Falling Short

Prologue

I had known him for a long time. Since I moved to Virginia, he had lived a block away from me. In elementary school, I sat behind him on the bus. We liked to talk each other. We were both two of the smartest kids in the third grade; however, we both didn't have many friends. Although it was far from friendship, the talks on the bus were a source of happiness for 9 year old me.

In middle school we had a bad bus driver. He was always speeding and driving recklessly. A bunch of naughty kids were always wrecking havoc in the back of the bus. Despite having the right of free will, we were forced to move to the back. The back of the bus wasn't good at all. I felt car sick for the first time in my life; yet he made it better. Little 11 year olds ranting about the unfairness of the situation continued throughout the week. Finally, the awful driver was replaced. However, the friendship remained.

We had a few classes together throughout middle school. Despite being a short boy who liked sitting with his legs criss-cross apple sauce in his seat, he was hard to miss. Nearly every time a question was asked his hand was the first to shoot up. I was a shy girl, and I envied his impressive, outgoing qualities.

In the seventh grade, he got a fancy graphing calculator. It was confusing but amazing at the same time. All of us un-technical people flocked to see all the neat things it could do. But on the bus I got special treatment. He showed me all the games he programmed onto it and let me play them. While I did have a few friends at school, I felt like I finally had someone who treated me specially. At that point, I couldn't imagine anything different: bus rides, calculator games, and rants about dumb people.

But when high school came around the corner, everything changed.

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Dates are crazy important in this book!! It is a recollection of memories from my past and based on real stories. Because I can't remember what happened every day 2 years ago and not every day is important to the overall story, I'm gonna be skipping around a lot!! Hope you enjoy ~