Chapter 1

It was the last night of winter break, and Ross Geller was sitting down to dinner with his family. His mother, Judy, was setting the main dish, a large lasagna, down in the middle of the table. Monica's face lit up, it was one of her all time favorite meals.

"It looks great Mom," she said happily, clearly excited about the food.

Judy looked over at Monica. "Yes, well. You would think so, of course."

Monica's smile evaporated, and she looked down at her plate, resisting the urge to cry. Ross looked on sympathetically. His mother had a cruel habit of letting loose snide comments about Monica's weight, hair, relationship status, or any of the other things she found imperfect about her daughter. He'd tried to tell her to stop on several occasions, but she never listened.

Jack, Monica and Ross' dad, noticed the unpleasant mood and tried to segue into a new topic.

"So, are you two excited about going back to school?"

Monica shrugged, not wanting to speak, for fear that her voice would tremble and betray her sadness.

Jack turned to his son, accepting and understanding Monica's response. "What about you Ross?"

Ross looked up from his food. "What, uh… Yeah, I guess I'm a little excited," he trailed off into silence, not wanting to get into what was actually a complicated answer. This ended the discussion, and the table fell into silence, each person focusing on eating their meal.

Ross's thoughts went immediately to the question he'd just been asked. Winter break had served as a refreshing vacation from his miserably incurable social life. It had been two weeks since anybody had laughed at him or thrown unwanted food in his face.

On the other hand, however, it had been two weeks since he'd seen Rachel. Every winter, her family went to France to visit some old friends. Monica was always complaining about how her best friend was able to do so many things the Gellers just couldn't afford to spend money on. She'd begged to go with them for the past five years.

It was a stupid thought, since he never even spoke to her, but he'd felt like something was missing the past two weeks. The feeling he got when he watched her, when he saw her face light up with laughter, was like a drug to him. The more he took, the more addicted he became. It was becoming an obsession, he could barely go twenty minutes without thinking of her.

The only bad thing was that practically everybody knew that he was insanely in love with her. Nicer people, like Monica and Will, rarely mentioned it. But the popular crowd and even some wannabe populars constantly used the knowledge as a means to humiliate him.

Ross only hoped that Rachel didn't know about it. No one would've told her, would they? Or maybe… "Ross!"

He jerked his head up. Both of his parents were looking at him with questioning expressions.

"Yes?" he asked, trying to focus in on reality.

"You haven't said anything for five minutes, sweetie. Are you feeling alright?" Judy asked in a concerned tone.

"What?" he said blankly, still not grasping the conversation. "Uh, no. I'm fine. Just thinking."

"Well what about, son?" Jack joined in, wondering what had his son so deep in thought.

Ross probed his mind for a quick lie. He certainly didn't want his parents to be added to the list of people who knew about his feelings for Rachel. "Uh," he stared blankly back at them, "I have a paper due in English tomorrow." He probably could've come up with something better, but even a bad lie was better than the truth, at least in this situation. "I still have to finish it," he added, attempting to make it more believable.

"Well you've had two weeks to work on it. Why haven't you finished it?" his mother asked him.

"I just wanted to spend the time relaxing, I guess," Ross shrugged. "Actually, could I be excused? I should really finish it up."

"I suppose. Just don't leave anything to the last second again," Judy said sternly.

Taking the opportunity to leave the uncomfortable situation, Ross stood up, put his dishes in the sink, and walked upstairs to his bedroom. Closing the door behind him, he fell onto his unmade bed.

He was eager for the next day to arrive, so that he could go to school and see her again. Deciding to just go to bed early, he changed into his pajamas, brushed his teeth, and fell asleep.

Will stepped through the school's main door, slightly reluctant to return after two blissful weeks away.

He'd been dropped off early and wasn't sure how best to spend the next half hour before classes began. He decided to go hangout in the library, since it was always open for an hour before school started.

Will walked through the hallways, studying the various murals that had been painted on the walls by previous students.

Only a few other people were in the building this early, and none had yet crossed his path. He thought the coast was clear, so he began to softly hum to himself a song that'd been stuck in his head for a while now.

As he walked further, he became more and more engrossed in the pictures, and his absentminded mumbling gradually turned into him belting out the lyrics to Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself".

"If I looked all over the world, and there's every type of girl, but your empty eyes seem to pass me by, and leave me dancing with myself"-SMACK!

Will staggered backwards from the force of the collision. Regaining his balance, he looked to see who he'd hit.

Chip Matthews was standing there, six foot two, solid as a rock. Chip had been held back a few years, so that even though he was a year older than Will, he was technically in eighth grade. However, this fact did not make him any less intimidating. Even gaining the respect of some juniors and seniors, Chip was known for beating people up.

Familiar with this reputation, Will began to slowly back away.

Adding to his considerable bad luck, he ran into someone again. Turning to see who he'd backed into, he came face to face with Rachel Greene.

He'd heard of her from Ross and from other people in the school, but had never actually met her.

"I'm so sorry," he stuttered, "I couldn't see where I was going."

She stepped back with a blank expression. "OK", she said with the same lack of emotion. She actually looked a bit bored, but Will didn't notice.

"Um," he continued awkwardly, "you might've heard of me. I'm Ross's friend. You're friends with his sister, Monica, aren't-"

"Why are you still talking?" Rachel demanded rudely, looking at him as though he was something nasty stuck to her five hundred dollar shoes.

"What?" Will asked, confused. He'd only ever heard good things about her, especially from Ross. He'd never expected her to be like this, so stereotypically a cheerleader.

"Why don't you," she began, separating each word as though he was a caveman who couldn't understand English, "run along now? Nobody here wants to play with the fat boy."

She smiled and walked over to Chip, clearly proud of how she'd handled he situation.

Will stood exactly where she'd left him, feeling a mix of anger and embarrassment take over his body. When the two looked back at him, with expressions that clearly asked "What are you still doing here?", he turned on his heel and retreated down the hallway.

Listening to the sound of her giggling as he walked away, he felt a deep feeling of hatred set in. He knew he was fat, and he knew he was unpopular. But it was absolutely and one hundred percent unacceptable for someone to point it out!

What kind of person did that? Who would purposefully pick at someone's greatest insecurity, and be proud of doing it? He now knew full well the answer to that question. Rachel Greene.

After school, Will drove his motor scooter straight to Ross's house. Knowing that Ross took the bus most days and wouldn't be there for at least ten more minutes, he opened his bright red backpack and took out his book. He sat there on the doorstep for five minutes, deeply immersed in his reading.

The sound of an engine made him tear his eyes away from the words on the page. Squinting to see who and what was coming down the street, he could make out the shape of a motorcycle.

Within a few moments, however, he could tell that it was a large, red vehicle and that there were two people riding it, a girl and a boy. Rachel was arriving home aboard the Chipper, Chip's infamous bike, with her arms wrapped tightly around the waist of the most popular guy in school.

Watching her, he felt the anger build up inside him. He looked back down to his book, he didn't want to see her. A few minutes later, he heard the door of her house close. He relaxed, glad to know that she was no longer near him.

When he'd gotten through a few more pages, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

"Hey," Ross greeted him, walking up the front path.

"Hey," Will replied. Ross reached into his pocket, retrieved his keys, and opened the door.

"Come on in," he stood aside to let Will enter. Closing the door behind him, Will kicked off his shoes and headed upstairs towards Ross's room. Ross followed close behind, curious as to why Will seemed so upset.

Once they were safely in his room, he turned to Will. "What's up?"

Will looked down at his hands, wondering how Ross would react to what he was about to say. "Um… you know Rachel?"

Ross's eyes widened in surprise. What would she have to do with this? "Yeah," he responded.

"Well, I know you like her, and I just thought I should tell you something before you fall head over heels."

Ross stayed quiet. Apparently, Will wasn't aware of just how intense Ross's feelings for Rachel were. He wasn't about to tell him either. It was better if people not know just how much he liked her.

After a few moments of silence, Will continued. "I got to school early today, and I was walking to the library. I wasn't paying attention, and I accidentally walked into her. I apologized, and I thought she'd be fine, but she started making fun of me."

"Are you sure?" Ross asked. "Maybe she didn't mean for it to come off that way."

"No, man. I promise she meant it. She, uh…." Will paused, "She called me fat." He trailed off.

Ross could tell that his friend was embarrassed, and was really upset with Rachel. While Ross was sure that Rachel had meant it as a joke, and that Will had misunderstood, he didn't want to push it. It would only lead to a fight, and Will was already in a fragile state. Ross decided to finish up the conversation.

"Ok," he smiled at his friend, "thanks for telling me." Will sighed, grateful that Ross had taken the news so well.

They spent the rest of the day hanging out together. They watched TV, played video games, and swam in Ross's new backyard pool. Will finally left around seven thirty.

Ross grabbed a quick dinner and finished his homework before going to bed at ten.

While he lay in bed, he pondered what Will had told him about Rachel. He definitely didn't believe that she'd been as mean as Will had described. He could tell though, that Rachel would be a sore subject for a while. He just wouldn't let Will know that he still liked her and wouldn't ever talk about her. This was a problem with a simple solution.