The first time Kim saw Amanda, she was arguing with a vending machine.
"It took my money!" she huffed, kicking the machine lightly before looking around, as if expecting someone to fix the injustice. Kim, leaning against his locker, couldn't help but laugh.
"That thing's been broken since freshman year," he said, walking over. "You're better off buying from the cafeteria."
She turned, her dark eyes narrowing playfully. "Oh, so you just stood there watching me struggle?"
Kim grinned. "Entertainment's hard to come by in this school."
Amanda rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at her lips. That was the beginning.
High school flew by in a blur of stolen kisses between classes, late-night phone calls, and whispered promises. Kim, the golden boy with his family's fortune waiting for him, and Amanda, the scholarship student who worked part-time at a diner to help her mom pay rent—they were an unlikely pair, but they fit.
"You're going to take over your dad's company one day," she mused one evening as they sat on the hood of his car, watching the sunset. "And I'll be a broke artist somewhere, still fighting that stupid vending machine."
Kim laced his fingers through hers. "Nah. You'll be my broke artist. And I'll buy you a vending machine that actually works."
She laughed, and he memorized the sound.