Check, Please (Book #2)

One.

Los Angeles, California: a city filled with hopes, dreams, botched nose jobs, and smog. Maybe I was naive when I moved here for college four years ago, but I honestly thought that the city would be, well, more like the movies, to be honest. I'm not sure why, but when I got on that plane from Logan International Airport, I'd been convinced that the entire town would be filled with palm trees, women walking the streets in tiny swimsuits, and celebrities in every coffee shop. That's what had been sold to me all my life but what did I get instead? A lot of parking tickets, for one, and the realization that I'd rather stab my eyes out with a fork than drive to the beach from where I lived, bikinis or no bikinis. For the most part, though, what I've come to realize is that this city is just weird.

Really, really weird.

I leaned into a turn as I brought my longboard around a curve in the street, swerving between the herds of students on their way to the first day of class. I heard a girl protest loudly when I skated between her and the brunettes flanking her on either side. They all wore matching Greek letters on their crop tops -- Gamma Alpha Xi -- and I turned and waved apologetically to the trio, flashing a smile. The whiny girl sneered and rolled her eyes but I saw her two friends smile back. Shrugging, I decided that two out of three wasn't terrible at nine in the morning.

Pumping my leg to pick up speed, I rolled across the street that led to campus and wondered why I wasn't more excited about the first day of what should've been my senior year. Maybe that was it --knowing that I wasn't graduating in May had definitely put a damper on my summer, especially because I knew that most of my friends had been off doing big important things at big important internships. Meanwhile, I'd been stuck scanning key cards at the campus gym for three months. I shook my head, trying not to think about it too much. When I was growing up, my mom always told me not to compare myself to other people, which would've been a nice life lesson if my dad hadn't always followed it up with, "Be the best so that everyone compares themselves to you."

As if that's ever going to happen.

"Yo, Donahue, wait up!"

Hearing the familiar voice of my childhood best friend jerked me out of my thoughts and I looked over my shoulder to see him weaving his brand new board through the same group of girls that I'd cut through earlier. All three of them eyed him appreciatively, even the girl who'd given me grief, but, as usual, Parker didn't even notice. That was actually the thing I appreciated most about the guy. He had more reasons to be conceited than anyone I knew but he was genuinely too nice to even realize it. Then again, I suspected that he might have just been clueless.

"Hey," I said, slowing as Parker caught up until we were skating side by side.

"Dude, I've been calling your name since you left the house," Parker said, his backpack slung casually over one shoulder and his gaze trained on my face.

"Sorry, man, I didn't hear you." I squinted ahead of us and wished I'd worn sunglasses as my eyes began to water. I wiped away the tiny droplets before they could pool on my lower lashes, worried that Parker might think that I was crying. "It's way too early."

Parker laughed. "I guess I'm pretty used to it."

"Yeah, well, you would be after working all year, wouldn't you?"

Parker let a shoulder rise and fall noncommittally. "It's so weird being back on campus," he said, looking around. "Like, everything looks the same but I can tell that things are different now, you know?"

I nodded, though I could only speculate as to what he was feeling; nothing ever really changed in my world. "What've you got this morning?" I asked.

"Petroleum Geophysics and then I have Advanced Fluid Dynamics right after. You?"

I stared at him, having heard what he'd said but not understanding a word of it. "What the hell is Petroleum Geophysics?"