That One Girl

Chapter 1

***I'm not supposed to have this out for you guys until tomorrow. Why am I here?

Oh, yeah. Because I got carried away writing the next chapter, and I couldn't resist sharing the story with you guys LOL

Also, I just needed a nice background song to start off Cole's day at class. What could be more perfect than a track from High School Musical? That trilogy was...interesting, to say the least.***

Two Months Later - April

***(Cole's POV)***

"Happy April, students!" chirps a perky girl over the loudspeaker. "I'm Kate, here with your daily announcements! First off, I'd like to congratulate our baseball team on..."

I tune out the happy voice and look down at my notes.

Or lack of notes, as the case is..

I've never cared much about school – I'm happy with a 'C' average. Nothing wrong with that. It's not like I'm really interested in higher education. I intend to spend my next five years – maybe even the rest of my life – defending Ninjago.

A girl next to me pokes my arm with her eraser. "Psst," she whispers.

I blink, smiling over at her. "What's up?"

It's Vania, one of the girls from the cheerleading team.

"There's a party for the baseball team tonight. You wanna come with me?"

"Aww, I wish I could, but no thanks." I try to let her down easy. I'm really not interested in dating around right now.

She sighs. "Oh. Okay. Um, thanks anyway."

My heart pangs a little. Girls may think it's hard when they turn me down, but they have no idea what it's like for me to turn them down.

"Hey, Vania..." I try to think of a way out of this, but come up dry. "Um, I think I may have...miscalculated how much time I have in my schedule. I can probably go with you tonight."

"Oh, really?" she beams. "That'd be great! Wanna pick me up around seven?"

I'm waiting for the day when a girl offers to drive me to our "date" destination. Now, this isn't a date – this is me being nice and letting Vania feel like she's had a chance – but still, she expects me to pick her up.

Not that I mind or that there's anything wrong with me driving, I just...I like the idea of being with someone who's a little more argumentative than that. A little more rebellious, if you will.

The person behind me – Nya – slips me a note. Ah, a good old-fashioned note.

Tell Jay I know he's staring at me and that he needs to focus. We have our English test next week, and Master Writer won't go easy on us. – Nya

Ah, yes. Our wonderful English teacher makes us refer to him as "Master Writer". Jay calls him "Master of Putting Students to Sleep". I call him an old prick, but not while he's around to hear.

I scribble a new note on my own notebook paper. Nya probably doesn't want to offend Jay, so I'll let him think I'm the one to initiate this conversation.

Jay, get your head out of the Cloud Kingdom and focus. – Your best friend :)

I hand the note over to Skylor, who's on my left, and she begins passing it up to Jay.

Poor guy. He's always had a huge crush on Nya, and they even dated for a few days. I guess they both really liked each other. But things came to an unfortunate end when Lloyd – Nya's best friend – had a breakdown and broke the two of them up. And Nya decided she and Jay should stay that way for really personal reasons. I don't know much, but I think it has to do with her deceased parents.