I hate it when I'm late.

But once again, shit happens, and shit always seems to pick me, to happen to. So this morning I find myself hauling ass for school, because my barely-functional phone has barney-mugged itself once again and failed to wake me up at the agreed upon time.

I'm so tired of dealing with broken-down shit.

Also, I'm tired, in general, because Doc called me in the middle of the night to talk my ear off about a breakthrough he's made; it would have been much more interesting if he'd actually told me something specific about it. But no, that would have spoiled the big reveal. So it just made it hard for me to get back to sleep. This weekend is the annual science fair, and I've been putting the final touches on my project, which is currently occupying a corner of Doc's workshop.

He's a frustrating guy to work with, Doc, but at the moment he's my only real option. I live in a small town, and there's not many actual scientists that have chosen to call Hill Valley home. And if I tried to add up the ones that would also hire an under-age high-schooler, and let them have some lab space, well, I can count them on one hand. Well, one finger. I'll let you guess which one. Doc lets me run errands and do some minor stuff in his lab; he likes the idea of giving a kid a helping hand in life, I guess. He's a good guy. But between the strange assignments, the midnight phone calls, and paychecks that would make a fast-food worker cry; well, let's just say that I'm hoping to put all this behind me, one day very soon.

But over the last year and a half that we've been working together, I guess you'd say we've sort of become friends. About as friendly as two people with a double-wide generation gap between them can be, anyway. We do have science in common, at least. He's written me an awesome letter of recommendation - okay, well… actually, Mindy Park wrote it, but he signed it. Close enough. Anyway, anything that will help me get accepted to a good school is a Very Good Thing™ at this point. I really need to get out of this town, and going away to college seems like a good first step. The further away, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Mindy and I pretty much see eye-to-eye on that.

Which is good, because Mindy's my best friend at Hill Valley High School. But the truth is that I've also been nursing a crush on her for the longest time now. It's probably unhealthy; at this point, I've spent so long imagining how great it would be if she were actually my girlfriend, that it's bound to come as a crushing blow to my ego when I ask her on a date and she recoils in horror. I have no idea what she'd say, honestly.

Why? Because I've never asked. I guess I'm afraid of rejection. But, in the meantime, until I finally work up my courage and tell her how I feel, she's still a great friend. She's a quiet girl, and maybe kind of hard to get to know, but she's funny and smart, and beautiful, and I think she'll be very successful someday. She's the astronomy geek to my botany nerd, and since we've gotten to know each other, those lines have blurred quite a bit, actually.

I was much never interested in astronomy, but listening to a pretty girl talk about it all the time, with her blue eyes all lit up, well… it didn't take too long for me to make myself at home there with her, laying on our backs outside in her backyard in the grass, looking through her telescope at whatever interesting object the night sky had to offer. At first, I was kind of faking, because I just wanted to spend more time with her. But she's shown me satellites and planets, stars and a lunar eclipse, over the last year. And once or twice, the International Space Station has zoomed by, overhead. Just a bright little blur from down here, but Mindy would be able to tell you about every last module of it. And everyone that's ever been there. I guess her enthusiasm has rubbed off on me.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that Mindy has gotten into botany or horticulture, and I wouldn't want to bore her by talking about it, anyway. But one day last spring, she and I were walking home from school, and she stopped for a minute to admire some flowers in some guy's yard. Said she'd never seen any that color before.

Well, what else could a plant nerd do for the girl he loves? I snipped off a cutting of it and rooted it and grafted it for her. It's out behind my house right now, as a matter of fact. Not in the ground. In a pot. Because I'm going to give it to her.

Someday.

Right now, though, I'm late for school. As to exactly how late, I couldn't say. Dead phone and all. But it can't be a good sign that there's nobody in the hall, when I quietly make my way through the west entrance and head for my first-period classroom. Hopefully the teacher hasn't gone so far as to lock the door once she's called roll; because I really don't need-

"Detention, Mr. Watney."

Motherfucker. He was right behind me. The principal of this school is the world's biggest prick. And I'm his favorite target. I swear, he's probably staked out this class for the pure joy of fucking me over. I don't answer him, as he's writing out my pass to the out-building where I'll be spending the next hour in detention. Again.

He's staring at me; clearly he's just dying for me to say something. But like my mom's told me, if you can't say anything nice, well; yea, I have nothing to say to this guy. And frankly, it seems to be getting his goat this morning that he can't get a rise out of me, so I just smirk at him and hold out my hand for the detention slip.

"You're really not going places, are you, Mr. Watney? This is your sixth detention this term, isn't it? One more and you're going to lose credit for the semester, isn't that right? What a shame that would be."

Asshole. I can see from the expression on his face, exactly where he's going with this. Because naturally, if you can't get under a guy's skin by threat, the obvious next step is to resort to insult.

"I'll bet your parents would be so disappointed. Wouldn't they? I mean, after they made such a failure of their own lives, surely it would be disappointing to see their only child go down the same path?"

I take the detention slip from his hand without comment and start walking. Does he turn on his heel and start following me, the fucking creep? Of course he does. Bastard. Keeps right up with his banter, too.

"It will be, I mean." He paused for a moment. I kept on walking. "Such a disappointment."

"I'm not going to disappoint them," I burst out angrily, in spite of myself.

"You're not going anywhere, Watney. Except to detention." He grinned at me; such an unpleasant man. But the next thing he said, made me want to put my fist through his face.

"Like father, like son."