"Louise! LOUISE!" I shouted as loud as I could. I stood on my tiptoes and saw the pink bunny ears turn in my direction. I flailed my arms around a little bit more and she finally seemed to notice me. She pushed past the crowds of preps and dorks and druggies, throwing out a few coming through!'s as she made her way towards me.

"Jesus, Jamie! Where have you been? I've been looking for you all over the place!"

The girl moved her bunny ears back into place and gave me a quick glare. Most people would have been intimidated by this, but I knew her too well.

"I could say the same about you." I cracked a grin.

"Yeah, well, you left me all alone with these losers." she gestured back towards Andy and Ollie Pesto, who were playing thumb-war with each other.

"Bad luck." I grinned fully now, and she just rolled her eyes.

We both stood there for a few seconds as the clusters of people laughed and screamed around us, and then we hugged.

"I missed you best friend." Louise said, losing a little bit of the sarcasm that her voice usually retained.

"Same." I smiled as I let go of her.

I hadn't seen Louise, my closest friend, for two whole months month. I was off at some stupid summer camp my parents had forced me to go to, while she was at home plotting mild crimes and pranking people without me. I guess that wasn't really that long of time, but it seemed like forever.

"So, here we are. First day of sophomore year." I said as I turned to face Wagstaff Highschool.

"Ugh. Don't remind me." Louise crossed her arms over her chest.

"Hey, we made it through last year. We can make it through this year."

"Yeah, I guess." she sighed, but I saw the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. We both knew that this year promised new classes to ruin, more food fights to start, and more exaggerated research papers to be written.

I had spaced out a bit, already thinking of all the air ducts we hadn't mapped out yet, when Louise's voice hit my ears.

"Hey, look, it's our two favorite failures." her eyes landed on Logan and Gene, who were walking in our direction.

I guess Wagstaff didn't exactly have the best reputation for students passing, and these two were walking proof. Logan had failed his senior year twice, and Gene was repeating his junior year. I guess both failing to meet school's standards had created a bond between the two because they'd become pretty close over the summer, according to Louise.

"Louise!" Gene shouted as they got closer.

"Don't breathe in, or else you'll catch the stupid." Louise murmured under her breath.

"Louise!" her brother shouted again.

"What?" Louise snapped.

"Did Tina call you?"

"Why the hell would Tina call me?"

"To wish you good luck on your first day?" he made it sound like a question, rather than an answer.

"No," Louise lowered her voice a little. "She didn't."

"Did she call you?" she added quickly.

"Yeah," Gene said slowly. "I just hung up with her."

"Oh." Louise said, trying to keep a blank expression. I can't believe people couldn't see how upset she was. I guess that's just what comes with being best friends with someone since the fifth grade.

"She said she was leaving for her classes and that she had an exam in her biology class today and that she really needed to study for that and that she also needed to stop for breakfast before she went to class, and I think she mentioned something about having to meet up with her lab partner to study too, and..." Gene rambled on a bit, clearly trying to make it sound as if Tina would call Louise if it hadn't been for her hectic college schedule.

Tina loved Louise, she really did. It's just that... Louise is very touchy and must be handled with care.

I had been paying attention to Louise, watching her face remain nearly emotionless, and so I didn't really have time to actually pay attention to Logan or Gene.

But then I looked over at them, just to see if they noticed how this was affecting Louise.

Logan was just kind of...watching. As if he was curious to see what would Louise would do next.

And Gene was rambling and, woah.

Ew. No. No. No. Absolutely not.

Gene couldn't have turned like 100% more attractive over the summer, could he?

Was I staring? I had to stop staring.

Gene finally stopped to take a breath, and I guess his defending Tina speech was over because he didn't continue with it. Instead he gave me a weird look and said "Are you okay, Jamie?"

"What?" So I was staring. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, just spacing out."

The confusion on his face cleared and he was back to his normal bubbly self. "How was your summer? I haven't really talked to you at all since the end of the last school year."

"Oh, um, it was fine. Pretty boring. I didn't have Louise by my side to cause as much chaos." I said, which lead Louise to snicker quietly.

"Hmm. Sounds about right." he smiled.

I just nodded slowly, not sure what to say next. Luckily, I didn't have to.

"Come on, Jamie." Louise grabbed my arm. "We have work to do."

I grinned and said "Race ya."

And just like that, my best friend and I were running towards the school, just as we always had.

oh, hi there. I see you've stumbled across my fanfiction. oh, well, hi again. so, this is probably going to suck really bad, but I wanted to try out writing Louigan fanfic stuff and whatnot, and since no one ever really writes anything about Gene I was like "wow, perfect opportunity." so yep. here we are. please review if you liked it? yeah, that would be fabulous.

thank.

xoxo,

Alex