A girl in bell bottom jeans sat in her seat in the back of a classroom, twirling her pencil around as she stared out the window in boredom. On more than one occasion, she'd considered simply walking out. She could blame it on hippie culture. The flowers were just calling for her, and she needed to belt Bob Dylan songs to them that instant. She rolled her eyes at the thought. But with the bandana scarf in her hair, she wasn't really in a position to make fun of hippies.
Across the room sat Rick Sanchez. He was getting so pissed off that he was about to stand up and storm out. He'd done exactly that in the past, and he wasn't afraid to do it again. The kid next to him, Michael, wouldn't shut up about his stupid love life. Jennifer this, Jennifer that.
"Dude, I don't care about how you scored with Jenny last weekend! Like, y-y-you - why would you tell me, of all people? Go make some friends, geek!" Rick exclaimed. The class was silent for a second, and then everyone erupted in wild laughter. It was quickly silenced as Rick was given detention, which he couldn't care less about. He even made a point of throwing away the detention slip while the teacher wasn't looking. The girl across the room pursed her lips in distaste.
"Midterms are coming up! Your midterm project will be with a partner…" The teacher droned on, but the girl had stopped listening as soon as she heard 'partner'. Oh no, hell no. No one in this stupid class was smarter than a dull pencil. She'd have to do the whole project on her own, as usual. And no one wanted to be her partner anyway. In a school full of airheads, she felt like the only one who thought beyond it all.
Once the teacher finished talking, everyone stood up, running to their friends to partner up. The girl looked around for someone, anyone she could partner with. Finally, she approached someone. "Hey, Tina, you wanna -" Before she could even finish, Tina grabbed her friend's arm.
"I already have a partner."
In the end, there were none but two. Rick hadn't even tried to find anyone. The other person would either do the work for the two of them or they'd give up and take the bad grade. He waited for whoever his partner was, lazily slumped in his seat.
The girl approached, her expression dead as she took a seat beside Rick. Of all people, him? How was she supposed to pass her midterm with an idiot like him around? She made sure to keep her seat as far as humanly possible from his as she cleared her throat to speak.
"Don't bother," Rick said suddenly. His long, shaggy hair tickled his shoulders as he turned to look at her. She cocked an eyebrow. "L-Look, I'll make this easy for you. You don't have to talk to me, I don't have to talk to you. We both know that y-y-you'll just do this damn thing on your own 'cause you give a shit and I don't."
She stared at him, at his single pierced ear and his spiked bracelet and his stupid looking choker. Who was this idiot, telling her what to do? Suddenly, she was angry at her own predictability. Screw this. She wasn't going to do this stupid thing on her own.
"No. I don't care about you, Sanchez, your stupid clothes, or that thing on your face you call a beard. And I'm sure you don't care about me, either. But I'll be damned if I'm doing this on my own." Realizing that she was coming off too strongly, she cleared her throat again and pursed her lips.
Rick was just about to turn away when she spoke. He couldn't help but be surprised at her unabashed words, but his expression stayed dead as stone. "Alright, you fuckin' narc. Hang on, what was your name again?"
The idiot to end all idiots. That's who he was. She stared at him with a look Rick would later give to his grandson many times. "Mira," she said finally. "Mira Milne, nice to meet you." She ironically stuck out her hand to shake. He unironically accepted, shaking before letting go.
Older Rick awakened, pulling out the memory and setting it back into the box. He was going to need to be way more drunk for this. He leaned back, taking in the memory of his old friend. They'd promised to leave each other's lives, peacefully, when they no longer had time. She had to go to college and he had his science. And then Rick married someone and she married someone, and then they had kids. He wondered if she had grandkids too. He wondered if she was even still alive.
He set aside the helmet for a moment and went upstairs to refill his flask. As soon as it was refilled, he gulped it all down. He refilled it one more time and then stumbled his way back downstairs.
The next memory he grabbed was titled 'High School 2'.