Samheed Burkesh awoke to the sound of a blaring alarm. He growled, covered his head with his pillow. His mom burst open into his room, flicking on the lights. "Up up up! First day of school!"

He groaned and hissed a few regrettable and rude words at her when she left. He had no choice but to get up and get ready for his first day of freshman year. His first day of high school, which meant a full leap from middle school. He rummaged through his closet for an outfit, pulling together a pair of jeans and red crew neck shirt. In his bag he made sure to pack his beat headphones, since he knew how much music helped him get through the day.

He went downstairs and grabbed a few granola bars from the closet before saying goodbye to his mom (his dad worked in the military, so he was almost never home). He walked out the door at a normal pace and started his way over to the bus stop.

The bus stop wasn't very far or difficult to get to, since Sam's house was close the the spot. He lived in a big neighborhood, and the bus sometimes neglected picking up kids when they didn't show up.

When he got there, he saw that his best friend, Meghan Ranger was already there. They'd been friends and neighbors since third grade. She yawned and began pulling her gorgeous red waves into a bun. "Morning."

He grunted in response. "This whole day is giving me an internal crisis."

"It hasn't even started yet," she said.

"It did," he replied with a glare directed at his neighbors boarding the bus. "When I woke up ten minutes ago.

She sighed. "Seriously, Sam? I woke up thirty minutes ago to pick out my clothes, which took ages. And then I had to do makeup and eat breakfast. I'm brutally exhausted."

"Aren't we all," he said sarcastically.

"Your a boy. You wouldn't get it."

"Yeah, you've told me," he said, causing her to laugh and roll her eyes.

Samheed started to get nervous, like, really nervous. He began rambling on and on about the list of bad things that would happen today. "...and I can't believe we only have three classes together. I'll have to talk to strangers, Meghan. I don't like socializing with weirdos."

Meghan smiled as the bus pulled up. "Perfect. This is a chance for both of us to make new friends."

"They're all weirdos!"

She sighed and got in line behind the kids boarding the bus. "You already have a few friends anyway. Maybe you'll get lucky and they will be in your class."

He snorted, thinking of his long time crush and friend. "Yeah, like Alex."

Meghan rolled her eyes. "I don't get why you don't just talk to him about your stupid crush. It's not like it'll ruin anything."

"Yes it will," Samheed said in a quieter voice. "Our friendship. And besides, my crush has faded over the years."

"Ha," she replied. "I don't know about that."

Aaron Stowe hated the bus. He hated the bus with a fiery passion. All the juniors crammed themselves in the back of the bus with the loud seniors, and he wanted to hide. He had his twin brother to sit with usually, but sometimes Alex wanted to sit alone. This was another one of those times, of course the first day of school. Stupid brother. Stupid bus. Stupid-

"Is this seat taken?"

Aaron looked up and saw a surprising sight. A girl with short, light brown hair and tan skin stood above him. She looked like a surfer girl who had just moved from California.

He shook his head and made room for her. He felt slightly bad she would have to sit with the quiet, reserved kid, since all the other seats were taken.

"I'm Kaylee Jones," she said with a smile.

"Aaron Stowe," he replied gruffly, blinking a lot in the presence of a pretty girl.

"Are you a freshman?" she asked.

"Y-yeah," he said. "I'm a freshman. What about you?"

"Freshman," Kaylee said. "I just moved here from Massachusetts, so I'm totally trying to adjust to the warm weather here."

Aaron nodded, smiling a tight lipped smile. He felt stiff and uncomfortable, but being around her somehow made him less. "You'll get used to it if you don't sweat too much."

She gave him a weird look and then grinned. "You're so strange."

His eyes widened and he clenched his jaw. "Wait what? Strange? Did I do something wrong?"

The bus jerked to a stop and door opened. He looked out the window and saw a big, white school with many large windows. Kaylee jumped up and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Oh! We're here!"

He stood up and observed her excited and slightly nervous face. "Why so happy?"

"New opportunities should never be wasted," said Kaylee. "Being positive about my first day of school is the best thing I can be."

"Never thought of it that way," grumbled Aaron. But he followed her down the line and out of the bus, and surprisingly continued to walk with her through the school.

He checked his schedule on his phone. "Ugh. I hate this. English with Mrs. McMann is first."

Kaylee checked hers. "Hey, I have English too. You can do this, Aaron, I have faith in you."

He looked at her in surprise. "How could you say that? We just met!"

She grinned. "You were generous enough to share your seat with me. Now I'm returning the favor by supporting you through English."

"Ah okay. Er, thanks," he said, but a small smile was on his face and a weird warm feeling began to enter his heart.

Samheed was not at all looking forward to math class. Math class was first period of the day, of course. God, how he hated math. He was good at it, but he still didn't like it. Or maybe he just didn't like school. Yeah, that was it.

He managed to make it to his classroom on time and found his assigned seat next to some girl named Lani Haluki. He groaned, leaning back in his seat. The teacher began blabbing on and on about "expectations." His mom already taught him shit about expectations, so this was pretty dumb.

A girl walked in late and took her seat next to Samheed. She smaller in size and quite short. She was beautiful, with tanned Hawaiian skin, blue eyes that didn't match up with her skin tone, and long black hair that reached her waist. She was easily the most beautiful girl Samheed had ever seen, and he almost forgot about his long time crush on Alex.

"Why you must be Lani," he said with a confident grin.

She blinked and stared at him. "Yeah. Um, that's me. Do I know you?"

"No but you soon will," Sam said. "I'm Samheed Burkesh."

"Okay...sure. Yeah," Lani whispered back, trying to listen to the teacher's lecture.

He studied Lani and tried to figure out a way to get her to talk to him. He cleared his throat loudly a few times.

"What do you want?" Lani hissed, turning to him. She looked generally annoyed. Sam blinked and frowned.

"I'm glad we have math class together. We can solve the equations together," he whispered with a entrapping stare. "Many equations."

She rolled her eyes and turned away again, mumbling a "please shut up"

Samheed stared at her for the rest of class, willing her to look over, but she wouldn't even do that. He was clueless on how to get this girl to like him back. The rest of the class, he tried his best to capture her attention and flirt with her, but nothing worked.

When they got out of class he tried to follow her to engage in full-on conversation, but she was walking much too quickly and left him behind.

A class period later he had class with Meghan. It was history class, and they weren't learning anything fun, so he quietly and excitedly told her all about the girl. In response she looked like she might slap him.

"Sam!" she scolded quietly, her green eyes narrowed. "Oh, I will kill you. You annoyed that poor girl to death."

"I told you-I was only trying to get her to, I don't know, fall in love with me or something."

"That's not how you get a girl to fall for you," she said. "Becoming friends with them first is the best and only option."

"Yeah okay," he said, but felt doubtful and hopeful at the same time.

This year would be a long one, and it was only the first day. Unfortunately for our other protagonists, their day wasn't going very well either.