Sara had always been 'the smart girl' at school.

Her girlfriends treated her to that label with a dismissive tone, when they found the rules of teenage life did not apply to Sara – say, she didn't like shopping, or, more incredible, wasn't interested in boys – yeah, but you've got all these 'smart-girl' hobbies, Sara, you've got Mozart playlists on your iPhone, and you read Shakespeare for fun.

So what if she did?

Apparently, that was breaking away from the path of normal adolescents, and all deviations from it were generally blamed on 'what a smart girl' she was.

But even then, some transgressions were held to be more serious than others.

It was nearly the end of September when Sara did something that shocked her group of friends beyond the usual. By that time, summer was already a fast-fading sunset, the habits of high school life just around the corner. It's like riding a bicycle, some people say, you don't forget how (as she'd never actually been on a bike in her life, Sara would have to take their word for it). Getting up at six in the morning, having to choose between fast-forwarding through your morning shower and skipping breakfast, being so bored during class because the teacher's just rehashing a bland version of something he's already said, and, last but not least, that intimate circle of girlfriends that Sara somehow loved but didn't like, the girls that had been her truest friends since middle school.

Gretchen Morgan, Lisa Tabak and Nika Volek were the most prominent members, with Gretchen as their uncontested Queen Bee.

It was an unchallenged law of nature that, by the time the clocks struck twelve inside the vast private school rooms, Gretchen had already teased at least one of her close friends, without mentioning the other yet more criticism-prone students. Though no victim or masochist, Sara had accepted this and often greeted the slights with a remark provocative enough to further shock her friends. It was a way of making it so Gretchen became the butt of her own joke, and the only way for Sara to tolerate this cruel habit.

Too little too late for her to look for a clean break.

Sara had simply been friends with the girls long enough that, at this point, the bond would hold through thick and thin, and any attempt to sever it would only lead to avoidable suffering and – which was much worse to Sara – high school drama.

"I don't believe you, S."

Sara had been fishing through her drawer for her history notebook when she heard Gretchen's voice behind her.

Sure enough, the two other girls, Lisa and Nika, were standing on each flank, like two pretty armed weapons Gretchen was holding ready to aim and fire.

"I wish you'd humor me and start using my full name again," Sara said, unfazed. "S is a little sophomore, don't you think?"

This was only part strategy to change subject. Sara really had been growing increasingly annoyed of that nickname.

"No need for secrets," Gretchen ignored the argument altogether. "I heard all about it from Nando. You know Linc tells him everything." She added as if, logically, that meant Sara should have assumed Gretchen would have been made aware of what had happened.

Not that much had happened, by any reasonable standards.

Sara shrugged. "Well, I didn't really think being turned down was bragging material."

"Good, thank you for putting it out there." Gretchen sighed. "I swear, I don't know why you're so intent on throwing away all the best opportunities that come at you."

"Again, it didn't strike me Lincoln Burrows was an opportunity. I must have missed the signpost."

"Yeah, and it was a big shiny red one, you know, the way signposts try to look when your life depends on it."

That was pushing it too far for Sara to hold back a laugh. "I'm not interested in boys, Gretchen. As I remember, you've already settled that was weird a long time ago – can we move on now?"

"It was weird four years ago, S. Since you turned seventeen, though, it's just been getting a little more beyond words with every second."

Sara rolled her lips together, without managing to feel annoyed. Honestly, she just wanted for the four of them to get to class and start talking about something else.

"What'd you want me to say?"

"That you're interested in girls. Or older men. Anything other than getting into med school and your little social justice battles."

"It's for your own sake," Nika agreed. "You know high school's supposed to be a special time. We just – we don't want you to feel later like you've missed out on it."

"And yet," Sara exhaled, "all you're doing is giving me plenty of something I definitely won't miss."

"Lincoln Burrows's a catch, Sara." Gretchen spoke her full name as she slipped into deeper seriousness. "Even you can't not see that."

"Why? Because he's handsome, because he plays in the basketball team?"

Sara did hope once out of high school, these things would not be markers of value to any sane mind in the vicinity.

Sara added with a let's-cut-the-bullshit look. "Or because you want to date him?"

"Well," Gretchen admitted, without looking bruised in the slightest, "it would have been considerate of you to at least go on a couple of dates with him to fix something up. Rapprochement. Aren't you supposed to be diplomatic?"

Those words were thrown at her every once in a while, understood to be vague synonyms of 'smart'.

"Honestly, Sara." Gretchen sighed.

Sara felt relieved, because the bell had just rung, and Gretchen looked like she was just about done with the subject, at least for the next few hours – naturally, she would hear about it again at lunch.

"Sometimes, I think you're just trying not to do what's expected of you."

Sara shrugged her shoulders.

It was more strategic to allow Gretchen to have her way. Sara had learned long ago that fighting against labels only led to the label being shoved more forcefully down your throat.

To be fair, she wasn't trying to do what was expected of her – which didn't mean she was deliberately aiming for the reverse.

Gretchen, naturally, would not understand this as she was the strictest follower of social etiquette, the performer par excellence, who acted her own character variably depending on the seasons – whatever the new black was, Gretchen was sure to be among the first to wear it – her one never-changing feature was her capacity to adapt to her environment so as to ensure her chances of survival.

"I don't understand you," Gretchen said again, after taking Sara by the arm as a sign of truce while they were walking to their classroom. "You can at least see that he's handsome."

Now, her perception rather than judgment was under scrutiny.

And yes, Sara did have eyes enough to see Lincoln Burrows was as close as teenagers could get to the male definition of 'handsome' – that is to say, strongly-built, with fortunate green eyes and even a smile that looked authentic rather than an imitation of older men, actors, publicity models. That smile that's meant to hint at the unspoken treasures he'll pour on the lucky woman who catches his eye. Most of the teenagers who tried to smile like this achieved nothing but ridicule, but there was something about Lincoln Burrows's matter-of-fact behavior that hinted he was the kind to mean business. He, for all that may be said against him, was his own person, which was a compliment Sara also liked to treat to herself.

Indeed, Sara even liked Lincoln, though they had few occasions to really talk to each other. Their relationship as friends had only taken off last summer, when Lincoln's grades had gotten deplorable enough that his parents left him no choice but to at least appear to take his graduation seriously. That he would ask for her help hadn't struck Sara as all that shocking – she was, after all, reputed to be the smartest girl in school – or, mind you, as any attempt from Lincoln to make a move on her.

He had actually behaved admirably, on the evenings when they met up at the school library to study, showing himself to be enough of a quick-learner that Sara was at once settled on the fact that his alarming grades had been the result of neglect and disinterest rather than strict unintelligence. Really, Sara didn't doubt his motives had been as plain as he had put them to her when he first asked for her help.

And he had taken her refusal to go out with him pretty well, all in all.

Disappointed, and with enough confidence to own his disappointment rather than draw up his defenses and aggressively dismiss her.

"Wow," he'd said, as if this hadn't happened to him a lot, at least since he'd grown taller and bulkier than most of the adult men Sara knew. Then he'd started laughing to himself softly, rubbing the stubble on his chin with his thumb. "That's too bad. I mean, I really like you. I could have sworn you liked me back."

"I do," she said.

He had treated her answer like one of the equations they studied together, an intricate unfathomable piece of mystery he didn't know what to make of.

Her own fondness for him made itself undeniable and symptoms soon started to spring within her – pangs in the chest, a rush of heat in her cheeks. She was sorry to hurt him.

But Sara honestly had no remote interest in the oh-so-desired state of 'having a boyfriend', whose unquestioned popularity she actually wondered at.

Wasn't your natural state aloneness, weren't you born without a companion attached at the hip? Therefore, shouldn't it be your wish for a change in that state that would be considered strange rather than the reverse?

People interested Sara as a cluster of signs to be read like enigmas, pieces in her ever-widening study of social behavior and human nature.

So far, her interest in relationships had generally stopped there.

"Sara?" Gretchen nudged at her lack of response.

"Yes. Sorry." She shook her head. "It's not so bad. I mean, we're going to stay friends."

Sara hoped this would actually be true. Though Lincoln's pride hadn't been wounded enough that he'd refused to cancel their study-sessions right there and then, Sara did dread some new awkwardness between them that would just prove impossible to stifle.

The girls managed to sneak into the history classroom tailing after the last wave of entering students, so that their teacher could pinch his lips at them but not outright accuse them of being late.

As usual, Sara sat at the front row, which was the more desolate, while her girlfriends took their habitual seats in the back.

Sara noticed Lincoln was already seated, and she cast a glance his way, almost expecting that his eyes would follow her as she made her way through the classroom, which no doubt would give Gretchen and the girls something to feed their gossipy talk and keep them going until the matter was further explored at lunch.

But Lincoln was not looking at her.

Indeed, he did not acknowledge her presence at all, not with that becoming smile he usually saved up for her when they saw each other in class.

There was an icy air of vexation on his face, which Sara first thought she was responsible for.

It was only when she reached the front row that she noticed where Lincoln was looking, a green glare more outwardly displeased than she had ever seen on his face before.

On the seat next to Sara's, normally vacant, there was a young boy she didn't remember ever seeing at school, tall – though you couldn't really tell how tall while he was sitting – and looking frail for his medium-sized clothes. Indeed, he was a peculiar sight, with a shock of dark brown hair like wool to the touch, and eyes unhinging blue.

"Miss Tancredi."

"Sorry."

Sara took her seat, annoyed at herself that she'd been arrested by the presence of intruder on the neighboring seat.

His sitting there, she assumed, was by all means accidental.

The front row was the least crowded of all, probably he had only meant not to draw attention, if he had not been directed by the teacher himself, who was known to bemoan students' lack of bravery when it came to their enduring his presence directly, face to face, for the full class.

Still, surprise had piqued its way into Sara's chest, and she felt oddly more annoyed for it.

A newcomer, this late in the season? And no one at all had been talking about it?

Indeed, as Gretchen considered herself the center of any influx of gossip that was of the least importance, Sara felt she would have heard about this if anyone had been sharing the news.

They were talking now.

The whispers behind them was like the chirping of insects on a summer night, where the sheer absence of silence and brewing life about you keeps you from sleep.

Their questions penetrated Sara's brain despite her will – Who was the strange boy? Strangers are strange by definition, and boys, to girls' minds, especially. How could he have arrived here so silently, without perturbing the perennial flow of chattering talk in the school in the least?

And why was Lincoln Burrows staring daggers at him?

…

End Notes: This popped out one morning as I stood at my desk. I've never written an alternate-high-school story before, and yet I find myself full of ideas as to where this is going. I'd love to know yours, so do share your reactions in the comment section. See you soon!