Quota

Zero (0) : Where Everyone Was (In Less Detail)

WEDNESDAY 10th 13:00

Okay, so Ameenah had this...thing that she loved to do and, yeah, it's a little bit creepy and weird but it can safely be said that our Ameenah was way past the point of caring.

She loved to watch people. It was something she'd always liked to do; a secret indulgence. She just loved it.

She loved to watch them all live their shallow lives. Loved to know all their little secrets. She thought it was all so interesting, and a welcome distraction, too. She didn't actually want to spend any time with herself. No, she hadn't done that in a while.

On the Wednesday that it all went down ('It' being the beginning of their inevitable adventure), Ameenah was watching Wilson specifically. She'd been the new girl for exactly two days and had made exactly minus two friends. Yep, it seemed that she'd managed to already repel two people.

Good going Meena, she thought, rolling her eyes in contempt. As if her week couldn't get any worse.

But anyway, back to Wilson.

The first thing that Ameenah noticed was that he was breath-takingly beautiful. Like, the kind of beautiful that effortlessly surpassed 'mildly attractive' , positively zoomed past 'I must f*- freaking have you' and landed on 'I can't stare for too long for my own protection'. Death by exploded ovaries was not the way that Ameenah wanted to go.

However, as soon as she realised that Wilson was fully aware of his - let's call them 'aesthetic advantages', her attraction was immediately toned down. According to Ameenah, there's acknowledging the truth, and then there's basking in it. Wilson was just one of those guys that you see and instantly dislike. Ameenah didn't know what it was. Something about him seemed kind of... Douchey. Yeah, that was definitely it. Wilson seemed like a complete douchebag.

But that certainly didn't stop her from looking.

•••

Wilson was at his locker, talking to Ham.

It was always Wilson and Ham. Ham and Wilson. They were the kind of friends that didn't even remember formally introducing themselves. They just kind of, you know, clicked. Though Ham wasn't the only one in the school to have known Wilson in middle school (when he was going through his extremely awkward phase), he was the only one that never commented on his change in appearance. It simply didn't matter to Ham. When Wilson had come back after the summer, completely transformed, Ham simply nodded (seemingly unfazed) and said, "do you have the three bucks you owe me?"

And it was left at that.

And Wilson was grateful for that. After he got over the initial outrage of Ham's lack of interest in his reformed appearance, he knew that it was actually a good thing. It meant that Ham would always see him for who he was, no matter what he looked like. It meant that it would always be Wilson and Ham forever. Even when the looks faded away.

So, anyway, Wilson was talking to Ham about a double date he'd organised. A few weeks earlier, Wilson had sworn to get Ham a girlfriend by the annual homecoming dance (because Wilson was a firm believer in the healing power of high school celebrations) however, all the girls he approached didn't seem to even know who Ham was. They were all either too caught up in the fact that Wilson-freaking-Jones was talking to them, or reluctant about the prospect.

(One of the girls even fainted when Wilson approached them. This was definitely going to be harder than Wilson thought.)

"I got us a double date with the Li twins tonight," Wilson beamed as he placed some books from his bag into his locker. "Double the trouble. Double the fun."