Chapter Text
It was a warm September afternoon during the year 1998 & all the students of Randall Heights Middle School had just been dismissed from classes. The school is made up of various social cliques among the many students which led to the creation of several clubs by the students.
While the other students made many friends through common interests, there is always the possibility that there would be a loner, a shut-in, one who did not have many friends if any. This was the case in the school’s 6th grade class. The loner’s name was Jake Wallace, a boy who had just moved from the small town of Lupton, California over the summer as his mother accepted a new job.
He’s always had a lack of interest in making new friends & didn’t have a lot of friends in his old school. He’s always kept to himself & preferred studying by himself in silence. He never participated in any extracurricular or after-school activities in his old school and always walked home by himself instead of taking the school bus & his mother was always too busy at her job to pick him up, only to drop him off. She worked a 9-5 job as a retail manager until being promoted to board of directors for the Scientifically Nerdy tech & education store.
As Jake began his walk from school, his exact thoughts were “New school, new city, new life… I still don’t get the way this society runs, it’s all the same wherever I go...”
This routine walk to school was about to be interrupted when 2 girls were sitting in their limousine, basically bored & debating what to do. Rich girl Brittanica Lennox is the most popular girl in her class & probably in the entire school eventually & her nerdy but adorkable best friend Taylor Little is the one of smartest in her class. Both of them attend the same class as Jake.
“Gee, I’m kind of bored…” Brittanica obviously states as she gets in her limo & sit in the back seat with her friend. “First day of school & yet, everybody is always giving me special treatment because I’m the rich girl again. Nothing feels different.”
Taylor sympathizes with Brittanica. “I know how you feel. Everybody keeps asking me to let them copy my answers during the pop quiz. They wouldn’t have to ask me if they had studied like I did this summer.” she says.
The observant Brittanica rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you’re probably the only person I know who does that.” she touches her friend’s shoulder as she says the sentence.
The school bus finally begins moving from the curb of the school as does the limo when Brittanica asks her driver to stop the limo real quick.
“What’s wrong?” both her driver & Taylor ask Brittanica when she points out to Jake as he is seen walking alone.
Brittanica observes & tells them “Look at that boy! I think I know him from our class! But why is he walking home by himself?” Taylor rolls her eyes and says “Here we go, you’re going to butt into someone else’s business & have it backfire you horribly.” She goes on to talk about the last time she attempted to do the same thing last year. “Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to force a friendship with someone? He almost had us arrested!”
The persuasive Brittanica puts her hand on Taylor’s face to shush her as she continues looking at Jake walking alone. “Nonsense! That boy was just a meanie-pants! I think this one really does needs friends!”
“Tell that to the 2 restraining orders that your last 2 ‘friends’ filed against you.” Taylor shrugs as she realizes that she’s just not getting through to Brittanica who prepares to step out of the limousine while grasping her best friend’s hand. “Just follow my lead, OK?” Brittanica instructs Taylor as she opens the limo’s door & they both step out to introduce themselves to Jake who continues his walk home without looking back & expecting anything out of the ordinary until being stopped & greeted by Brittanica & Taylor.
Jake turns his head & takes a look at Brittanica & Taylor as Brittanica attempts to start a conversation with Jake & introduces herself.
She greets Jake with an overexcited “Hi!” & Jake responds with a “Hello.” and walks along. Brittanica walks along with Jake while dragging Taylor along with her. “My name is Brittanica, richest girl in school & the school’s welcome wagon! And this is my best friend, Taylor!” She grabs & pulls Taylor in front of her to introduce her. “Hi, I’m Taylor!” She quickly says to Jake.
“Hello to you too.” Jake quietly says to Taylor unenthusiastically and continues walking without even looking at the both of them further. “It looks like you must be new to this school and don’t really have any friends.” Brittanica observably tell Jake who responds with a “Correct.”
Brittanica would later extend an invitation to hangout with herself & Taylor to the local hangout & restaurant. “Taylor & I are about to go to Howie’s for some afterschool food & chill. Wanna hang with us?” Jake would reject the invitation with a quick “No thanks.” & begins to walk at a quicker pace. “Come on, one milkshake won’t hurt, will it? You’re not allergic, are you?” Brittanica asks while she & Taylor also walking at a quicker pace. Jake gives a quick reply “No.” and begins running to get away from the somewhat badgering Brittanica who also starts running to catch up to Jake, somewhat dragging Taylor in the process. Brittanica asks Jake “What’s the problem, then? Don’t you want friends to hang out with?” and Taylor adds “Look, she’s just not going to quit trying so just say yes so she’ll leave you alone and she can stop dragging me.”
“Look, I’m not interested in hanging out, friends or anything else right now! I have homework to do! Just leave me alone, please!” Jake in an annoyed voice tells them & runs off quickly to get away from Brittanica’s continued badgering. She & Taylor both stop and let Jake run from them as Taylor asks “Well, he doesn’t want to hang out. He has homework to do. Now can we leave the poor boy alone?” Brittanica answers with a quick “Nope!”, turns to her & whistles for her limousine. “It just shows he’s very lonely and needs friends more than ever!”
After the brief encounter, Jake had just stepped inside of his home His sister, Matilda had arrived home slightly earlier than Jake by riding the bus and goes on to greet Jake with a sarcastic greeting before returning to her magazine. “Enjoying the loner life in your new school?”, she asked Jake as he walks on by towards his room. Jake would reply with a sigh, “I don't really feel like talking right now. I've just had a couple of crazy girls trying to pressure me into hanging out with them. I'm going into the solitude of my room now.”
Jake would walk into his room which is completely full of technology. At least three computer towers, two of them being Linux machines while the third acting as a server with BSD installed, two Commodore Amiga machines, a NeXT workstation, an iMac and a laptop with Windows 95 installed. Jake’s room is also decorated with computer-related posters and even a couple of anime posters. Jake sits at his computer desk and begins to code on one of his Linux machines and would continue to code non-stop into the night before he does his homework.
Later that evening, as Jake is doing his homework, he hears a knock on his door and his mother's voice through the door. “Jake! You have a couple of visitors from school to visit you!”, She would inform Jake. Confused and wondering who would visit him at home, Jake reluctantly opens the door to find Brittanica and Taylor waiting outside his door. Rather scared and shaking, Jake would start asking them “Wha-- You're the crazy girls I met during my walk home! What do you want from me and how did you know where I lived?”
Brittanica forced her way into Jake’s room with Taylor following her. “What? Were we not supposed to come over to visit our new friend?” Brittanica asks Jake with a bit of a frown in her face. “I thought we were friends here? Isn't that right, Taylor? Aren't we all friends here?” Taylor shrugs her shoulders reluctantly in agreement with her crazy friend. Jake slowly steps back away from Brittanica. Pupils dilating, head sweating, body shaking, he starts to yell, “Please! You are disturbing me and keeping me from my homework! I didn't invite you and I don't even know either of you! If you don't leave, I’m going to call the police!”
Brittanica grabs Jake by the shoulders, pushes him against his door and slams both of her hands against the door, one hand next to each side of Jake. She looks at him seductively and says to him in a soft, ASMR tone of voice, “We’re doing you a favour by coming here. We're not going to leave until you agree to be our friend and let us help you make more friends. You're a very lonely boy and we’re going to turn you into a social butterfly.” Taylor, whom has a very worried look on her face suggests that she stops before Jake calls the police. The room would be filled with absolute silence as everyone stood still for 10 seconds before Brittanica lets out a soft and reluctant “Fine!”, frees Jake from her arms there were keeping him trapped and opens the door to leave the room. “Let's go then, Taylor! If this kid wants to be a complete loner who’ll never have any friends, then we'll let him be a loner for the rest of his life!”
Brittanica leaves the room and Taylor slowly proceeds to follow her but stops at the doorway to apologise on Brittanica’s behalf. “I'm sorry that my friend went crazy on you and for stalking you. She's my best friend and I gotta be there just in case she takes things too far. Please forgive us.” While also taking notice of all the technology, Taylor continued, “I like computers. My folks bought me a few computers when for my birthdays. You know, because I'm a smart nerd who happens to end up hanging with the most popular girl in school. I'm not as crazy as Brittanica is but if you ever want someone to talk computers with, you know where to find me.” Taylor leaves the room and closes the door. After giving it a few seconds to think, Jake opens the door and yells toward Taylor, asking her to wait.
Jake walked up to Taylor and says to her, “You're not much like your crazy friend. At least you’ve owned up to some of your mistakes and you seem a smart, intelligent girl. I suppose we could be friends but leave your crazy friend at home.”
“Did he say friend?” a familiar voice yells from the room next to Jake's. Jake and Taylor open the door to find Brittanica in Matilda's room with Matilda playing tea party in her room. “Britt and I are playing tea party! Do you want to play with us?”, the little sister asked. Taylor, with her eyes all aglow looked at Matilda and began to tell her how cute she was. “Is this your little sister? She's soooo cute! Come on! Can't we play tea party with her?” Jake shrugged his shoulders and reluctantly joins in the tea party with his sister and his apparent new friends.
A few imaginary sips of tea later, everyone has already started to calm themselves down and Brittanica had apologised to Jake for her idea to stalk him and force him to become friends with her while Jake also apologised to both Brittanica and Taylor for snubbing them both rudely. “The truth is, I'm an introvert and I have extreme social anxiety. I’ve always been more comfortable with just my family, my studies and my computers than with other people. I don't feel really comfortable around other people.” Jake would take another sip of his cup of his sister's imaginary tea following his explanation. Brittanica puts her cup of imaginary tea down, stands up and says to Jake, “Look, I know you don't feel comfortable with other people but I want to help you overcome your anxiety and I'm sure Taylor wants to as well!”
Taylor, though looking slightly shocked begins to nod. “Yes, I’d be happy to but only if you want help. I'm not going to be pushy about it like Brittanica tends to be.” Brittanica offers her hand to Jake with a smile on her face. Matilda pinches and pulls on one of Jake’s sleeves in insistence that he accepts both Brittanica’s offer to help and her friendship offer. Jake sighs and grabs hold of Brittanica’s hand. “Okay…”, he sighs reluctantly. “I will accept your offer but only if Taylor is helping. I'm still a little skittish after you went nuts on me.”
Brittanica begins to scream a cheerful yay and hugs Jake but he pushes back and tell her that he needed to maintain some personal space. Brittanica agreed to step back a bit and refrain from hugging him. “I think our work here is done for the night!”, She states. “Meet us in the school courtyard at exactly 7:45 AM tomorrow! See you then!” Brittanica happily walks out of Matilda's room with nothing but a smile on her face. Taylor pats Jake on the shoulder and smiles at him before following Brittanica. “You didn't have to accept her offers but I'm sure she's quite happy to help you. See you tomorrow, Jake. It was great meeting you and your little sister!” Taylor also walks out of the room while waving goodbye to him and Matilda.
“They seem pretty cool. You should invite them to come over more often! I think they like it….” Matilda pointed out while also giggling. Jake brushed off Matilda's comment about his new friends and proceeded to walk from her room into his room. “I'm still not all that interested in making new friends. But if it makes them happy and you happy, I’ll humour them. I'm just going to sleep on it. Good night.” Jake shuts his bedroom door and gets ready for bed. The lights are all off inside the house with the exception of Jake’s computers which are going through updates to the latest versions of Debian and BSD.