Nikki couldn't believe it. Of course, she was used to the occasional slip up, maybe an appetizer sliding off a tray or bumping into someone "really important". But that—that moment right then—was the worst. She had actually dumped ice into the shirt of Cameron "Cam" Fisher, son of Hamilton Fisher and Margaret Fisher.

Not that she actually cared, of course. To her, Cam was just another snobby prep boy who got everything with the snap of his fingers. But, still; if he reported this to Kendra Block, she'd make sure that Denise's catering company would never cater ever again.

"I am so sorry," Nikki enunciated, not really meaning it. She put on her best apologize-till-you're-dead front and helped Cam as best as she could.

Cam had never realized his true hatred to ice until now. It was freezing. He was hopping around, reaching for his back and creating a small scene. Quiet murmurs arose from the crowd. When he finally got all the ice out, his back was numb, his shirt was saturated and there was a roar of laughter coming from his table. He shot Chris a death glare but he continued on raucously, replaying the video he took on his phone. Nina was glaring at Nikki who had a prominent smirk on her face. When Cam noticed her, the smirk only widened.

"Um…" she started, her eyebrows going up. "I'm… sorry?" She bit her bottom lip and averted her eyes, a small snort coming from her nose.

Nina was the first to react. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she yelled. This got Nikki's attention. "You spill ice into my friend's shirt, stand there and watch him make a fool of himself, and you have the nerve to laugh?" she hissed.

Cam could hear Chris chanting, "Girl fight!" in the background, followed by an "Ow!" He took Nina, who was seething, by the arms and gently shoved her aside. He wasn't surprised to see that Nikki now had a look of complete terror on her face. Nina was probably the sweetest girl he knew; yet she knew just the right things to say to scare off a herd of cattle.

Nikki composed herself, squeezing the ice bucket tighter. "I am sorry, though. Seriously. That… It was rude of me to laugh at you when it was my fault. I hope you can forgive me." This time, Cam did notice the sincerity in her purple eyes. He also noticed her purple eyes.

She had purple eyes.

After all this time, he thought he had weird eyes, when for the past seven minutes, this girl with deep purple eyes has been standing here. Unless they were contacts, but he was sure as fuck that no one would want oddly colored eyes.

"You look familiar," he said instead, completely forgetting about what went down. It seemed as if the crowd forgot it too. Nina's eyebrows furrowed and she squeezed his elbow. He shook her off and continued to stare at Nikki. "I've seen you before, haven't I?" he continued, eager to remember who this girl was.

Nikki's eyes rolled. Of course he wouldn't know who she was. He was at the top and she was lonely at the bottom. At least Kristen had a spot near the middle, with all the jocks. "I'm no one particularly important. Now if you excuse me, I have a job to get back to." She turned on her heel gracefully—to her luck—and marched away. She barged into the kitchen where Denise was already waiting for her half of the story. Nikki sighed and explained the accident and how she asked for his forgiveness and how she walked out without hurting anyone else.

For the rest of the night, she was stuck in the kitchen, helping Denise gather ingredients for the three-course meal.

-:-

Cam didn't stop thinking about her and her eyes. He wanted to know if they were real or not. When she walked off, he watched her. Of course, he glanced at her butt (which was pretty decent for someone her size), but he paid close attention to her saunter. She had a different… everything, really. He was desperate to find out her name. Sadly, no one, not even Massie, knew her name. But all of them agreed—they had seen her somewhere, they just didn't know where.

She didn't come out again, he noticed. The entire night he was looking out for her but she didn't come out again, not even to help serve the main courses. The night ended with Derrick telling them that he was going to save Massie for another night but he was still going home with a busty brunette by the name of Alexa. Chris had scored a night with the infamous Alicia Rivera, all boobs and no brain. Dylan rode with Nina home, saying she was going to spend the night there. That left Cam all by himself by his car, trying to find the keys to his car and also keeping an eye out for the purple-eyed girl.

By the time he unlocked his door and reversed from his space, he still hadn't seen her. He gave up on trying to find her, thinking maybe that it really was just someone with purple contacts who had a thing for scaring people. But he couldn't shake off the feeling that they were real. He wanted to know how she dealt with it. How she dealt with all the name-calling and the staring and the fact that no one wanted to be seen around people like them. He wanted to know her secrets.

-:-

It was 10:48pm. Since the last time Nikki checked her alarm clock, a solid three minutes had passed. Why couldn't she go to sleep? She sure as hell was tired. She just didn't know why her brain wasn't shutting off. She didn't stop thinking about his eyes though; one was blue and one was green. It wasn't… right. It was so weird. And then he asked who she was, as if they'd never had a class together.

Technically, they never did have a class together, but wasn't it an obligation to know everyone in your graduating class?

That was it. She rolled out of bed, pulled on red sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt and grabbed her car keys from her bedside drawer. Quietly, she snuck out of her house (which actually wasn't a very hard thing to do) and got into her car. She connected her phone to the ox cable and a blink-182 song began playing. She was glad that her car purred instead of roared to life; she backed out of the driveway quickly and drove to her favorite destination.

-:-

She didn't know why but she felt safe and content in the quietness of the gas station. Tonight's cash register was Linda, a 24-year-old who was going through law school and using that money to help pay off her loans. She bought a medium sized coffee and plopped herself down on one of the tables. Aside from her, there was a couple watching a video on their laptop, smiling and making small side comments. There was a tired-looking guy, probably still a freshman in college, who was looking through his stack of papers and muttering things to himself. Then there was the old man on his laptop and a younger boy across him, playing some sort of online game.

When Nikki was lonely or sad or just needed a place to go, she went here. This was her safe haven. She began scrolling through her phone and she plugged her earphones into her ears. New Found Glory pumped through her ears. It was probably a song or two later that someone pulled a chair from across her and made himself comfortable.

Him.

The person that made her want to go here in the first place.

One green eye.

One blue eye.

an: i actually didn't plan to stretch this out any longer than three chapters, but i wanted the last chapter to be really special :)

review please?

ps i didn't make the effort to check for spelling/grammar mistakes, so please excuse those, haha. :D