THE WAY I LOVED YOU - the lost hero

one

Nat Baudelaire was not having a good day. The thirteen hour bus ride that took them from Nevada to Arizona had already been unappealing, but being stuck in between Isabel and her group of identical friends made the entire experience worse. She had the option to sit elsewhere when she first boarded the bus, but if she was honest, there was nowhere she would actually enjoy herself.

At the front of the bus were the "dangerous" kids. The ones who were in the Wilderness School for serious crimes, like assault, attempted murder, and so forth. Nat made a point to avoid them, as she preferred to stay out of the teachers' radar as much as possible. The last thing she needed was for her room to get searched, and for the administration to find her stash of cigarettes she had been using and selling.

Nat sat in the middle of the bus, along with Isabel and her group of friends. They were the sort of girls that talked about makeup, and gossiped about love affairs. Don't get her wrong, Nat loved to hear about a new way to do her eyeliner, or who cheated on who, but not from them. Most of the time, they received their stories from a long list of known liars. Also they were racist homophobes that took pride in mocking other people for things out of their control. That sort of thing was where Nat drew the line.

Finally, was the back of the bus. Most of the people Isabel made fun of sat back there, along with Nat's archenemy, Leo Valdez. In Nat's opinion, Leo was the worst person at the school, no questions asked. Not only was he loud, but the jokes he told weren't even funny. Not to mention, that it seemed he already decided to hate her before she had even spoken to him. And Nat would rather jump off of the Grand Canyon than be the bigger person.

It had been bad enough that Coach Hedge had assigned them to be partners on the stupid assignment that was supposedly graded, but there was no way that Nat would ever sit with him or his boring friends by choice. And maybe Nat didn't like her "friends," but at least there was always something kind of interesting going on with them.

Speaking of Coach Hedge, Nat couldn't stop her eyes from rolling as he stood up at the front of the bus, shouting, "All right, cupcakes, listen up!"

"Stand up, Coach Hedge!" someone in the back of the bus yelled, and Nat smiled as the five-foot man scowled.

"I heard that!" he yelled.

He took a moment to scan the bus, his eyes falling somewhere towards the back of the bus. His scowl deepened even more, if that was even possible. Confused, Nat glanced back to find him looking at Piper McLean and Jason Grace, Leo's only friends who happened to be in a relationship.

Coach Hedge looked away, clearing his throat, "We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way."

He picked up his baseball hat and mock-swung it in a way that he must have thought made him seem cool.

He began to give them orders again, but it was at that time that a certain Latino began loudly yapping to his friends. Being caught in between the two conflicting voices was very overwhelming for Nat, so she was thankful when Coach shouted, "Leo Valdez! Problem back there?"

Glancing back, she found that Leo had propped himself up, resting his chin on the back of his seat so he could talk to his friends. He whipped around, a somewhat insane grin on his face as he replied, "Sorry, Coach! I was having trouble hearing you. Could you use your megaphone please?"

Coach Hedge grunted, as if he was pleased to have an excuse to use it. He unclipped the large megaphone and held it up to his mouth to continue barking directions at the students, however his voice came out sounding like Dark Vader. Nat couldn't stop the small smile from creeping on her face as the kids around her howled with laughter. Coach tried again, but instead the megaphone blared out, "The cow says moo!"

Outraged, Coach slammed down his megaphone, yelling, "Valdez!"

Leo turned back around to keep talking to his friends. Coach tried to ignore him for a moment, but the urge apparently became too much because it wasn't long before he raised his voice again, "That's it! The back row has just volunteered to clean up after lunch!"

The cheering at came after that statement was mostly from the kids at the front of the bus.

The bus dropped them off in front of the Grand Canyon's museum, and Nat struggled against the current of students to get off the bus. She had managed to weasel her way out of Isabel's circle, and was standing towards the edge of the group when Coach Hedge began herding them all to the building. He yelled and blew his whistle in an attempt to keep them all in line. Once they reached the entrance of the building, Coach Hedge announced that they were to go find their partners.

It wasn't hard to find Leo. He and his other two friends were hanging back from the rest of the group, and their hushed voices made it clear they were having a private conversation. As he glanced up and made eye contact with Nat, his humorous expression completely disappeared and he practically snarled at her.

"Look, I don't like this either but we should at least look like we're doing work," Nat said once she was close enough to him.

He didn't say anything, turning back to his two friends, who eyed the red-haired girl nervously.

"We need to tell somebody," Piper added after a moment of cautious silence, her voice hushed.

"Who, Coach Hedge?" once he had turned away from Nat, his sparkling personality came back, "He'd try to fix Jason by whacking him upside the head."

Nat remained silent, her eyes falling on the dark-haired boy who was making his way toward the group of four.

"Leo, Jason needs help," Piper insisted, "He's got a concussion or something-"

Nat was able to resist the curious urge to ask what was going on when Dylan began walking in pace with Piper, throwing his arm around her, "Yo, Piper. Don't talk to these bottom-feeders. You're my partner, remember?"

Piper's face was one of disgust, "Go away, Dylan. I didn't ask to work with you."

"Ah, that's no way to be. This is your lucky day!" Dylan hooked his arm through Piper's, dragging her away. She shot one more look back at the guys that said "save me!"

Nat couldn't stop a small smile on her face. Leo noticed it, and frowned.

"I hate that guy," he said, offering Jason his arm as if they should go skipping, "I'm Dylan, I'm so cool, I want to date myself, but I can't figure out how! You want to date me instead? You're so lucky!"

His face fell again, and he dropped his arm.

"Him and all his stupid friends think they're better than everyone." Nat pretended to ignore the way he was staring at her, by turning to Jason. Out of Leo's little group, he was the one she found least annoying.

"I'm letting you know right now that Sam is stoned out of his mind," she told him, "So I would suggest not even trying with him."

"Sam?" the blond boy repeated, his face full of confusion.

"Your partner?" she said, "For the assignment? What, do you have amnesia or something?"

"Yeah, he does." Leo snapped, "Quit being a smartass."

"I know you're not talking," Nat replied, "I was trying to be nice. It's not my fault I'm not all-knowing."

"Well, maybe you should work on that." Leo muttered, "Come on, Jason."

The two boys began walking to catch up with the group that had left them behind.

Nat didn't move for a moment, glancing to the side and debating for a moment if trying to run away would be worth it. Letting out a sigh, she called out, "Wait up."