A/N: Contrary to the cover image and to the title, this story has nothing to do with The Breakfast Club,or the song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds. I know it's surprising, given that the majority of my stories are inspired by songs. I hope you won't be too disappointed.
This story was one that I came up with while procrastinating my other stories. I thought it would be a fun idea and it kind of combines a few different fanfic tropes, which, honestly, isn't that why we're all here? We've got enemies to lovers, we've got amnesia, we've got "I did you a favor, so now you have to go on a date with me." It's a grand time.
Enjoy!
"Cindy, don't touch that! Just sit over there and stay out of my way," Jimmy demanded. "It's bad enough that I have you as a partner for my science project, I don't need you messing things up in my lab." Jimmy turned back around and continued to work on the project in front of him.
"Your science project? This is a partnered assignment. I'm not your minion. I'm not just going to sit back and let you take all the credit!" Cindy fired back.
"I don't need your help. Just let me do the work and I'll tell Mr. Glover that you worked on the project too. It'll be an easy A for you."
"I don't want an easy A. Did you ever once consider that I know what I'm doing and I might actually be an asset to you?" Cindy stated. She began examining a device sitting on the table.
"Look, Cindy. I know you're smart. Trust me. You've been trying to prove that to me since I met you. But I can do this project on my own. I don't need a partner. Look at it this way: I do all the work, and you have some extra time for… I don't know, whatever you want I guess."
"What I want is for you to suck it up and let me work on this project with you!" Cindy yelled.
"Why do you care so much? I'm offering to do all the work and give you half the credit. Most people dream of being partnered with me," Jimmy commented.
"Well, I'm not most people. I actually like to earn my grades." Cindy was now tinkering with the device that she found. "And please, I'm sure people dream of much more interesting things than having you for a science partner. Get off your high horse."
Jimmy rolled his eyes as he turned around to face Cindy. He had just about had it with her. "For once can you—DON'T TOUCH THAT!" Jimmy yelled.
Startled, Cindy fumbled the device, nearly dropping it, caught it at the last second, but accidentally turned it on in the process. There was a bright flash as the device whirred to life and beeped. The device sent shockwaves through Cindy, zapping her for several seconds. Cindy dropped the device as she stumbled backwards, ultimately tripping over herself and falling to the ground, unconscious.
"Oh my God, Cindy!" Jimmy ran over and knelt by Cindy's side. He checked her vitals to make sure she was still alive and sighed in relief as he felt her pulse.
Jimmy was pulling his phone out of his pocket to call 911, when he heard Cindy groan as she sat up. "Oh my God. Are you okay?"
Cindy rubbed her head and looked around. She wore a confused expression on her face. "I think so. Where am I?"
Jimmy stared at Cindy for a moment, trying to process what had happened. "We're in my lab," he finally stated.
"Okay, and you are…?" Cindy continued.
"Jimmy. Jimmy Neutron. Your neighbor," Jimmy offered. "Do you know what happened?"
"No."
"Do you know your name?" Jimmy asked. He was worried something bad may have happened.
"That's a stupid question. Of course I do," Cindy stated.
"Can you tell me your name?" Jimmy asked, annoyed.
"Why should I? I don't even know you."
"Look, if you don't know your name, that's fine. I'll just call emergency services and they can come check you out. I'm sure your parents will be thrilled to have to pay for that," Jimmy explained.
Cindy sighed. "My name is Cindy Vortex."
"Good. Do you know where you go to school?"
"Retroville High."
"Good. And who's your best friend?"
"Libby Folfax. What's with all the stupid questions?" Cindy asked, irritated.
Ignoring her remark, Jimmy asked another question. "Who are some of your other friends?"
"Look, I don't know who you are. I'm not answering anymore of your annoying questions. You said this was your lab, so can you point me in the direction of the exit?" Cindy demanded as she stood up.
Jimmy stood and pointed towards the door. He still wasn't entirely sure what had happened.
"Thanks," Cindy said as she turned to leave.
"Cindy, wait!" Jimmy called.
Cindy turned around impatiently. "What?"
"You really don't know who I am?"
"No. Am I supposed to?"
"Well, kind of. Yeah. I'm…your science partner."
"For Mr. Glover's class? Yeah right. I've never seen you before in my life." Cindy turned to leave again.
"Cindy, can you just stop for one minute!" Jimmy yelled.
Cindy turned around ready to tell off the strange boy yelling at her, when she saw the worried look on his face. "Hey, are you okay?"
"No. You don't seem to remember me at all, and yet, all your other memories seem to be perfectly fine. It's like your mind erased just me."
"That's impossible. That's not how amnesia works," Cindy argued.
"It's not amnesia. You were messing around with my device, and you must have changed the settings on it," Jimmy thought out loud.
"What device?"
Jimmy ran over to get the device to show her. It was completely fried. He turned around to show Cindy, but she was gone. Jimmy sighed in defeat. She had outwitted him, and now he would never be able to help her.
Cindy smiled to herself as she walked up the stairs and opened the door to the outside world. She tricked that boy in there. She was glad, he was starting to creep her out. She closed the door behind her and paused, extremely confused. She was right across the street from her house. That kid was telling the truth? He really was her neighbor? Pure luck, she thought to herself.
Cindy crossed the street and walked inside her home. When Cindy was inside, she heard her mother holler from the kitchen, "Cindy, is that you? How is your science project going?"
Cindy paused. Science project? Cindy knew she had one for class, but she didn't remember starting it yet. "It's going great. I'm just heading upstairs to work on some more homework," Cindy finally replied.
Mrs. Vortex walked out into the front room. "Good girl. Next time you head over to the Neutrons' can you return this baking dish to Judy? And tell her I said thank you." Mrs. Vortex handed the dish to Cindy and walked back into the kitchen.
Cindy set the dish down on the sideboard and followed her mother into the kitchen. "Why would I go over to the Neutrons'?"
Mrs. Vortex looked at her daughter with a confused look on her face. "Aren't you partnered up with their son for your science project?"
The Neutrons' have a son? Wait, that boy said his name was Jimmy Neutron. That made no sense. Cindy was extremely confused, but didn't think now was the time to argue about facts with her mother. "Oh, yeah."
Her mother laughed and turned back to her cooking. "Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes. Go get cleaned up. You look like you've been electrocuted."
Electrocuted? Cindy ran upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror in shock. She did look like she had been struck by a large amount of static electricity. Cindy sat down on the edge of the bathtub dumbfounded. Why did she look like that? Since when did the Neutrons' have a son? Who was that boy that seemed to know everything about her and was apparently her science partner? She had to do some digging.
Cindy cleaned herself up and headed into her bedroom. She unlocked her phone and opened up her Instagram. It was time to do some light internet stalking. She typed in the name Jimmy Neutron in the search bar and the suggested people popped up in the drop down menu. She clicked on the first one, recognizing the face in the picture as the boy she had met earlier. His profile loaded and Cindy immediately tensed. She was already following him. She clicked on his Following list and saw that he was following her too. She also noticed that he was following all of the same people she did. Cindy tried to reason with herself. They both go to Retroville High, so of course they would have similar friends. She still wasn't sure why she was already following him though. That freaked her out a little.
Cindy scrolled down to look at his profile. The first post was from a few weeks ago, so he obviously didn't post much. She looked at his tagged photos and recognized the first one. It was from Libby. Cindy tapped on the photo to make it bigger. It was a photo of Libby and all of her friends at the paintball range last week. "Life is better with friends… And in lots of colors!" Libby had captioned the photo. It was a group shot of everyone after their battle. There was Sheen, Carl, Libby, Nick, Betty, Brittany, Cindy, and that-so-called-Jimmy. Cindy remembered being there at the paintball fight. She still had a welt to prove it. So why couldn't she remember that boy? There weren't that many people in their group and she knew everybody else, so why didn't she know who this Jimmy person was?
Cindy had been friends with the same group of people since elementary school. They all seemed to know who he was. Cindy closed out of the app and pulled her scrapbook and yearbooks off of her bookshelf. She flipped through her elementary school yearbooks and Jimmy had been in her class every year since she had moved to Retroville. That made no sense. Cindy was starting to freak out. How could any of this be possible?
Against her better judgement, Cindy looked through her scrapbook. She had gotten into scrapbooking when she was in middle school before Instagram was popular. As she looked through the photos a feeling of fear washed over her. Jimmy was in nearly every one of her friend photos. What panicked her the most though was that she didn't remember some of the events that the photos were taken at. Cindy felt light-headed. How could she not remember these things? Clearly they happened, because she had pictures to prove it, and she was the only one who looked at her scrapbook.
Cindy had one more thing to look at to see if she was losing it. She pulled out her phone one more time and opened up her messages. She was about to type Jimmy Neutron into the search bar, but she didn't have to; his contact name was the first one on her list, proving that she had talked to him recently. She clicked on the conversation and noticed that she had messaged him earlier that day. She read the last few messages between them:
Jimmy: Are you still good to come over to work on the science project?
Cindy: Yeah, I just have to be home for dinner at 6
Jimmy: Okay. Do you want a ride home after school? I took the hovercar today.
Cindy: I'm not riding in that death trap. I'll just take the bus, thanks.
Jimmy: Whatever, just come straight to the lab when you get home.
Cindy: Fine, see you then.
Hovercar? Surely that must be a joke. But the rest of it seemed to be real. That boy was right: All of Cindy's memories of him were gone, even though she remembered everything else.
At first Cindy didn't think it was that big of a deal. Who cares if she didn't remember one person? He couldn't have that much of an impact on her life. But as she looked through more photos in her scrapbook, he was in nearly every photo. Maybe he had a bigger influence on her life than she thought. Cindy decided that tomorrow she would go over and talk to him.
Jimmy growled in frustration as he failed, yet again, to get the memory device to work. Cindy had done a real number to it. He wasn't sure if he would be able to fix it. It's not like it mattered anyway. Cindy wasn't interested in getting her memories back.
"Jimmy, it's time for dinner!" Mrs. Neutron's voice came over the intercom system. "Would Cindy like to join us?"
"Cindy went home already. I'll be up in a minute," Jimmy replied. He put the memory device back on the shelf where it usually sat and closed up his lab. He would try to fix it tomorrow.
Jimmy sat down at the dinner table and stared glumly down at his plate. He didn't know why he was so upset. It's not like he and Cindy were even close friends.
"How's your science project going, sweetie?" Mrs. Neutron asked her son.
"Okay, I guess," Jimmy mumbled.
"It must be nice to work with such a smart girl like Cindy."
"Yeah, it's real wonderful," Jimmy said sarcastically.
"I know you and Cindy have had your disagreements, but you two are friends. I would hate for you to lose a friendship over something silly like a school project," Mrs. Neutron commented.
"So now school is silly? I thought school was important."
"It is important, but it's more important to be a good person, Jimmy. Do you really want to lose Cindy as a friend because you couldn't work together?"
I've already done that, Jimmy thought to himself. "You're right, Mom. I'll try harder," Jimmy replied, hoping to end the conversation. Jimmy couldn't help but feel slightly guilty. If he hadn't yelled at Cindy, she wouldn't have dropped the device, and none of this would have happened.
"Good. I'm glad. Now eat up before your dinner gets cold."
"Jimbo, this came in the mail for you today," Mr. Neutron chimed in. He handed Jimmy a large envelope.
Jimmy took the envelope from his dad and opened it. His parents sat waiting with bated breath. Jimmy pulled out the documents and read the cover letter silently to himself. A smile began to form on his face.
"That looks like good news to me!" Mr. Neutron exclaimed. "Did you get it?"
"Yes! I got the National Innovations in Sciences Award! I get to speak at the ceremony at the end of this month!"
"Oh, congratulations, sweetie! I'm so proud of you!" Mrs. Neutron gave her son a side hug and kissed him on the cheek.
"Oh shoot. I can only bring one guest," Jimmy mentioned as he pulled out the invitation stating it was for 'James Neutron and Guest.'
"Oh. Well, you should bring a date then!" Mrs. Neutron enthused. "You'll have more fun."
Jimmy stared at his mother. "You think one of my classmates would want to go to an award ceremony with me? One where I'm being honored and have to give a speech? Yeah, like they won't make fun of me for months and call me conceited."
"Just think about it, Jimmy."
"How about Cindy?" Mr. Neutron suggested.
"What about her?" Jimmy asked.
"Why don't you invite her to go with you? She likes all that science stuff too, doesn't she?"
"Hugh, stop," Mrs. Neutron warned.
"What, doesn't Jimmy like her? Weren't you telling me earlier how you could tell that they had a connection?"
Mrs. Neutron put her face in her hands in embarrassment.
Jimmy sat frozen with mortification.
"What? Did I say something wrong?" Mr. Neutron asked, clueless.
After an awkward and silent dinner, Jimmy was up in his room working on his awards speech. Or trying to anyway. He was still trying to process the fact that his parents had talked about his love life. That was the downside to being a genius and an only child; his parents didn't have anything or anyone else to worry about.
Jimmy shut his laptop and unlocked his phone. He deserved a break. He opened up his messages and sent a group text to Sheen and Carl.
Jimmy: How's your science project going?
Carl: We haven't started yet.
Sheen: Don't tell me you're already done! Man, why couldn't I get partnered up with you?
Jimmy: No, I'm not done. But that's mostly because of Cindy.
Carl: What happened? Did you guys get in a fight?
Sheen: You mean a lovers' quarrel?
Jimmy: 😒 No… Well, yeah, we got into a fight. I don't know why Mr. Glover paired us up.
Carl: What was the fight about?
Jimmy: I was trying to get the project done, but she insisted that we do the project together. I could have had it done today if I'd just done it myself.
Carl: So you're mad at her because she actually wanted to do her homework? That sounds like a really stupid fight.
Jimmy: It's more complicated than that.
Sheen: Just kiss and make up.
Carl: I have to agree with Sheen. That sounds like the best option.
Jimmy stopped replying to the thread. How could he begin to explain to his friends that Cindy had lost her memory, but of just him, and also explain why it bothered him so much? All they would do is make fun of him.
Jimmy never had a problem admitting to himself that he had a crush on Cindy, but every time someone asked him if he did, he always denied it. Infatuation is such a raw feeling and exposing it to the world made him feel uncomfortable. Arguing with Cindy was easier than flirting with her, so Jimmy always chose to argue. He'd been arguing with her for pretty much his entire life, and now she had no memory of him whatsoever. As much as he hated to admit it, a huge part of his life was now gone. It made him sad to think about it. Jimmy vowed to himself that if Cindy ever got her memories back, he would tell her how he really felt about her.
A/N: Originally I was going to post the entire story as a one shot, but It got to be too long so I decided to break it up. This story will probably have 4-5 chapters.
Leave a review! I always like to know what my readers think.