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"You're a dick."

"Michael, you're being ridiculous."

"You're such a dick, Calum!" The red-haired boy whined as he slouched down further in the bus seat. He'd made sure to pick one of the empty seats towards the back of the bus where no one would be able to see him wallowing away in his own self-pity brought upon him by none other than his dumbass of a best friend. He sighed and then proceeded to drag his hand down the length of his face dramatically as he held his phone to his ear, "You should have told me you wouldn't be able to make it before I got on the damn bus!"

"Michael, how was I supposed to know whether or whether not you were on the bus already?!" Calum shouted into the speaker frustratedly, causing Michael to flinch away from his phone momentarily.

The two of them had been going at it over the phone for the past seven minutes now and Michael was beginning to physically hear how tired Calum was getting of him. But, alright, in all fairness, it wasn't like it was Michael's fault - if Calum had only decided to actually use his brain and tell Michael that he wouldn't be able to make it to the school trip because he was sick before Michael had gotten on the coach bus headed for New York City, then Michael sure as hell wouldn't have been trapped in the little predicament he was in now.

The pale boy slouched in his seat, took a deep breath and shut his jade eyes in annoyance, "Let me get this straight, for the past half hour, I thought you've been riding in the bus behind us, following us into the city, when in reality you've been laying in bed with a one hundred plus fever, watching Big Bang Theory?"

Michael could hear the sound of a nose being blown on the other end of the line and he grimaced, actually finding it in him to pity the Maori boy just a little bit. He sounded like a mess, to be completely honest. Calum coughed loudly and spoke through a congested nose, "I finished all the seasons of Big Bang Theory, I've moved onto Friends, now. If you actually fucking read my texts, you would know that."

"This wasn't the plan," Michael groaned painfully and let his head fall against the glass window of the coach bus. It was currently housing around another twenty five or so of his classmates, if you would even dare call them that - they were more so just people Michael happened to brush past in the hallways on a day-to-day basis. "You were supposed to be here, you assface! We were supposed to walk around the city for the entire day, weren't we? What happened to that?!"

"Jesus Christ, Michael," Calum mumbled and made an exasperated sound at the back of his throat. "My immune system decided to shut down today, okay, that's what happened. You can still ditch the trip and walk around New York on your own, it's not the end of the world."

"Forget it, kiss my ass. I'm unfollowing you on Instagram," Michael muttered into the speaker before pulling his phone away from his ear and ending the call. He grumbled to himself as he slid his phone back into the front pocket of his black jeans and leaned his head back into the seat. The sound of his peers around him jabbering and cackling loudly from the front of the bus with one another while the bright-haired boy sat to himself, completely alone and Calum-less in the back, only made him feel worse. He hadn't been this disappointed since he found out MCR wasn't actually getting back together and the little footnote on their website was a torturous false-alarm.

Quite frankly, Michael knew he was being a little childish, a little too first-world. In his defense, he wasn't actually pissed at his best friend and he wasn't actually planning on unfollowing his Instagram either, because goddamnit, he knew how much Calum was itching to finally reach seven hundred followers.

It's just that he and Cal had come up with the perfect plan to actually invest their time in the school field trip that year to the city. Calum had been researching the museum they'd be visiting that day and ended up finding a map of the building, clearly displaying an exit through the back that led straight towards the streets of Broadway, that then led towards Downtown and all of the actually interesting places in the city. They'd planned on sneaking out the back door of the museum to wander around New York for the day, only now, they couldn't. Because Calum's stupid ass was sick and Michael was left with no one to put the dream into action with.

He would be stuck roaming around the National Museum of the American Indian all day instead of petting dogs in central park.

Michael groaned and banged his head against the window a little harder at the thought, a fraction of him hoping that the impact of the glass against his head would be enough to crack his skull right open.

➢➢➢

He was standing in line now, a tall, gawky, and awkwardly-postured hair of bright red amongst a sea of brunettes and blondes and gingers whose faces were all lit up, probably from the excitement of being mere seconds away from entering the museum - Michael almost laughed to himself as he analyzed the irony of the situation. There he was, dressed in beaten-up jeans, sneakers he'd had since sophomore year, and an olive green t-shirt with a hole in the collar in the midst of bodies dressed in trousers, blazers and dress-shirts.

The difference between Michael and these people (some of whom were freshmen) was that they were actually smart and involved and they genuinely wanted to be there to learn about the Native Americans while Michael was a senior and couldn't even remember the exact year Christopher Columbus had sailed the ocean blue. (Nineteen forty-two or nineteen seventy-two?!)

In other words, he didn't belong with them whatsoever.

This wasn't his scene, not at all, and with each second that passed by, Michael was beginning to hate himself even more for knocking himself into this situation. And although he personally thought Friends was way better, even being back at home watching Big Bang Theory with a grumpy and sick and grumpy Calum sounded better than the predicament he was currently in. (He made a note to himself to text Calum a bunch of pissed-off looking emojis once he managed to find better signal).

Then, there was something suddenly tapping against the side of Michael's foot. With furrowed eyebrows, he looked down to find that the person standing beside him was tapping their shoe against Michael's, and he looked up to find that the foot belonged to a dirty-blonde, pink-lipped baby face. She was at least an entire foot shorter than Michael, looking up at him with wide hazel eyes and an expectant-looking grin, which was when Michael realized that she might've been trying to talk to him.

"I'm sorry," he apologized and shook his head, pulling himself back from wherever he'd been floating. "Were you saying something? I kind of zoned out."

"No worries," she said lightheartedly, not losing the grin spread across her lips. Michael had go bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at how ironic it all was - she had a cute baby face and a cute baby voice to match. The blonde looked down and tapped her shoe's against Michael's again before looking back up at him, "I was trying to tell you that we have the same shoes."

Michael rose his eyebrows and curiously looked down at both of their shoes to find that, oh yeah, they were both wearing black low-top Vans. He chuckled and shook his head, feigning amusement. Sure, it was cute, but it wasn't cute enough to put Michael out of the misery he was feeling.

"That's cool," he settled for muttering. The girl beside him gave him an unconvinced and almost teasing look.

"You're a bullshit liar."

Taken aback from the sudden curse that'd just come out of Baby Face, Michael frowned in surprise, "Sorry for trying to be nice?"

Baby Face shook her head dismissively and took a few steps as the line in front of them started to move up. Michael followed her shortly. "I'm only joking. 'Was just trying to lighten up your mood a little bit since you honestly look like you're going through fifty shades of pain, right now."

Michael actually laughed out loud at the Fifty Shades reference. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head again. "Yeah, I don't know. I guess you could say that I don't really wanna be here."

"So why're you here?"

"It's kind of a long story."

"Long stories are usually the most interesting."

"What about you?" He asked her, finding a way to wedge himself out of having to explain him and Calum's plan to elope from the trip. He eyed the blonde up and down, taking in her leggings and the gray Adidas sweatshirt casually and loosely hanging off of her. "Why are you here? You don't really look like the type to be interested in Native American artifacts."

"What makes you say that?" She scoffed and crossed her arms challengingly at the boy beside her. "For all you know, I could be completely infatuated by Native American stuff."

It was Michael's turn to give her an unconvinced, but humored, look, and the blonde's turn to crack. She rolled her eyes, "Whatever, fine. One of my friends really wanted to go on this trip and asked me to come with her to keep her company, but I think she's found someone else."

Michael blinked and looked over the blonde's shoulder as she pointed her thumb behind her to two people - one dark-skinned boy who was gripping onto the face of an Asian-looking girl as they practically tried to eat eachother's tongues. Michael actually gagged - he did believe that PDA could be endearing at times, but it damn well had its limitations.

"Are they like, dating, or...?" Michael forced himself to look away from the live make-out session and back at the short blonde next to him, moving up as the line started to shorten . They were getting closer and closer to the admittance desk of the museum by the second.

Baby Face shook her head, "I don't know. According to her, they 'clicked' on the bus." She bent both her index and middle finger on her right hang around the word 'clicked', to which Michael retched and pointed his finger at his mouth to resemble vomiting. She laughed and leaned over to shoulder him and suddenly, Michael genuinely grinned. It felt good knowing he'd made her laugh.

"I'm Sienna, by the way," she said, outstretching her hand towards him.

Michael nodded acknowledgingly and slapped his hand against Sienna's in a high-five kind of manner instead of shaking it. "Michael."

Sienna hummed and nodded back, turning over her shoulder to look at her friend for a moment before quickly turning back to Michael with a sneer on her face. "Yeah, no, I'm not hanging out with them - this wasn't what we planned. 'Guess I'm alone now."

The bright hair boy snickered, "I know the feeling, believe me."

A few moments of awkward silence flew by them as both Sienna and Michael continued to make their way closer to the admittance desk. Once they'd reached the front, they both showed the ushers their ID's and then proceeded to follow the crowd of students who'd all begun to roam around the building aimlessly - they had the entire day to themselves to wander around the museum freely before meeting back at the front desk at seven o' clock.

Michael bit his lip, suddenly feeling immensely out of place - it was ten in the morning. What was he supposed to do for the next nine hours?

"Uh, alright then," Sienna breathed out and brushed off the front of her jeans. She gave Michael a small, noticeably fake smile. "It was nice meeting you, Michael."

Michal nodded and gave her a half-hearted grin back, half of his head still tangled up in his anxiety. "You too."

He watched as Sienna turned around and started to make her way into the sea of students, and that was when it finally clicked in Michale's head - he'd just made a friend! Or okay, maybe not a friend, but he met someone and they had a somewhat genuine connection, right? Right! I mean, they were wearing the same Vans! That had to have meant something!

He had nobody to spend this entire trip with, and considering Sienna's friend and Sienna's friend's 'friend ' were probably busy searching for a janitor's closet to dry hump in, Sienna probably had nobody to spend the day with either.

Michael could still make this work.

"Sienna!" Michael yelled out, the sound of his voice getting drowned out by the loud chatter of everyone talking and walking in the building. He took a deep breath before running forward and charging into the horde of students, desperately keeping his eyes open and in search of the blonde. He cupped his hands around his mouth, getting shoved and pushed over by students trying to make their way past him, "Sienna!"

Michael cursed to himself and scratched at the nape of his neck, continuing to scan the room - he let out a loud sigh of relief once he caught side of the familiar gray hoodie and blonde hair not too far away from him, quickly pushing past people and running up to the girl. He couldn't let her get away.

"Hey, hold on, Sienna!" Michael called out again and grab onto her shoulders once he'd gotten close enough, causing the blonde in front of him to spin around with wide and surprised eyes. Her lips parted as if she were going to ask him something, like why the hell he'd decided to follow her, but Michael shook his head and lifted his finger, silently cutting her off.

He took in a few deep breaths, panting and slightly exhausted from all of the running he'd done to catch up with her, before clearing his throat. "I-I have to ask you something."

"Okay," Sienna said slowly, cautiously. "Go for it."

Michael swallowed, crossing his toes and his fingers in his pockets, praying to whoever was listening that he wouldn't get rejected. "You don't actually wanna be here, do you?"

She hesitated and stared blankly at him, hazel eyes on jade, before twisting her lips and shaking her head. "No. Not really. Why?"

A pang of relief hit Michael smack in the chest and a wide grin spread across his face - this might just work. Calum was right. He could still make this happen. "Perfect! How about the two of us, you and I, ditch this entire field trip thing and walk around New York together instead? My treat."

Sienna's eyebrows suddenly narrowed, and for a minute, Michael almost thought she was about to say no and accuse him of being demented. Then, slowly, she grinned.

"I'm listening."

➢➢➢

"I don't think this Calum guy thought this plan out very well..."

"Hey, watch it," Michael warned, peeking around the corner to make sure nobody had their eyes on them. When he confirmed to himself that the coast was clear, he motioned for Sienna to follow him as he slowly started to make his way towards the exit - the same exit Calum had showed him after he'd found it on the online map of the museum. "That Calum guy is my best friend."

They'd both made their way to the back of the museum, where Calum had told Michael the exit was. It was for the most part completely empty of people and and unlike the front of the building, it was so quiet that you'd probably be able to hear a pin drop. The large exit door was merely a few feet away.

"Listen, I'm just saying," Sienna said lowly, trailing closely behind Michael. "Did he even think about what would happen if you guys got caught?"

"It's not like we're doing anything wrong, Sienna."

"You're leaving the premises of a field trip without letting anyone know!"

"Okay, you told me you wanted to do this," Michael turned over his shoulder and gave the blonde an incredulous look. "Are you in or out? Make up your mind."

She let out a heavy breath and nodded her head, poking her tongue into cheek, "I'm in, I'm in. I'm just nervous, is all."

Michael shook his head at her insistently, almost tempted to rub her back. Touching one another was like a level five sort of friendship, though, and he and Sienna were barely at a level two. "We'll be back by eight, I won't let us get in trouble."

Sienna nodded again and continued to follow the bright-haired boy as they approached the exit. Michael had been expecting to struggle with opening the door, assuming that he'd have to go on some extra mission to find a key or a code to unlock the exit. However, as he pushed on the handle bar attached to the door, watching as it simply swung open, relief (and a slight dash of disappointment since he honestly thought going on a mission to find a secret key would've been kinda' cool) crashed over him.

Michael laughed in shock to himself as he stared at the open door in front of him - the door opened. This was his ticket to having probably one of the coolest experiences he'd ever have in his lifetime - it wasn't all that often Michael got to come to the city, being a small-town, suburban boy from New Jersey. He turned back to check on Sienna to find that she held a similar expression. He curled his fingers at her and motioned for her to follow him as he slipped past the door, out into the inviting fall air of New York. He was immediately met with the smell of gasoline from all of the vehicles on the road with a little bit of the Italian restaurant down the street mixed in. Michael tilted his head up and gaped at all of the buildings towering over him, feeling a smile puling at his lips. This was where he belonged.

He was in love.

He had to come to the city more often.

"Holy shit," Sienna cursed and shook her head as she followed Michael's lead and stepped onto the city streets behind the museum. Michael turned to catch a glimpse of her and almost doubled over at her wide eyes and parted lips - she looked terrified. She glanced at him and bit down on her lower lip seriously, "Are we actually doing this?"

"We've already done it," Michael pointed out to her with a grin, motioning to the city around them.

"Okay. Oh my God, okay, ah, okay - what do we do now?"

Michael had to take a minute to think - what were they supposed to do now? He and Calum hadn't really come up with a specific list of things to do, deciding that they'd end up figuring it all out along the way. There were so many things to do in New York that Michael was positive they wouldn't have trouble figuring out how to spend their day.

First, though, they had to get away from the entire field trip setting.

"Michael," Sienna called him again, drawing him back from his moment of thought. She looked at him expectantly, "What do we do now?"

Michael exhaled and looked back at the exit they'd just gone through, and then to his right, where there were multiple cabs pulling up to the curb to pick pedestrians up. Then, he turned back to Sienna with a dangerous grin on his face, taking her hand into his, "We run."

➢➢➢

a/n - DID YOU GUYS LIKE IT OMG

THIS IS MY FIRST TIME EVER WRITING IN THIRD PERSON SO IT'S SUPER NEW TO ME, IT PROBABLY SUCKS A LITTLE RIGHT NOW BUT I PROMISE IT'LL GET BETTER. if anyone has any experience/tips when it comes to writing in third person, message me or leave a comment bc i could use all the help i can get.

sorry for making you all wait so long for this prologue! i've been mega focused on candy striper (which is my luke fic if you didn't already know). school's also been a pain in the ass - it just gets tougher each year and sometimes i come home way too tired to write.

also, i'm aware that the musuem of the american indian is not open until seven pm, but for the sake of the story, we're gonna roll with it. good? good!!

thank you for being patient with me! i hope you're all just as excited as i am for this! (mike and sienna are the new bonnie and clyde. just putting that out there.)

with much love,

brielle