"You my friend, are deader than a doornail."

Andy stared daggers at Anna as they walked across the open courtyard to the gym. Light rain was falling (not enough to cancel the class, unfortunately), as though the sky knew for a fact Andy was in trouble. "Oh gee thanks, Anna. I never would have guessed."

She shrugged, taking the gold zipper headband out of her hair. "Hey I'm just giving you fair warning."

"Appreciated, but greatly annoyed," he replied, shaking some droplets out of his hair. "Do you know what class she has next?"

"This one." She replied in a happy tone.

Andy groaned. "Please tell me you're kidding." When she just started whistling a tune, he grabbed her shoulder. "You've got to help me!"

"Hey I've got weights, not coed gym. You're on your own. Unless you want Mitzi for protection."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm going I'm going."

"Andy, relax," Anna insisted, shifting her shoulder bag to her other shoulder, "How bad could this be?"

As if on cue, lightning flashed in the sky, followed by a loud clap a thunder four seconds later.

Andy groaned, louder this time. "I'm doomed."

"Oh Bloom!"

"Oh no," the redhead muttered, pulling her gray gym shirt over her head as Mitzi made her way over to her, Ella and a blonde girl she didn't recognize flanking her. There was still an expensive looking diamond headband in her ponytailed hair. "Uh…hey Mitzi." Bloom said, gathering her hair to put it in a side ponytail.

"I need to talk to you about that little incident in English today." Mitzi was smiling, but it seemed to have a certain coldness to it. More than usual, anyway.

"We think you made a little mistake." Elle added, her manicured hands on her hips.

Bloom avoided rolling her eyes. "Look, you've gotta believe I'm not very happy about it, either."

"Oh considering what I saw at the party on Friday, I doubt that."

"You mean the party everyone was too drunk to remember where we were and Elle destroyed your kitchen?" she asked, crossing her arms. Her day had started out bad enough, she didn't need Mitzi to make it worse.

Mitzi glanced at Elle (who was blushing) out of the corner of her eye before smirking. "Bloom, I just want this year to go smoothly. I mean, we used to be the best of friends…"

"And then you started doing drugs and making out with homeless people."

Mitzi's smile – or lack there of, disappeared from her face. "You really want to play hardball on this? Fine. After this little 'project', you need to stay away from Andy."

Any other girl at the school would have been flipping out and nodding their head, scared of the threats that would follow. But Bloom had dealt with Mitzi for years. "Funny, I didn't think he was a piece of furniture."

Mitzi smiled darkly. "I'm sure. But I'm telling you to watch it, or else."

"Oh yeah Mitzi, that sounds so horrible." Bloom said, turning back to throw her light brown, gold flower covered shirt in her gym locker. "I'll be watching my back every single second and sleep with my eyes open. I'll…ah!" her sentence was cut off as she felt something ice cold splash her back through her cheap gym shirt and soak her. The extra blast of air conditioning in the locker room sent goose bumps down her back.

When she turned around, Mitzi was snickering, a half empty water bottle in her hand. "What was that you were saying?"

Bloom opened her mouth, but before she could respond, Elle cut in; "Are you ok, Bloom? You look a little cold."

The redhead's eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything. Instead she turned on her heels and stalked out of the locker room, desperate to find the one person who could help resolve her problem.

"Ten minutes late, Miss Holloway," Coach Roman said as Bloom walked onto the field.

Hearing her name, Andy sat up quickly from his sit-up position, causing his partner (who was holding his feet) to stagger backwards. "Not a good way to start my class." he continued, giving her a stern look.

"I'm sorry sir," Bloom said, tightening her ponytail. Andy noticed the fabric on her left shoulder was a darker color than the rest of her shirt…almost like it was wet.

Coach Roman didn't look pleased…though of course, he always looked like that around the other coach on the field. Roman was right out of college, having scored the job at Gardenia High through an unfortunate incident involving the previous gym teacher and a banana peel (Andy still couldn't believe it). But there really wasn't that much of an age difference between the man and his students, and therefore he was usually much more easygoing. So in this particular case, he only sighed. "Run two laps for me, and we'll call it good. But hustle."

Bloom nodded and jogged off to the dirt track on the outer ring on the field. When she passed by Andy, she gave him a look that clearly said 'I need to talk to you. Now.'

It turned out that was much easier than he thought. "Andy!" Coach Roman called, "What are you doing?"

"Uh…nothing sir." He replied, dusting a blade of grass off his shorts.

Roman glanced from him to Bloom, and then back. A smile was barely visible on his face. "Darn right there isn't, and that's the problem. You're in this class to move." Andy raised an eyebrow, and he shook his head. "Miss Holloway looks a little lonely on the track. Why don't you go join her?"

Andy mouthed a 'thank you' to him and raced off, not even glancing back on his sit up partner.

"Is there any particular reason you're soaked to the bone?" he asked as he finally caught up to Bloom. He had to admit she was a fast runner. If he hadn't had been in track and field the last two years, he probably wouldn't have been able to catch her.

"This…is because…of your…girlfriend," Bloom said between sucking in her breath.

"What girlfriend?"

"Mitzi!" she snapped, "She dumped a water bottle on me with instructions to 'stay away from you once our history project is over."

"Ah, I was wondering why your shirt was soaking wet."

"Andy!" she groaned (well…as well as a person could groan while running), "I'm serious! This not how I wanted to spend my time here."

"Well what am I supposed to do about it?"

"Talk to her!"

"Oh yeah, good one. She's like talking to a brick wall in case you haven't noticed."

"We were friends in elementary school. Trust me, I noticed."

He glanced over at her and saw she was smiling a little. He considered it to be a good sign. "Look," he said after a breath, "You can transfer out of this class; I'll even fill out the paperwork for you. As for the rest, you just stay on the other side of the room and avoid her in the hallways. Doesn't get easier than that."

At that, she actually gave a breath of laughter. "Isn't that a bit childish?"

"Well aren't we all still kids?" he grinned.

Bloom rolled her eyes. "Are you ever serious?"

"Depends on the topic. Not that," he quickly added, "What's happening right now isn't an important topic. It is. It's just…"

"You're trying to impress me and you're failing miserably?" she filled in, staring straight ahead on the track.

"I'm trying to get you to like me." He stated bluntly.

There was a flicker of something in Bloom's eyes – too quick for Andy to make out. "You're basing whether you like me or not on a drunken night at a party hosted by the devil's spawn?" Before he could answer, she picked up her jogging pace, forcing Andy to speed up if he wanted to keep talking to her. "You've known me for exactly three days and you can't stop thinking about me?"

"Ok, now it just sounds stupid."

"It is stupid. You honestly expect me to believe one day I'm going to fall in love with some beach blonde prince of a far away kingdom and live happily ever after?"

"Well…no," he sighed; "Look, I'm sorry about English class. I just really didn't want to work with Mitzi."

"No one does."

There was a few seconds of silence as they passed the class on the field. "Can I make it up to you?" Andy asked once they were out of earshot. "There's this one sushi house on Ninth Street –"

"You're not buying me dinner."

"No, I was going to say we could go there tonight and get a head start on the project. Its really a good place for working."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

"Don't you want to get rid of me?"

Bloom glared at him for a few seconds. "Invite your friends – the ones you were hanging out with at the party. We can all go together, and get head starts on our projects."

He tried not to look excited. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. What time do I need to be there?"

"Six," Andy said, doing the mental calculations in his head faster than any problem in his textbook. "We can all get dinner. And about twenty bucks to split the cost."

"All right then." And with that, she sped off – so fast that Andy couldn't catch up with her. He realized she'd been going slow for him the whole time. That was the first girl who'd ever been able to outrun him...among other things. And after all of his pressure on his friends this morning and his worrying over the English project, he was hanging out with her that night. That was a good thing.

…Right?

Hey ho let's go
I'm gonna start a riot, you don't wanna fight it
One two fuck you; don't tell me what to do
I don't wanna be like you…

The Art of Losing (American Hi-Fi)