Welcome to 1986, kids.
CHLOE

XTC was no good for drowning out the morons at the back of the bus. Chloe pressed her headphones to her ears. Tomorrow she was going to bring Blag Flag.
She had been staring out of the Plexiglas window for the past twenty minutes, the scenery drifting in and out of focus as she contemplated the possibility of driving her mom's Impala.
Pros:
1. Blag Flag could be listened to in peace.

Cons:
1. She couldn't drive.

Goddammit. Three more months until sweet, sweet permit-related salvation.
'That doesn't exist,' somebody shouted behind her.

'It so fucking does,' Nathan shouted back.

'Drunken-monkey style, man, it's a real fucking thing. You can kill somebody with it …'

'You're full of shit.'

'You're full of shit,' Nathan said. 'Chloe! Hey, Chloe.'
Chloe heard him, but didn't answer. She slid down in her seat, hoping that he would leave her alone if she ignored him for long enough. She looked down, leg bouncing nervously, and prayed that he'd get distracted by another poor bastard before he got around to Chloe…
…Which, obviously, was not going to happen. She felt a ball of paper hit her in the back of the head and sighed inwardly.
"Those were my Human Growth and Development Notes, dicklick." Victoria said.

'I'm sorry, baby,' said Nathan. 'I'll teach you all about human growth and development. What do you need to know?'

'Teach her drunken-monkey style,' somebody snickered.

'CHLOE!' Nathan shouted. Chloe pulled her headphones down, rolling her eyes as she turned to the back of the bus. Choke, Nathan.
He was slouched in the back seat, as the popular kids so often were, arm draped around his girlfriend Victoria— snooty as ever, short blonde hair standing like a puffy halo around her head. Victoria was about as far from an angel as you could get. Once, back in the sixth grade, some kid had accidentally spilled white paint on her new cardigan. They had ended up 'accidentally' taking a spill of their own, down a small flight of stairs.
Chloe tossed Victoria her scrunched up homework. She caught it with a slight smile.
'Thanks.'
'Chloe, tell Steve about drunken-monkey style. It exists right?'
'Uh… yeah. I think I've heard of it.' Chloe said, scratching the back of her head. She hoped they couldn't tell she was bluffing.
'What does Price know about karate?' Said Steve. Oh, Chloe thought, they're talking about karate. Thank Jesus.
'Chloe's badass, man—' He was interrupted as Steve hit him with a rolled up sports magazine. It made a satisfying thwack against the back of his head.
'What the fuck, Steve?' Nathan looked for something to throw at him, but couldn't find anything, so chose to hit him with his hand instead. Chloe slipped her headphones back on, sliding back down her seat and cranking up the volume. It was pointless— it was at its highest, and she could still hear Nathan and Steve arguing, four seats behind her.

Chloe noticed the new girl at the same time as everyone else. She cringed as she watched each person with a space beside them slide into the aisle seat, looking down guiltily as she passed them. Chloe willed her to stop walking before she reached King Nathan and his court. God, thought Chloe, Turn around. She didn't. She went right up to the back, right where the popular kids were (where they always are. Like, seriously, how could she be that dumb?) and then realised that there was nowhere else to go. Chloe tried not to look at her, but she couldn't help herself. It was sort of a train-wreck/eclipse situation. She seemed exactly like the type of person this would happen to: wild, brown hair that looked like a self-inflicted disaster (not that Chloe could really say anything about fashionable haircuts, of course), the strangest ensemble of clothing she had ever seen… This girl was even wearing a fucking safety pin as a hairclip, and had a bizarre collection of bracelets and ribbons and strings tied around her wrists that contributed to her… image. Pale, with watery blue eyes seemingly always on the edge of tears. She looked like a depressed ghost. Like a mess. Like something that wouldn't survive in the wild.
The girl looked over her shoulder, waiting for someone to move, to let her sit down, but nobody did. Of course they didn't. Chloe knew they wouldn't from the moment the girl had stepped onto this bus. Victoria snickered; she lived for this stuff. A bunch more kids piled on, knocking into her, pushing past her as she just stood in the aisle like an idiot. That was the thing— everyone already a had a seat. And those (like Chloe) who were lucky/scary enough to have a double seat all to themselves weren't about to just give it up for the new kid. Especially not someone like her. The bus driver was getting antsy, glaring at her reflection in his mirror.
'Hey! You.' He shouted, moustache twitching. This was painful to watch. 'Sit down.' Chloe glanced behind her momentarily. Someone had to give in. There was an empty seat behind her, next to Courtney Wagner, but Chloe knew what was about to happen. As the girl's eyes flickered to the empty seat, Victoria spoke up.
'Hey, Casper,' Victoria waved a hand in front of the girl's face. Nathan started laughing, his friends joining in a few seconds later. 'That's Taylor's seat. You can't sit there.'
'I have to sit somewhere.' she replied weakly.
'Not my problem.'
The bus lurched forward, the driver grumbling. Chloe could see the panic in the other girl's face. She looked (even more than usual) like she might start to cry. When her chin started wobbling, before Chloe had even considered the serious social consequences of her actions she was scooting in to the window, already regretting her decision. It was the tears, man. Price doesn't do tears.
'Sit down.' she said flatly. The words came out angrier than she had expected. The girl just stared back blankly, bring to figure out if she was another one of Victoria's cronies. 'Jesus-fuck.' Chloe shook her head, more at her own stupidity than the anyone else's. 'Just sit down.'
She did.

MAX

Max dragged her feet as she walked to the bus. Her first day had been shitty. Even shittier than she had expected, which was saying something. Somehow, being the new kid just didn't get any easier. And now, to top it all of, she had to get back on Satan's own Bus From Hell. That was unless she wanted to walk home, which would be an option if she knew the general direction of her house. Shit. She sighed, briefly considering calling her mom before remembering that the new house didn't have a phone. And her mom didn't have a car. And that would mean riding in the back of Jerry's pickup truck. 'I'll be fine,' she had said as she walked out the door that very morning. Ha. Giant, dramatic Ha.
She sighed, climbing onto the metal steps and praying that the dumb punk kid from before was already in her seat. Their seat? Ugh. Max cringed as she imagined the awkward sliding-past process that would have to happen if she wasn't. She couldn't tell if she was one of them, or just really dumb (but not dumb dumb, she was in two of Max's honors classes). Max bet that really ruined her punk rock image. She just couldn't figure her out— why she'd give up her golden double seat, why she'd give it up for her. Why she seemed weirdly untouchable in terms of social status, despite the whole blue hair thing. The blonde chick in the ugly acid-washed jacket (Victoria?) hadn't said anything once she sat down.

When she reached her seat, the girl from before was already there. So were Victoria and her own personal cheer squad, unfortunately. Max could almost see the horns poking out from beneath her blonde hair. The punk girl was staring out of the window, ignoring her so hard that it was almost worse than just noticing her. Max was a weird mixture of glad and insulted, but then remembered that she couldn't really be mad because this kid had also basically saved her. It sucked. She wished that she hadn't, because now she was sort of indebted to this weird, stupid, kinda scary girl with no sense of self-preservation. When she sat down, the girl frowned at her. All icy blue eyes and blue hair, like something out of a music video. She used to like those. The old house had had a TV, where she could watch stuff like that. Now, she had a TV, but if the remote wasn't in Jeff's hand, it was off. Max frowned right back, quietly stewing, picking her nails.

CHLOE

She didn't talk to her on the way home. Chloe had spent all day thinking about how to get away from the new girl, and had come to the conclusion that she'd have to move seats. But how? And to where? She couldn't just force herself on somebody else— then that person would sit in their once-speacious-now-squished-up window seat thinking the exact same thing as she was, and the cycle would continue. Besides, even the act of attempting to switch places would catch Victoria's attention, which was something she really wanted to avoid. She sighed. Sometimes she wished she wasn't so goddamn impulsive. This was going to become a thing now, and there was really no way she could fix it, and it was all because of some weird kid and her stupid, wobbling chin and teary-ghost eyes.
Switch seats… how?
She could probably sit with the freshmen at the front. But that was a spectacular show of weakness. And she also couldn't bear the thought of leaving this poor, defenceless (if irritating) girl at the back alone. That was like… like leaving a baby out in the woods for the wolves to snatch away. Just cruel.

She hated herself for thinking like this. If her mom knew, she'd smack her on the back of her head. 'Is that any way to treat a girl who's down on her luck?' she'd say as she tutted. But what she didn't really get (her mom, that is) was that high school sucks. Everyone seems to misremember high school, because Chloe didn't have any luck/status to spare for this weird hipster girl. She was weird— like so, so weird. When she'd sat down, Chloe saw blood on her face. Not fight blood, but like she'd had a nosebleed and just… left it there. Anyway, not everyone is was lucky as Victoria and Nathan. They just like to think they were. But for the rest of the losers, it sucked, and nobody wanted to admit it. Best years of your life my ass, she thought, I'm one year away from escaping this hellhole (mostly) unscathed.

In a twisted way, she was glad people like that girl existed. Because if it wasn't her, then it was someone else, and if it wasn't them, it was Chloe.
To reiterate, high school sucked. She couldn't even do one nice thing without hating herself for it. It wasn't even nice, she swore at her, and then pretended she didn't exist for an entire half hour, and then all through honors english and chemistry because of course they'd share classes. Chloe's entire life was like some huge cosmic joke. What else could she have expected, really? The girl she had compared to a ghost, now aptly nicknamed by Blackwell's finest as Casper, to not come back and haunt her?
'Maxine…' Mr Stessman had said, 'It's a warrior's name, you know. Powerful.'
A few of the class had laughed at that, but Maxine stared right past them from her desk.
'It's Max actually.'
Chloe remembered thinking that it suited her, then remembered thinking that she wasn't supposed to care. When she had arrived in science, Mr Branson hadn't made as much of a fuss. She sat a few rows ahead of Chloe, and as far as she could tell, Max had spent the entire class drawing hundreds of tiny spirals on the back of her hand in red biro. Chloe had spent the entire class thinking of ways to escape her, which she couldn't, so she turned the volume of her headphones all the way up and went right back to pretending that the girl didn't exist. Thank God she didn't try to talk to her.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I'm like so totally stoked you made it this far. Anyways, I gotta motor. I'm, like, meeting up with this chick later, she's got a bitchin' Camaro that she's gonna take me out in. Oh, and I also have history homework. Like, gag me with a spoon.

Catch ya on the flip, dudettes.

-Vulpixels xoxo

(Let me break character for a moment: the next chapters will be posted daily until I've run out of pre-written material. Then I'll be posting weekly or bi-weekly depending on my workload. Oh also, I'm bringing back the 80s slang. Try and stop me.)