It was finally September. Taylor Hanson loved this time of year. He smiled to himself as he pulled his red, vintage Mustang into his usual parking spot at Tulsa High. You are so cool... He told himself. He nodded at a few people as he parked and yanked his keys out of the ignition.

He loved school. Fall, especially. He didn't care for the teachers, the tests, or the homework, but those were all things he had always been able to squeeze by. He never had to worry about that. It was all about the chicks, the parties, and the soccer games. That was what it was all about.

First, and foremost, the chicks. Taylor Hanson had never been without a chick. Girls just naturally loved his slender but strong, 6'1" frame, his shaggy blonde hair, and his electric blue eyes. He couldn't help it; even as a freshman, girls of all ages had flocked to him. He had been to prom his freshman, sophomore, and junior year so far, and he was asked by at least twenty girls to the vice versa dances. He had been invited to raging high school parties since the summer before freshman year. He had been homeschooled for jr. high, and the girls at Tulsa High certainly saw him as a diamond in the rough. By high school they were all tired of seeing the same guys. Even the senior and junior girls instantly fawned all over Taylor, telling him how adorable he was, writting him letters of shy admiration, and smiling to him in the hallways. He had always had it easy.

The parties. The one and only thing Taylor would willingly do on a Saturday night was party. From the late evening to early morning, Taylor could be found at the loudest and wildest party. He loved to party almost as much as the girls that were there. He would mingle with different chicks, smoke a joint, kick back, and let the good times roll. It was almost a second nature for him by the end of his freshman year.

The soccer games. Taylor was the star forward on the Varsity soccer team. In the fall, everyone would fill the bleachers in the soccer field. There was no greater feeling than hearing his name and number being called over the loud speaker as he trotted to the center of the field to join his teamates for the team introductions. He would wear a cocky smile as the crowd cheered for his team. Soccer was what he loved to do, and it came naturally to him.

He opened his car door and stepped out, running a hand through his perfect yet shaggy blonde hair. He checked to see that every strand had fallen stratigically into place. It was hard, being perfect.

"Yo, Taylor, dope set wheels you got."

Taylor looked up and nodded. "I know, Trey." He grinned at friend.

Trey grinned. "Just makin' sure you knew."

"Oh I know." Taylor said, making sure his prized car was locked.

"Here we go, another year." Trey said as they walked into the front of the school.

"Yeah."

"Can't believe it. Damn, that summer was fast."

"This year will be easy. We're seniors. Nothin' to it." Taylor insisted.

"Whatever, man. Catch you later."

"Later Trey." Taylor replied. He smiled as he walked down the hall.

Same girls.....Ashley, Vikki, Tori, Charlotte, Corinne.. He smiled at the various girls as he walked to his locker, making sure to have eye contact for at least three seconds with each one.

Same guys....same dweebs, same freaks...different year...

He banged on his locker once, and as usual, it swung open, revealing an array of Victoria's secret models. He smiled.

"Hello, Ladies." He grinned. He dumped his things into his locker. He never brought anything to class the first day of school. That would make it looked like he actually cared about school. Not the way he wanted to be thought of. In his opinion, only the geeks did homework. The sweet girls did his homework.

He shut his locker and was instanly greeted by a set of gleaming white teeth, baby blue eyes, white-blonde hiar, and tan, flawless, skin.

"Stacy." He said, winking at the smiling girl.

"Hey Taylor." She said, cracking her gum.

"Long time no see. What's up?" He asked.

"Oh, not much. We're seniors this year. Weird huh?"

"Amazing." Taylor said, flashing a smile. Stacy sighed, then smiled again.

"So, I was thinking maybe we could do something after the soccer game Friday." She said.

Taylor raised his eyebrows. "Something?"

Stacy looked at her feet, giggling. "Well....yeah." She looked up. "Something."

Taylor grinned at her. "Sounds great. If I don't see you til then, make sure and catch me right after the game, okay?"

"Yeah, sure." She said.

"Then I'll see you....later." He said, winking at her. He shut his locker, and Stacy smiled one last time.

"I'll look forward to it." She said, then turned and walked away.

Taylor watched her skirted behind walk down the hall, and smiled to himself. Yes, this was indeed going to be a good year.



If there was a person who felt the exact oppisite as Taylor that morning, it was Samantha Lurig. She was dreading this year so much. She had tried to make summer last as long as possible, but there was no getting around it; she had to come back for her senior year.

"Sammy, it can't be that bad." her father coaxed.

"You don't know that."

"Sam..."

"Dad, you don't know how they treat me."

"Listen, Sammy." Samantha turned her head to look at her father. "People are always going to judge you, no matter what. Now, a year from now, you won't have to give a crap about what those people think. You will be a thousand miles away. They may be popular and neat and get to do everything, but that won't make a difference after this year. It won't make a single bit of difference."

Samantha blinked her eyes, and sighed. She brushed her brown hair out of her eyes, and opened the car door. She slid off the seat of the truck, grabbed her bag, and slammed the door behind her.

"You hear me sam?"

"Yes, Dad, but that doesn't make it any easier to go in there." She said.

"I know. Just...try to get through it. One day at a time."

"Okay." she said.

"Bye bye sweetie. I gotta drop off Mary, then get to work, I'm already late. Try to have a good day." He said, before pulling away in his beat up truck.

Sam sighed and pushed her glasses up her nose. "Another year." She said to herself, before trudging into the school. She walked down the hall, keeping her eyes down, trying to avoid any contact with anyone. She hated school. She had always hated school. It wasn't that she was stupid. She was very smart. However, it was her classmates that she disliked so much. Teenagers could be so mean, so judging. Most people couldn't understand why someone so smart wouldn't like school, but they most likely didn't know how mean high school students could be when they knew a person lived off of foodstamps and bought their clothes at discount stories and Goodwill. She lived in a small house in the center of town with her father and little sister, who was 9. Her mother had left her father for another man when Sam was 12.

She managed to make it to her locker without calling any attention to herself. She opened her locker, and suddenly a landslide of books came tumbling out. They slid across the floor, hitting the oppitsite wall with a loud smack.

She cringed as she heard the laughs of students as they walked by in the crowded hallway.

"Excuse me....ulgh....sorry....sorry...." She struggled to pick up her books as the people flowed through the crowded hallway. She finally spotted the last book, and crawled on her hands and knees through the sea of legs and feet to pick it up. Suddenly, someone snatched it up. She jumped to her feet with the finder, and was shcoked to see it was no one other than Taylor Hanson.

"Um, is this yours?" he asked.

"Yes, it's mine." She said, trying to grab it. He held it out of her reach.

"Advanced Yoga? That's cool." He said, smirking.

"Yeah." She said, grabbing the book and returning to her locker. She felt her cheeks flush as she grabbed the books for her first class.

"Hey."

Sam looked up to see her only friend, Davinia, standing at her locker.

"Oh, hey." She said, brushing her hair out of her face.

"Bad day?"

"So far, yes, and it's not even first hour yet."

"Yeah, that figures." Davinia said.

"Yeah." Sam said. She closed her locker, then looked at her friend. "Where did the summer go?"

"beats me."

"Seems like just yesterday I was shoving all of these books in my locker, thanking Jesus that it was all finally over. And then here I am again."

"I feel the same way. I don't want to be here anymore than you do."

"Yeah, I know. God, I hate this."

"Less than a year."

"I know."

"yeah."

"I swear, that's the only thing that's gonna get me out of bed for the next one hundred seventy nine days."

"Is it that many?"

"Around there, yeah."

"Shit."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking this morning."

"Hmm..."

"Well, here we go." Sam said, looking down the crowded hallway.

"I'll walk with you."

"Okay."

The two girls walked down the hallway, to their first class. The only person that really understood Sam was Davinia. They had been good friends since freshman year, when they had met in art class. Davinia was a tall girl with dark brown hair and blue eyes, and she had a nosering and wore black lipstick. Samantha liked her 'I don't give a shit' attitude, and the two had become friends.

"Here I am." Sam said. "English. What do you have this hour?"

"Chem II." Davinia said. "Good luck. Looks like some winners in there." She said, glancing in the room.

Sam glanced in also, and rolled her eyes. "oh yeah."

Just then, the warning bell rang. "Shouldn't you go? Chem is way in the other part of the building."

"Eh, I'll get there when I get there." Davinia said.

Sam laughed. "Okay. See ya."

"Yeah. See ya."

Davinia turned and walked to her class, and Sam entered hers, sliding into a seat near the back of the room, and all the way to the side, near the window. That way she could stare out the window when she was bored.

"Good Morning class. I'm Mr. Willard. This is Advanced Comp. This class if for seniors only. If you are not a senior, you are obviously in the wrong place."

No one got up to move, so he continued. He began taking roll.

Just before he called the first name, the door squeaked open and Taylor strode in the room.

Everyone in the class watched as he walked over to the only desk in the room; the one right smack front and center.

"Good for you to join us....Mr. Hanson, I presume?"

Taylor grinned. "You already know me by name? Wow. I'm sure popular." Taylor joked. The class laughed, and Mr. Willard smirked.

"Who doesn't?" He said, and continued with roll.

"Mr. W?"

"That's Mr. Willard to you, and what?"

"Well, don't you have any other seats available for me? I don't do well in the front." He said, grinning.

"That which does not kill us, only makes us stronger. Sit." Mr. Willard said, glaring at him. Taylor rolled his eyes and flopped down in the chair.

"Samantha Lurig?"

"here." she said quietly.

"What?"

"Here." She repeated, a little louder.

"You've got to speak up, Ms. Lurig. Do you always talk like this?" Mr. Willard asked, mocking her small voice.

Samantha felt her face flush bright pink. "I...I guess." She stammered.

"Then we're going to have a problem, aren't we?" He glanced around the room. "Why don't you switch seats with this young lady here?" he asked, gesturing to Stacy.

Sam got up, picked up her bag, and walked up to the front of the room. She could feel the entire class' eyes on her as Stacy shoved past her with a glare to the seat in the back. Samantha sat down, and glanced over at Taylor. He gave her a bored look, and she looked back down.

"There we go. That will work. Now, on with roll."

Sam propped her head up with her arm. This was going to be a longer year than she had thought.



After class that day, she hurried back to her locker. The first day of school, and already I have a paper due by the end of the week....Shit. I'll just skip lunch and get all my reasearch done in the library today. Might as well get started.... This was really going to be a long year.



If Sam was the smartest person in the class, then that would have made Taylor the most dumb. Yet he wasn't one to worry. About anything. He wasn't even worried about the paper that was already due at the end of that week. He was determined to outsmart that old fogey Mr. Willard yet. No one was going to get away with making Taylor Hanson sit in the front of a class.

At lunchtime, he didn't go to lunch to mingle right away. He had one quick errand to run before he went to the quad to eat. He knew where to find the person he was looking for. He hoped. He entered the doors of the library, a place he had never spent more than five minutes in. He scanned the tables in the big library, and immediatly saw him.

"Hello, Benjamin." He said, playfully smacking the Junior boy on the back.

"Hi Taylor." He said flatly, jumping slightly. "What do you want?"

"Well, I have a bit of a problem."

"What's that?"

"Well, this year I got stuck in Advanced Comp with stuffy old Mr. Willard, I believe you know him, and he had already assigned a research paper for the end of this week!"

"What nerve." ben said, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, I know! Anyways, I have this big opening soccer game with Tulsa West this Friday, and I just don't see how I'm going to be able to finish it."

"So what do you want me to do about it?"

"Well, I was hoping you could-"

"No."

"no what?"

"I'm not doing it for you."

Taylor's hopes sank. "Why?" He asked.

"because, you treat me like shit most of the time, and then you expect me to do your work for you at a lousy thirty bucks a pop. Did you think that I don't have a life?"

Taylor shifted in his seat. "Well...yeah."

Ben sighed. He got up, and pushed in his chair. "That's just it. Forget it, Taylor. I'm not doing it."

"Ben, won't you at least re-think this? I mean come on, we go way back-"

"Taylor." Ben said. "No. That's it."

Taylor watched bemused as Ben walked out of the library.

Oh shit...I ended up with more problems than I came here with, all by just talking to that little dweeb...oh well....there's got to be more than just one Taylor Hanson admirer....

Email: morisstories@hotmail.com