her face turned red again and she looked away. Okay, it looked like he was going to have to tone things down if he was going to get anywhere with Zoe Hart. She sure was easily embarrassed.

Then she surprised him by asking, out of the blue, "Why did you do that, before?"

"Um, what… taking your bag?"

"No! Chugging that disgusting mixture in the courtyard!"

"Oh that?! You saw that? Well I thought it would be a bit of fun… Plus Lemon Breeland bet me I wouldn't be able to do it and I do enjoy proving that girl wrong!" He grinned at her but she was just looking at him like she had no idea where she was coming from.

"But weren't you worried you'd get sick? I mean what if you'd vomited all over yourself right there in front of everyone? That would have been pretty embarrassing…"

He laughed at her seriousness. "Well… truth is I wasn't thinkin' that far ahead. I guess when you decide to chug something that disgustin' it pays not to think on it too much, ya know?"

She was still looking at him like he was from another planet, but they had reached the English classroom. He motioned to a couple of desks over on the other side of the room and they made their way over. He put her bag down in the aisle when she sat down. Right away the teacher came over and started talking to Zoe, so Wade was sat down at the desk next to her. When he did he was reminded of the thick wad of money in the wallet in his back pocket. This new girl had had him so distracted he had forgotten all about it, but now that he remembered he couldn't wait to count it up. He reckoned that if he could get his Dad's government check before his Dad did this month they might just have enough now to pay the electric bill, settle the tab at the Dixie Stop, and put at least twenty bucks' worth of gas in the truck. Not bad for chugging one bottle of goop.

Thanks for reading. Please do review and let me know what you think. I would really appreciate encouragement to keep going but I am open to constructive feedback as well. Also, I am Australian but have tried to write this using American English. Please do let me know if anything strikes you as inappropriate.