Shelly didn't waste any time getting out of the house. Her family was the last thing she wanted to see right now. She quickly grabbed a hashbrown her mom made for breakfast and jolted out of the door.

She sat there on the bench at the bus stop, as her brother Stan and his three equally as idiotic friends Kenny, Kyle, and Cartman tried their best to act like they didn't notice she was bawling her fucking eyes out. They learned at a young age not to mess with Shelly, and she at least gave them mercy for that. She didn't have the energy, especially at such an early hour of the day, to bully Stan and his friends.

Nobody on the bus batted an eye when Shelly walked on a blubbering mare's nest of tears. In fact, such was quite the common sight, as starting off her days with heartfelt quarrels betwixt her and her hungover father were a more-than-infrequent occurrence nowadays. They always left her in shambles afterwards. Nobody cared to ask what was wrong whenever she got on the bus all sniffly and with tear stains lining her eyes. Today was no different.

Well, there was one person that batted an eye.

Shelly didn't notice it, but Kevin McCormick worryingly eyed her the entire ride to school. He was resisting the urge to get out of his seat, sit next to her, and assure her everything was going to be okay. He never liked to see anyone cry, and this sentiment was further intensified when he saw his new crush sob all by herself on the bus.

Of course, he never pulled the trigger. He was a coward.

It was a welcome surprise to Kevin when the trigger pulled itself an hour later.

Kevin, having sprained his ankle in gym class, was seated in the nurse's office when Shelly entered the door. She begrudgingly sat next to him in the only other open chair in the unecessarily small room. Kevin could feel the ardent butterflies in his stomach start to flutter.

"What is it this time, Marsh?" the nurse asked her.

"Nothing, it's just that idiot Mr. Coleman seems to think there's something wrong with me or something," Shelly responded, trying her absolute best to hide the fact that she was crying.

The nurse, falling victim to Shelly's façade, then says, "Well, just have a seat then and I'll write you a pass so you don't get marked as tardy for your next class."

As soon as the nurse walked away from the pair, Kevin turned to Shelly, somehow mustering up the courage to ask her "What's wrong?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, turd?" she snapped back hastily. "Leave me alone," she added.

Kevin then turned his head away in shame. Not just to respect her wishes and 'leave her alone,' but also to hide the fact that his face quickly turned beet red.

As the nurse returned with Shelly's pass, she swiftly exited the room to go to her second block class.

Kevin could hear the nurse talking to him, but the words were drowned out by his peremptory thoughts. He fucking blew it. The first, and possibly only chance to talk to his newfound crush, ruined. She was obviously distraught, yearning for someone to reach out and help, and Kevin sat there like a dumbass after being rejected once.

Little did he know that same girl was thinking the exact same thing as she walked to her class. She so badly wanted to talk with Kevin again after their encounter yesterday, and she even got lucky when he made the first move - but she dunderheadedly shot the boy down instantly. It was her instinct to do so whenever a classmate tried to talk to her, as they usually were just going to make fun of her. Kevin was obviously doing the opposite of that, and Shelly hated herself for not realizing it in the moment.

"Am I ever going to get another chance to talk to him again?" she asked herself.

She didn't need to answer that question - she knew already what she must do if she ever wanted to befriend the boy. She was going to have to execute what she affectionately called "Project M-13" in her diary. She was going to have to take the first step and do something she hadn't done in years.

Apologize.

"Fuck my life..."

Shelly gulped as she entered the cafeteria for lunch. She couldn't believe what she was about to do. She didn't know if she was going to even do it at all. The idea of pussying out was definitely not out of the question yet, as much as she would've liked to think otherwise.

Quickly spotting the boy, she walked over to Kevin's table. She could feel the weight of hundreds of eyes crushing her like a hydraulic trash compactor.

"What the hell is she doing?" most people thought. The small round table in the corner of the cafeteria usually housed by Shelly was noticeably empty.

She couldn't help but realize that, not only did Kevin too sit alone at lunch, but he didn't have any food. None. He sat there, his head resting against the cool metal surface of the table.

God, did she feel bad. So terribly bad. But this gave her an idea.

It was as if a bright and shiny cartoonish lightbulb had appeared above her head. What a genius she was.

All she had to do was give him something from her lunch, quickly blurt out something at least resembling an apology, and then leave. It was like stealing candy from a baby.

Well, she didn't really want to do that.

In an ideal world where she wasn't a sodding milksop, she would've sat right next to him and drawled on about how sorry she was and how she wanted to be his best friend and how she wanted to see him smile and how she wanted to give him a hug and how she wanted to smell his hair-

Wait, what?

Shelly shook her head, quickly bringing herself out of that "fantasy" and back into the real world. The real world where she was suddenly being stared upon by the entire cafeteria, as if they were waiting for some exciting turning point in an action movie. She did a 360 on her heels, observing the onlookers who all swiftly turned their heads away.

She had to back out. Abort mission. Abort mission.

She tried to turn around and take a step back, but, as if her mind was disobeying her, she legitimately couldn't move. She couldn't bring herself to just back out and be a coward like that. For the first time in what felt like forever, a sense of bravery washed over her.

Slowly placing her left leg over the bench, and then retroactively her right leg as well, she sat down next to Kevin.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Gulping, Shelly said "Here, you look like you need this," before sliding a Rice Krispie Treat over to Kevin from her lunch bag.

Kevin's eyes met the tasty-looking snack in front of him, and, resisting the urge to savagely rip off the wrapper and gorge it down, first looked over to the girl sitting next to him. He knew immediately from that slurred voice of hers who it was. Before he even met her eyes, his face already grew to an inconceivably saturated shade of red.

"Sh-Shelly? I can't accept this..." he foolishly responded. As much as he wanted the food, he didn't want anyone's pity, especially Shelly's.

"You can and you will," Shelly retorted rather demandingly, not offering any explanation as to why she was suddenly being so nice and generous to him.

Shelly, imagining he will probably try to throw this out, or more likely give it to someone else, she sat there in awkward silence waiting for him to eat it.

"I want to see you eat it," she said sternly, knowing her face was slowly reaching the same glowy shade of red his was.

Kevin slowly took the Rice Krispie Treat out of it's encasing, before plopping the sweet treat into his mouth and beginning to chew.

Shelly then picked up her bag and got up, about to walk back towards her own table.

Kevin, quickly sensing he was about to lose his only chance, a burst of courage rushing through his veins like an illegal stimulant, blurted out "Where are you going?"

Shelly stopped dead in her tracks.

Her head lifted up and her eyes shot open.

Kevin immediately regretted saying anything. She was going to turn around and beat his ass, or take the treat back, or something. How dare he talk to her like that?

"H-huh? You want me to... sit here with y-you?" she queried, now facing him once more.

Kevin buried his face in his hands. "N-no, I'm sure you have tons of friends to go talk with. Just go away. I'm not worth-"

"No, no, no, it's fine, it's fine," she assured him, embarrassed at how quickly she did so. "I mean, no, it's not a problem," she repeated, this time more softly, trying to sound as if she was all calm and relaxed about the situation.

"I kinda... sit by myself too..." she admitted. She hadn't even told her parents that before.

Kevin looked up from his hands once more, locking eyes with Shelly. "You're never going to sit alone again," he said. "I won't allow it. You don't deserve that."

Shelly couldn't help but grow a smile on her face. She could tell he said that from the heart.

There were two words Shelly's mind were telling her to say. You know the ones. They rhyme with "spank through" and "Frank Hugh," but she just couldn't bring herself to blurt the words out. Fuck, she really hated herself right now. It was a simple saying. He deserved it, too - he was being so nice to her, something nobody outside of her own family circle had done for years. Yet her brain, hardwired to hate, prevented her from even saying thank you.

Whatever. She couldn't beat herself up now - she had to save that for later in her room after school. She couldn't come off like an idiot to him now. She had to make a good first impression. She was sitting right next to her new crush.

Kevin fucking McCormick. The person everyone in school knew as the biggest loser in the entire district.

Now she knew that he definitely wasn't worthy of that title.

And, with god as her witness, she was going to make damn sure he knew that too.