The Year of the One

[Minty Car]

My return to the Spin-Off/Literature arena since forever ago. This will be a non-Spongebob lit, and it's kinda personal to me. Hopefully this is like my Fred series in that it blows you guys away

[Wumbo]

Hey, welcome back!

[ClassicNickelodeon Fan 1]

Welcome back Fa!

[Minty Car]

Episode 1: Owner of a Lonely Heart

The last year. This was the idea constantly echoing in Bryan's head. The last year of high school in town, and then he was out. He had little left he cared about enough to stay. He loved his parents of course no doubt, but it was always an everlasting inferno of bickering with either. He just wanted to focus on the studies this year, and then move the fuck on. On this particular day (the 22nd of October) he was having lunch with Matt. Matt was a freshman, but Bryan ate with him because he was the brother of Daniel, one of his best friends.

"How's it going Matty?" Bryan asked as he plunged a stack of smiley faced French fries doused in ketchup straight into the abyss of his mouth.

"I've found the one I want." Matt said with a gradually growing smile.

Bryan finished eating, wiping excess ketchup off his face like a bear the blood of his latest victim. "Don't tell me you believe you’re in love dude?" He sarcastically shot at him.

Matt scratched his chin for a second or two before replying with a "yes" exuberated by the confidence on his joyous face.

"Oh god dude. You’re just like your brother, believing in that bullshit called true love." Bryan said as he buried his face into a face palm, which basically said "dumbass"

"Look, I'm just saying this: you'll meet someone that just being around them makes you indescribably happy, and you'll be able to talk to them for a long time about anything and-" Matt was rambling on and on.

"Look, that shit may happen in the Cinderella's and the Dear John's, but this is the deep blue sea, Bikini Bottom indeed. That just doesn't happen to me." Bryan said. As he said this, a sort of a frown grew on his face.

"But you want it to" Matt said as they parted ways.

Bryan went out of the school building and into a trailer for the next class of the day. The teacher of the class was a frump, who didn't tell anyone his true name.

"How many of you dum dums actually did the rough draft of the paper." He asked.

Perhaps a little tiny bit over a quarter of the class raised their hands. He had begun to expect this after 11 years of teaching seniors, so he merely said this:

"Those of you, who got your shit, sit here in groups of 3 and peer edit. Those of you don't, sit there and start a rough draft... Or don’t. Your graduation on the line, not mine." He then sat back at his desk, not to be disturbed.

Bryan sat immediately with Sam, the guy he sat next to normally in class mostly because his other "friend" Tim hadn't done the rough draft. Bryan was ok with this because his paper was a little too personal for him to want to reveal to Tim. Then their third person came, a girl.

"Oh hey can I join you guys?" She asked. Both said yes in unison, but then she looked at Bryan, and asked "Are you sure? You’re lookin at me kind of funny?" Feeling like a fish out of water, Bryan quickly said "no, no, no, no. Your fine, I don't know I guess I have a look some times. I'm Bryan by the way." She replied with "my name's Nicki." She had transferred into the class recently, and Bryan had only spoken to her once, but she sat on the other side of the row Bryan, Sam, and Tim had setup, so they had barely spoken up till now.

They then began critiquing each other's papers. Bryan was silent but in a stoic sense, taking notes. As Nicki and Sam openly critiqued each other on ideas, Bryan just listened in. Then it was his turn to read his paper. He read the introductory paragraph and before long Nicki stopped him.

"Oh my god dude, that just blew me away. You’re so descriptive and it just makes me feel like I was right there. Like seriously, good job."

"Thanks I try" he said. “Is it just me or is it getting hot in here?” They both laughed.

They finally finished up, and had nothing to do, so they simply talked. Sam talked about all the Legos he owned, Nicki talked about college and Bryan occasionally mentioned something adding onto them, but did as always, and stayed somewhat aloof. After class ended, Bryan went home and prepared to fix the mistakes; he looked at the paper Nicki had edited more than Sam’s. In fact he barely looked at Sam’s. He saw that she had written a big smiley face on it, and after looking at it for a while he began to smile to. “A good mood is contagious I guess” he thought to himself.

Because of the seating thing, Bryan and Nicki hadn’t spoken since that day. But he wanted to talk to her, he really did. Two weeks passed by, and he finally had had it. He called up one of his friends that day, Will.

“How’s it going my man?” he asked. “Fine I guess.” Bryan replied. “I got someone on my mind recently. It’s not like me.”

“It’s all cool. What’s going on in your head?” Will asked. “Well I worked with this one girl and I’d like to talk to her but…. I don’t know.” Bryan said, looking visibly nervous. “I think you have a crush…” Will said “NO I DON’T” Bryan yelled as he hung up. But he knew the truth deep in his heart. He knew he was falling for that girl. It had just been so long.

[Wumbo]

Good job! My only quibble would be in some parts it was a little wordy, but this story has promise.

[Ron]

Episode 1: Owner of a Lonely Heart

The last year. This was the idea constantly echoing in Bryan's head. The last year of high school in town, and then he was out. He had little left he cared about enough to stay. He loved his parents of course no doubt, but it was always an everlasting inferno of bickering with either. He just wanted to focus on the studies this year, and then move the fuck on. On this particular day (the 22nd of October) he was having lunch with Matt. Matt was a freshman, but Bryan ate with him because he was the brother of Daniel, one of his best friends.

"How's it going Matty?" Bryan asked as he plunged a stack of smiley faced French fries doused in ketchup straight into the abyss of his mouth.

"I've found the one I want." Matt said with a gradually growing smile.

Bryan finished eating, wiping excess ketchup off his face like a bear the blood of his latest victim.

I thought he was talking about finding the french fry he wanted when he said this lol

I agree with Wumbo, the similies and figurative language was a little excessive here, but overall good! I don't think I've ever seen a romance-focused spinoff/lit here before.

[Minty Car]

Episode 2: About a Girl

Bryan was losing it. He had finally come to terms with the fact that he was developing his first serious crush in years, after having determined that relationships at his age were highly useless. It was ridiculous to him. And he felt he couldn't talk to anyone about because, one he didn't want people who she knew to know how he felt towards her, and secondly he didn't want any flak for his changing views. And he could only think of one person who he could trust, and that was Jane.

Jane and Bryan had met each other the previous year in a history class and had remained consistently close up until the very beginning of this year, when she had some thing happen to her. Bryan had no idea what had happened, he just knew she wasn't going to school anymore and he had not talked to her for about a month. He decided he would catch up with her and then bring up his problem. So he called her up.

"Hey Jane." He said. "How's it going?"

"Not very well." She said shakily. "I haven't been to school in 3 weeks."

"What?" Bryan had known she had always had some problems, but this truly shocked him. "What happened?"

"It's a long story." She said. "I'll tell you some other time."

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"YES!" She said affirmatively. He dropped it. Once she calmed, she asked "how have you been?"

Bryan had been waiting for this, but now he was deadly worried. What would she say? Was she in too much of her shit to really deal with his problems?

"Eh, ok I guess." Bryan said, his voice carrying a tone of uncertainty, which Jane caught.

"What is it?" Jane asked. "Your a little more on edge then usual I think."

"Dammit." Bryan thought to himself. "Ok, are you sure your up to this?" He asked her.

"Yeah sure." She said confidently.

"Alright. Well, I did meet this girl in my English class, and I do kind of like her." He started.

"OH YOU Mr."I don't give a shit about love" has fallen!" She said in the most exuberant voice since the conversation had started.

"Yeah I guess so." He said caught off guard.

"What's her name? Come on tell me!" She said.

Although he hadn't wanted her to know this, he felt she had been through a lot of shit lately, so he decided it couldn't hurt. "Her name's Nicole, but she goes by Nicki." He said.

There was a silence over the phone, and Bryan began panicking. "Oh fuck" continually ran through his mind as he awaited. Then finally...

"OH MY GOD! I KNOW HER! SHE'S GREAT!" She said. Bryan felt mixed: at least she didn't hate her, but now somebody who knew her knows his secret. "Be careful though, she's really nice to everyone though, not just you." She continued on.

As the days shifted on, he continued to fluster on, his nerves throwing him off, he just couldn't talk to her. He added her on Facebook, which could either be considered the great feat or just confirmation that he was part of the normal order. Either way little progress had occurred. Finally he decided he would message her on Facebook. He decided to do it while on a church retreat with Matt.

"Oh so is this girl your one?" Matt asked.

"No she's merely my latest fuck toy." He replied. Matt looked at Bryan in disbelief. "Chill bro, I'm kidding. We're in God's house for God's sake."

"Just be careful with those words bro." Matt said.

"Will do." Bryan said. "Hopefully, she replies." Then it hit him.... "OH SHIT, WE PICKED THE WORST SPOT TO TRY THIS AT!" He yelled throughout the rustic church.

[Minty Car]

Episode 3: For the First Time (In a Long Time)

Bryan sat in the silent corridor of the Church, his face buried into his hands. It had been a long weekend and he couldn't tell if it's pain would carry into the coming week, or if it would work out after all. She had never replied, but she'd certainly been on. It was a blow that he hadn't suffered since the last time he had tried. But that was so long ago. As Bryan packed on the last day, Matt came in to check on him.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked.

"Not really, but yeah let's roll." he replied.

"Are you fully packed I mean." Matt responded. "You don't want to forget anything here."

"Yeah, I've been packed." Bryan said. "I'm just worried about what's next down the road."

"Well just don't give up. The minute you give up is the minute it's over" Matt said. "Now lets go."

They returned to their lives just as before. As Bryan feared, nothing changed. Nothing bad happened, but nothing good happened either. His life just felt stuck in place. Thanksgiving passed and he remained in the same spot. He felt stagnated as he dreamed of her but sat what felt like miles away. It was just a could steps away, but it seemed like an ocean between them. Then one day, out of the blue, Tim, who sat on his right caught him off guard.

"Hey, you ok?" Tim asked in his nasally voice. "You look a little dazed."

Of course Tim was right, he was daydreaming about Nicki, but there was no way in hell that he'd ever tell Tim.

"Oh yeah, I'm good." Bryan responded, a little weakly. "I was just focused."

Ignoring that fact that all we were doing was watching "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" that day because the teacher was half baked, he dropped it. But it scared Bryan that people could notice his dazedness. But he still felt insecure about himself. Would it ever change? Was being the lovebird out of distance his fate. He would soon find out.

The next class was Friday, the last of November. When he walked in, Bryan was surprised. The desks were set up differently then before. Instead of the straight rows they had always been in, they were now in in clumped groups of 5 or more. The one where Bryan and his friends sat at had 5. Bryan sat next to Josh on his left, and there was an odd desk out for Tim. When Nicki came, Bryan was unsure where she was going to sit and a little worried. She sat right in front of him. This could be his chance, but the nerves were getting to him as usual so he was quiet.

Later, after the class got started, Tim was sent to get the books for class reading, and he didn't get nearly enough. He then acted stubborn and refused to go get more, so without saying a word Bryan just went and got them. It wasn't a move, he just didn't want to fall behind everyone else because of Tim. Then he got his boost.

"Aw thanks Bryan. You're so nice!" Nicki said to him.

He humbly said "Oh no problem at all." But really he could see the ice breaking. Although a small thing, she was talking to him after what felt like a century. Later that same class she accidentally kicked his book bag thinking it was him.

"Was that you I hit?" she asked.

"Oh no, just my-" Bryan started to say.

"Oh thank God, I would have felt so bad if I kicked you. Like ya know." She said hurriedly.

"Oh it's fine, don't worry." He said. "Damn, I kinda wish she had kicked me so she wouldn't have stopped." Bryan thought to himself.

It may have been simple, but it was the opening door. Bryan could now travel the path he'd never taken but always wished he had: the one of love, for the first time.