AUTHOR'S NOTE: THIS IS MY FIRST FANFIC EVER. THE INCREDIBLE CHARACTERS BROUGHT TO LIFE BY ALICE OSEMAN HAVE CAPTURED MY HEART IN A WAY NOTHING ELSE HAS. NICK HAS SUCH AN EXPRESSIVE FACE AND I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE'S THINKING, SO I DECIDED TO FIND OUT. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!

1: Blue

My phone wakes me up to the sound of my favorite song and I stretch in bed. I don't want to get up; the first day back to school after a break is always the worst.

My name is Nicholas Nelson. I'm 16 years old and in year 11 at Truham Boys School. Today is the first day back after Christmas break. Over the break the school sent out letters that they're changing our form groups for the new term. We'll have students from all years in our form, which should be interesting. It'll be nice to have time with people other than the other year 11s that I've spent years having classes with. I make myself a cup of tea and sip it while thinking about how nice it would be to have a new friend.

I get dressed and walk my Border Collie Nellie before school. Nellie is the best dog and I love my walks with her, which is good because she has energy to spare. After we get home she looks up at me with her big doggy smile and I take a picture of her and send it to my mum. I drink a second cup of tea while I feed Nellie and get her all settled then I head to school, wondering what the day will bring.

I get to school and find my friends at the table by the gates. Imogen, Ben, Harry, and all the rugby lads are there. Harry prattles on about some nonsense and everyone laughs like he's the world's first comedian. I laugh along with everyone else, even though I don't think what he said was very funny. I wonder, not for the first time, why I hang out with these guys. I see Ben put his phone in his pocket and then he walks over to the gates and starts making out with some girl from Higgs, the sister school to Truham.

"Nick," Imogen says, sitting next to me on the table, "did you have a good break? Do anything nice for Christmas?"

"Uh, yeah." I say. "I was going to go visit my dad but that didn't work out so I just stayed home with mum and Nellie. We watched a lot of movies and baked some stuff. I made cheesecake for my nan. It's the first cheesecake that I've made but I think it turned out alright."

"And you didn't bring me any? I see how you are Nick Nelson, you never even think about me do you?" She says this with a flirty smile and I grin at her.

Imogen and I have been friends for years now, but lately she's been sitting closer to me, messing with my hair, and making a point of touching me when she can. I think she might like me, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. She's very pretty, and we are good friends, but I don't know if I'm interested in her in a romantic way. I haven't had a girlfriend yet. There was a girl I used to have a crush on. We even kissed at a party once, but I never saw her again after that. I've had lots of crushes on other girls, but I've never really looked at Imogen that way.

"Um, no, it's not that. Just … Nan really loves her baked goods. If I tried to bring a bit for you she'd probably break my hand," I laugh,and as I do I scoot a couple of inches away from her, she was sitting very close. I hope she doesn't notice though, I don't want to hurt her feelings.

"A likely excuse," She giggles. "Well I do hope you'll risk your hand for me next time." She looks at the time on her phone and stands up just before the first bell rings. "I've got to run or I'll be late!" She takes off toward Higgs.

I make my way to my form and Mr. Lange tells me where I'll be sitting. He says my seatmate will be Charlie Spring, a year 10. I feel like I've heard his name, but I don't think I've actually met him. Looks like I'll be making a new friend after all. I hope I will, anyway. Maybe he'll be into rugby; we need a reserve for the team, and it'll be great if we have something in common.

I'm sitting in my seat looking out the window as the room fills up around me. The day is cool and breezy, and there are some leaves fluttering down from the tree just outside. The leaves are twirling in the wind, painting pictures in the sky. I hear Mr. Lange say my name so I glance toward his desk. Standing a few feet away, looking at me, is a boy. This must be my new seatmate.

Charlie Spring has pale skin, dark curly hair, and icy blue eyes and when I look at him standing there in the beam of sunlight coming through the window my heart literally skips a beat. That was weird, I think to myself; maybe I've had too much caffeine this morning. I guess I'll only have one cup of tea tomorrow. I take a steadying breath and then smile at him, hoping I haven't made him feel odd even before he's taken his seat.

"Hi," I say.

"Hi," he replies. His voice is quiet and a little hesitant. And then I remember. He's the one who had been bullied last year. He came out as gay, or maybe he was outed? I don't really know how it happened, but I remember hearing people talk about him. I know there were boys in my year who had been giving him a hard time and I hope he doesn't think I'm one of them. I don't care if he's gay and I don't really see why anyone would care. It seems a stupid thing to give someone shit for, but I know some of the other boys can be real dicks sometimes. I suppose I'll just have to make sure he knows I'm not like them.

Isn't it funny how once you've met someone you see them everywhere? Like, Charlie and I have both been going to this school for years, but we've never even talked before. I'm sure I've passed him in the halls countless times, but I don't remember ever even seeing him. Now, as I go through the school day, it seems like I see him everywhere. I'm talking to some other boys on the rugby team and he passes by, I'm heading toward class and he's walking by me in the other direction, I'm on the field at lunch and he's sitting at a nearby table eating with two of his friends. We don't really talk again, but I know that once we're friends it will be nice seeing him throughout the day. And I've decided we are definitely going to be friends. There's something about Charlie Spring that makes me want to know him better.

The next day I'm sitting at our desk when he gets there again.

"All right?" I ask him.

"All right," he says, with a little less hesitation than the day before.

On the third day he's in class before me. He's sitting at the table and he looks so small. I don't mean that in an insulting way, I just mean that he looks a bit like he wants to curl up inside himself. I can't have that, so I greet him with a cheery "Morning".

"Morning…" he replies, and there's a look on his face that I can't quite decipher.

The next day we reach the door at the same time, bumping shoulders as we enter the room side-by-side.

"Hey!" I say. It's good to see him, and when he gives me a little half-smile I feel happy. I wonder for a moment what it would be like to be friends with Charlie. Not just deskmates, but proper friends. Would we hang round each other's houses? Would we spend time with his friends or with mine? Maybe both? I wonder what he likes to do in his spare time. I wonder what his family is like. He's very nice but very quiet, and sometimes when he's not paying attention to himself he looks quite sad. I want to know why he's sad, and I want to make him feel better. I don't like it when my friends are sad.

"Hey," he says, and he sits at the desk staring into the distance with a pensive expression.

I take out my journal to start writing. I use a fountain pen and I'm excited to write with the lovely new smooth blue ink my nan gave me for Christmas. I pull it out of my back pocket and open the cap. Unfortunately, it must have been upside down in my pocket because when I pull the cap off ink pours out of it, splashing all over my hands and shirt. I'm embarrassed and expect Charlie to jump away from the ink that's still spilling onto the desk and dripping onto the floor, but he's lost in thought.

"Charlie?" I say, but he doesn't respond. "Er, Charlie?" I say more loudly, startling him. He looks at me and I'm just standing there, covered in wet blue ink. "You don't have any tissues do you? My pen … er … exploded."

"Ah, no, sorry" Charlie looks like he truly regrets not having any tissues, but I understand, I don't have any either after all.

Mr. Lange comes to the desk and sees the mess I've made of myself. "Oh dear, Nick, you'd better go clean up in the bathroom. Charlie, can you go with Nick and open the doors for him?"

We get up and leave the classroom together. We make a bit of small talk as we make our way through the halls, Charlie holding each door for me, I apologize for being an inconvenience, we discuss what class he's got next and how nice it would be to miss part of it to help me, we laugh about how Mr. Hutchins smells of cat food, and finally he asks me how my pen exploded.

"It's a fountain pen, they do that sometimes."

"Aren't fountain pens really hard to write with?"

"Yeah, but it makes my handwriting look nice." I like having nice handwriting, I always have. My nan taught me how to use a fountain pen, and I still write her letters once a week even though we see each other quite often. There's something about a sheet of fresh paper covered in perfectly formed letters in shining wet ink that makes me feel really satisfied. If I'm in a rush I'll use a regular inkpen, but I use my fountain pen in all of my journals and for important things.

Inside the bathroom I'm trying to wash all of the ink off, but it's a brand I haven't used before and it's really not budging. Charlie and I are laughing now as I scrub my hands but they remain stubbornly blue. "It's not coming off!" I say in a tone that's half laughter, half panic.

Charlie's laughing too. "You're gonna be blue forever!"

"I look like I'm wearing blue gloves"

"You can make it the new school fashion!"

"I'll pretend it's a tattoo!"

"I think that might be against school rules."

And then the bell sounds. I don't know how long we've been in the bathroom trying to make my hands not look like I'd been in a terrible tye-dye accident, but the beep of the school bell brings us back to reality. We can't be in here all day, it's time for class.

I think to myself that Charlie's probably ready to get out of this bathroom. He'll probably laugh with his friends at lunch about ridiculous Nick Nelson who can't even use a pen properly.

"Oh" I say, and I sound a bit disappointed. I don't particularly like my next class, so maybe that's why I wish I could stay in this room with Charlie for just a bit longer.

"We'd better go," he says.

"Was that the first bell or the second bell?" I ask as I start to dry my hands. I'm hopeful that it's the first bell, then we'll have a couple more minutes together. My hands are still violently blue but at least I won't be staining everything I touch. I'll have to look up the right way to clean this once I get home tonight. I'll ask mum to show me how to get the ink out of my shirt. When I'm done I notice that Charlie still hasn't told me which bell it was. He's looking at his phone, and all of the joy and laughter have drained from his face. I hope he hasn't received bad news.

"Charlie?" I ask.

"Er, yeah," he says "first bell"

I smile at him, glad to have had this time to finally have a real conversation with him. This is it, I think, this is the moment that we become real friends instead of two boys who sit next to one another in class. "Friends?" I say, holding my hand out to him.

"Friends" he says, lightly tapping my hand with his. When he does it's like a jolt of electricity flows through my hand where his fingers touched mine. Must be a lot of static in the air.

Dear Nan,

Thank you again for the lovely ink! You'll be glad to know that it works very well, and will come off your hands eventually with the strategic use of nail varnish remover. Hahaha.

It's been an eventful week at school. They've assigned us new form groups, and I sit next to a boy called Charlie. He's very nice, even if he is a bit quiet. I'll get him to come out of his shell eventually.

Rugby practices are going well. I wish we could play against another team, but we still haven't got a reserve so it's against the rules right now.

I hope you and your friends enjoyed the cheesecake, let me know what you'd like next and I'll make it. I really enjoy baking for you.

Mum and Nellie send their love, I can't wait to see you next week! Maybe you can show me how to make your famous biscuits finally!

Sending you all the love,

Nicky