My ADHD workbook said that working outside might help me focus. Unfortunately, my ADHD workbook was not made aware of the fact that I hate the outdoors. Today, it's a groggy and buggy Sunday afternoon. My hardcover of my AP Bio textbook is sticky in my lap, and my laptop's keyboard is scorching hot after soaking up the sun's rays for far too long. My workbook also says to take breaks every now and again, but, per usual, I can't bring myself to stop—I'm on a roll.

For me, studying is the one thing that can attract my attention long enough. That, and my millennial-cringe-level coffee obsession, but that doesn't exactly secure my passage to a Top 50 school. What will are my tenacity, my obsessiveness, and my insane work ethic. I'm currently compiling another unit study guide for my class. At this point, Jack Nordheim Study Guides are an expectation. They've been a hallmark since freshman year, when fourteen-year-old Jack made the mistake of thinking AP Statistics would be a breeze that I wouldn't have to learn a thing for. They're a school staple now—everyone uses them, even after I've left the class. Even teachers hand them out sometimes.

We're already headed towards our first unit exam in Bio, over the molecules of life. I hate it. So much. Everything blends together, and I can't separate my unsaturated fats from my saturated fats, and if milk has lactose that we break down into sugars, then why do people drink milk before bed, and that's what meth looks like?, and I want to quit.

I've been staring at my laptop for at least half an hour now. A walk around the neighborhood would probably be beneficial, but I can't make myself get up. I'm stuck staring out at the gravel alleyway that separates the backyards of mine and the next neighborhood.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I go to check my group chat with Wren, Sarah, and Jordan. It's just one of Wren's silly RuPaul gifs, a response to something Jordan said. I snort—Jordan has been a bit of a bitch in these past few months. I don't know what's going on, because she never talks to me, but even Wren and Sarah are getting sick of her monopolizing our friend group. And if there's one thing Jordan hates, it's RuPaul's Drag Race. So I hope it gets on her nerves.

I'm observing Sarah and Wren volley RuPaul gifs back and forth when there's this feeling of a pair of eyes on me. Just watching.

I look up from my phone to see a tan dog standing in the middle of my backyard, panting with its tongue all lolled out. We stare at each other for a moment, until there's a shout of "MAISIE!" and the dog's eyes go wide. It charges at me, its jowls peeled back and flapping in the wind. I yelp and hold up my sticky AP Bio book as a shield.

This is how I die. Mauled to death by a random boxer.

There's a wetness on my kneecap, and I open my squinted-shut eyes to find Maisie the Boxer licking my knee, her brown eyes gazing up at me.

I reach out a wobbly hand to pat her head. "Good ... Maisie."

And then. The boy. The god of a boy. He runs over the gravel road, wearing a white-pink striped shirt and some khakis that have no right looking this good on anyone. Floppy blond hair is somewhat plastered to his forehead, and I can see sweat-stains seeping from his pits from over here. But, oh goodness, is he cute.

"Hi!" he says, waving his arms as he nears us. "Sorry, that's my dog." His smile is soft and pink, and his chin is so sharp that it could probably stake vampires in the chest or something.

Maisie continues excitedly sampling my flesh. Her stump of a tail is a blur, and her butt wiggles emphatically. "Maisie, I presume?"

Upon hearing her name, she retrieves her tongue and smiles up at me. The boy grabs her blue collar and kneels to clip a leash onto her. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, chest heaving, and I realize how familiar he looks. The kind of familiarity you feel when you dream about someone you haven't seen in years.

"How observant," he says. "Sorry about her. She's been wanting to get out and explore the new area for the past few hours now."

His newness clicks. "You moved into the house across the way?"

He smiles. "Yeah, we did. You're ... Jack Nordheim, right?"

"I am." And here I was, thinking we were strangers—now my brain is racing to figure out who the hell this Nick Champa knockoff is. The thought doesn't come. Of course it doesn't. I'm sweaty and gross and exhausted, and this similarly sweaty but far less gross boy knows who I am, and I can't even think of his name. How typical.

He sticks his hand out. His forearms have very notable veins. I try not to stare. I should not be staring. "Nolan Skinner. We were in middle school together."

And that's when it clicks: Nolan Skinner, the closest thing to "bad boy" a middle schooler could get (without actually doing anything questionable).

"Oh," I say, because this kid—this man now, I guess—used to be the bane of teachers' existences. And for the most random of shit. One day, it would be throwing a fork at some hockey boy; the next, it would be for hacking into the document that held all the teachers' school email passwords and starting a giant email chain in which he pretended to be every single seventh grade teacher. (I don't think it was technically hacking, but it was still hot to twelve-year-old me.)

Oh gosh, he wasn't even cute then, not to anyone who wasn't on the basic-most side of Tumblr. He had this smarmy, greasy-ish haircut and this impossibly small chin, and his hands were the biggest I had seen on any pre-teen. And now, he's here, and he's hot, and oh my gosh, he's here and he's hot and he knows my name.

"Wow. Been a while." His hand is strong. Like, if I were a middle-aged white dad named Greg, I would say to myself, Wow, that's quite a grip. I bet this boy golfs a mean game.

Nolan laughs, still crouched next to Maisie. Her butt remains a-wiggle. "It has been a while." He takes his hand back and pats Maisie's side. "How's high school been?"

He moved away after the seventh grade, before either of us turned thirteen. We were the youngest kids in our grade—I remember that much. I guess I just stopped thinking about him after he moved. He just disappeared one day, and now here he is again, risen.

Maisie's slobber evaporates on my kneecap. "It's been ... good?" That's a lie. It's actually been a hellstorm. I hate senior year. So much. And we're only a couple weeks in. But Hot Nolan Skinner so does not need to know that. "How about you? What ... what brings you back?"

"Dad got laid off. We're just back because my mom got a promotion at Cheese Factory headquarters."

Ah, the local, infamous Cheese Factory: milking all they can out of our housing market since 2014. (Yes, that was a dairy/economy joke. No, I'm not sorry.)

"Nice, nice," I say. Nolan Skinner. In the attractive flesh. I don't know what else to say to him—we weren't friends when he lived here. I hang out with the same people I do now, the other honors roll kids. And we avoided the Nolan Skinners of our school like the plague. And maybe watched them from afar, semi-obsessively.

He runs a hand through his damp hair and stands. "Well, it was nice to re-meet you, I guess."

"Yeah, you too."

Maisie doesn't stand, although she does lick my knee again. I give a grimace of a smile and try not to flinch. At least dog mouths are cleaner than human mouths. Or so I've heard. Nolan gives her a slight tug, and finally she rises off her haunches and gives a sad wag of her stump tail.

"See you at school," Nolan says with a faint smile. He walks tantalizingly slowly from my backyard, Maisie padding along beside him with too much excitement to even fathom. And I'm left, with my AP Bio textbook already re-glued to my lap with sweat and my jaw slightly ajar.

A/N -

It's been so long since I've uploaded omg. I wrote this, like, a year and a half ago, but I've missed uploading and interacting with you guys, so I figured I might as well share it. ("It" being an extrapolation of the winning short story I wrote when I was 15 for the LGBTQ+ Song Fic contest that lives in my head.)

Hope you guys are all doing well!!! Tell me how you've been!!!!!!!