I don’t have any friends. I don’t want friends, I don’t need friends, I don’t even like the idea of friends. I just don’t understand why anyone feels the need to make friends. They aren’t important. All they do is weigh people down. Now I know that, on occasion, people need social interaction, but friends are too overbearing, too needy. If you don’t perform up to their standards, they abandon you for another of their so-called “friends.” The humongous effort is just not worth it. I could be better spending my time doing something useful like studying to become the world-renowned biochemist that discovers a cure for cancer, AIDS, and the common cold. That doesn’t come easy; friends don’t fit in that schedule. I have to learn as much as I can now, so that right out of medical school, I can begin inoculating the world.

It was a Monday, just like any other day. Hannah briskly walked the three and a half miles that separated her home on 7345 Engle Lane and the home of the Highview Ravens. Her tall, thin frame shivered as the dull thud of her tennis shoes bounced off of every surface on the deserted streets. The air was cold, as it was every morning before dawn in her small, insignificant suburbia.

Her bright brown eyes flicked down to the silver watch on her left wrist. Zero period AP Chemistry began in half an hour. She quickened her pace considerably. She needed to get there fifteen minutes early to discuss errors and inconsistencies in their outdated textbooks with Mr. Allen.

She arrived twenty-two minutes early.

The rest of the morning and afternoon went fairy well until fifth period AP English. Hannah was not the best at English because of her math and science brain, but she somehow managed to wrangle one of the few low A’s. She was determined to bring it up at least three percentage points by the end of the semester. Her mood lifted as Mrs. Klausky announced a presentation project on whatever topic they may wish.

“It helps build speech skills.”

Hannah’s mood quickly fell as Klausky added that it would be a group project. Hannah massaged one of her temples in vain. A soft, almost inaudible groan slipped past her thin lips. She slowly but confidently raised her hand.

“Does it have to be a group project?”

It did. Apparently being able to successfully function in a group of three to five people was a state standard.

The project would last two weeks, said Klausky. It would all be done in class and, at the end of the two weeks, each group would give a boring, contrived presentation on their meaningless topic. Hannah hoped that maybe – just maybe – her group might choose to research something intelligent.

The class broke in to scattered groups of friends hoping to fritter away class time with incoherent babble about who the quarterback was dating and how attractive so-and-so was. Hannah just watched them laugh. A small curl formed on her upper lip, a mark of disdain for wasted time, but it disappeared when a group of four friends decided to occupy the desks around her.

Perfect. In her observations, she had forgotten to join a group that she could tolerate reasonably well. Now she was stuck with the loudest, rowdiest people in class. She was stuck with the people who convinced themselves that Hannah was their friends. She was stuck with Alexia, David, Keith, and Sasha. Her hopes of an intelligent topic were dashed.

“Hey, Hannah, what’s up?” Alexis asked entirely too cheerfully.

Hannah did not reply.

“C’mon…” Alexis falsely pleaded. Hannah was remarkably saved by David.

“Alright guys, what should we do our presentation on?”

“We could do it on bears,” Keith suggested. The four burst into laughter at the inside joke that Hannah felt was unnecessary. She propped her head up on one hand.

“We could do it on that one time Keith ran into a parked car with his skateboard!” Sasha yelled.

“Ha! Did you guys see Aaron yesterday? He jumped the stream over by the park!”

“No way!”

“Didn’t he do that last week?”

“No, that was the ditch next to the freeway.”

“Why can I never remember these things?”

“Oh, hey, Alexis, can I borrow your math homework?”

“Sure – Oh my God! Steve sits in front of me in math now –“

“Nobody cares. Can we just pick a topic, please?” Hannah chimed in after she couldn’t take anymore pointless blathering.

Silence.

“Yeah, no problem,” David said finally.

Silence.

“Bears?”

“No.”

Silence.

“Well… What do you want to do, Hannah?” Sasha asked.

“I was actually thinking about doing the recent discovery of a new virus. They haven’t named it yet, but it will supposedly be very helpful in the medical world because it’s very similar to AIDS, but it’s easier to find and destroy, so—“

“Boring,” Keith sang. Hannah sighed and narrowed her eyes slightly.

“Keith!” Alexis chastised.

“He’s right,” David said. “I mean, whoop-de-do for scientists, but this is boring.

“Let’s do bears.”

“No!”

“Yeah, c’mon, let’s do bears.”

“That’s stupid.”

“No, it’ll be cool! I can borrow the bear from my dad’s costume place!”

“Really? That would be pretty cool, David.”

“Okay, fine. But since we’re doing bears, we have to make it super cool.”

“Yes!”

Hannah brought her head down to the desk. This was why she had no friends. Everyone was stupid and immature. She couldn’t wait to graduate and finally be able to go somewhere where people would understand how serious she was about her studies. The group of friends burst into uncontrolled laughter once again and Hannah closed her eyes in frustration.

This would be a long two weeks.