Part 1: Loser No More

Graham Alexander sat in his darkened dormitory room at 11:30 at night, blurry eyed as he raised the glass to his lips and took another drink of his very against the rules scotch.

He kept trying to tell himself that those two girls from that idiot school, Lardwood, or wherever had been wrong.

"I'm not the loooser..." he slurred as he felt the good feelings from the booze slip away again, "They're the looosers."

"Heh, they go to a publikk schooool, I gooo tooo Grove Hillssss." Graham then felt himself fall over onto his bed as everything became very spinny...

Then he started to cry.

"Oh god!" he sobbed as a wave of self-pity hit him like an atom bomb, suddenly rendering him sober "I am a loser! I've been miserable since I was a kid, and I only became the thing I always hated when I came here."

Graham then spent most of the rest of his night crying in his pillow, not really getting much sleep and barely remembering to hide the liquor in case his roommate got back from banging his girlfriend.

The Next Day

David Bentley was very surprised when his former friend turned tormenter, Graham had come up to him after his Astronomy class, in front of the rest of the old gang and started talking to him.

"Uh, Hi Graham." David said very awkwardly, hoping that this wasn't a setup for another mean prank.

"I... I came over to apologize." Graham said with guilt written on his face.

"...Really?"

"Yeah," Graham replied with eyes downcast, "I did some real thinking last night and... I was acting like a complete jerk to you. I mean just because you didn't do as well as other people on one test shouldn't have meant throwing away a friendship, or acting like some idiot jock towards you simply because of it."

"Whoa." was all that David could initially come up with.

Then he came up with something else.

"You hurt me badly Graham," he said flatly, "I'm not sure if I can forgive you, but I am grateful that you at least gave me an apology."

"I know," Graham replied with a tear falling down his face, and firmly ignoring the glares of the others, "But I am glad that you... At least accepted my most sincere regrets."

David then noticed the death stares that Graham was getting from most of the 'genius' crowd at Grove Hills, and in a place like this that crowd was very smart.

And extremely spiteful.

"Look Graham," David said more kindly, "I might not ever completely let it go but... I think we could both use a friend in this hellhole so... Wanna sit together at lunch and talk, for old times' sake?"

"Yes!" Graham replied happily, "Yes I do!"

David rewarded Graham with a small smile and replied, "We've both got Mr. Keller's class next, we'd better hurry or else we'll be late."

The pair of them then sped off together, no longer giving a crap what anyone else thought at Grove Hills.

They both knew that if they stuck together, they could survive anything thrown at them.

Notes: The first three parts were originally one-shots that I posted on the PPMB, and then I was convinced to make them part of a much bigger story that I' then strung together to build up the story, this represents the start of the first arc of that story.