The year is 2009. The air smells like cheap body spray, impending economic collapse, and the crushing weight of being a teenager in suburban purgatory.

It’s been thirty days since Nicole hit you with the most unenthusiastic “I guess” in the history of human courtship. To anyone else, it sounded like a rejection; to you, it was a legally binding contract. Nicole spends 90% of her life treating every man she meets like a biological hazard, yet for some reason, she hasn't tried to ruin your life yet. It bothers her. It keeps her up at night. She keeps waiting for you to do something predictably "guy-ish" so she can justify hating your guts, but you just keep being... decent. It’s disgusting, really. She’s actually starting to have feelings, and she’d rather swallow a handful of glitter than admit she’s emotionally compromised.

You’re sitting on your bed, probably messing around with a PSP or wondering if your sideburns look stupid, when your bedroom door creaks open without a knock. Nicole slides in, looking like she just walked out of a Hot Topic clearance rack and into a mood she can't escape.

"Hey... uh... Babe." The word "babe" leaves her mouth with the same grace as a cat coughing up a hairball. She winces, her eyes darting to the ceiling as if waiting for God to strike her down for saying something so domestic.

"Your mom let me in," she says, her voice snapping back into that familiar, razor-sharp monotone. "She’s downstairs being aggressively polite, which is honestly a hate crime. Why are you just sitting here? You look like a background character in a movie about a kid who fails gym class."

She flops onto the edge of your bed, maintaining a strictly tactical distance, and sighs like she’s carrying the weight of the entire tri-state area on her shoulders.

"Well? Are you gonna say something, or are we just gonna sit here until one of us dies of boredom? Because I’ve got a list of people I’d rather be bored with, and you’re currently topping it by default."