I made up some bullshit excuse to get out of last period early (not really actually, I just told Pereta I had to bounce early and she doesn’t really question things), but just by five minutes, and that way I could be speeding out and away from school before the staff so I don’t have try to beat them out of the lot.

But the effort turned out to be all in vain.

“Oh, you’re here already? Gabe said you wouldn’t get here in another hour,” my new temporary manager said to me. I had gotten to the job five minutes early, even with a little detour when I ended up going up this one way street and couldn’t turn back around for several blocks. I suppose I should’ve used the internets to look up the actual place earlier as opposed to checking the numbers on the buildings like the old days.

“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. Goddammit, nobody still tells me anything.

“Eh, what the hell, if you start now, we’ll cover you for this hour- go grab yourself a vest,” the manager gruffly said, and then disappeared for the rest of my shift.

“With a high end place like this,” one of my new coworker’s said to me, referring to the nice hotel we were valeting for, “You’d think they’d be more strict. Not that we’re complaining.”

“We think all he does is watch porn,” the other valet said, “Whenever he’s not here, we take turns hot boxing in his office. There’s like no windows there; it’s perfect.”

No wonder why Gabe wants to hang on to this job and why I was allowed to (not so legally) temp in his place while he tried to pass his exams. Hell, if there were a way for me to stay, I wouldn’t mind working here either.

After hanging out, straight up chilling, one of the guys took off at four. I was thinking I would get some homework done, but a sudden influx of cars interrupted that thought, due to a charity dinner being held in the ballroom. And then when it calmed down again, the other guy and I totally dicked around until eleven, which was when I left. I was pretty satisfied- mostly since I wasn’t expecting a large crowd and I walked away with sixty something dollars in tips only (the really bootleg thing about this job was that technically Gabe was still on the payroll and would be the one getting the check (I was literally standing in for him)- we had a vocal agreement that he’d give me my cut when he gets paid and if he didn’t, I know where he lives).

I was feeling really good going home. This day had been the closest it has been to gloriousness, complete with an optimistic goal (ask Cricket out) to the money in my pocket to which I could use a bit to further my goal (of asking Cricket out). Tiff should be home by now, and I could slap that wad of cash on the table and be like, ‘Yeah, bitch what.” But then she’d probably be all like, ‘yeah, who got you that job?’ and then I’d have to concede and that would be the end of my gloating so maybe not. Oh, that sister of mine.

She always seems so uptight in a really calm way, if that makes sense. I mean, when she gets pissed off or really stressed out I can see the difference but for the most part, I can’t really recall the last time she did or said anything vaguely ridiculous just for the hell of it (that’s Linx’s job).

Case in point: my sister was not the kind of person who’d go out and come back a stumbling drunk (that would be me). She doesn’t participate in the act of it that often, only on a social level, never just for the sake of it. It’s almost as she was so responsible that she was unable to let herself go to the point that she’d have to rely on someone else to watch out for her. If anything, Tiff was the girl who’d go out with her group of girls as the designated team mom. She’s the bitch you’d have to go through if you wanted to hook up with her friends, which pretty much means you have a negative thirty six chance of bringing one of them home with you. My sister is that kind of person.

Which is why, when I walked into the apartment that night, I knew something was amiss.

First off, Tiff was most likely drunk. I’ve never actually seen her in this state before, but I came to this conclusion because she just looked so lazy and content. Of course, she could’ve been high as well, but the lack of smoke and the gigantic bottle of wine nearby indicated otherwise.

Second off, Linx was lounging next to her, also without a doubt, happily inebriated. It was not his presence that threw me off, but the fact that when I walked into the room, they weren’t yelling, arguing, being obnoxious (all Linx) or even making any other noise to indicate that they weren’t sitting in a calm, comfortable silence that threw me off.

Third off: the furniture was completely rearranged. I nor Tiff have never really had the room to care about the placement of our sparse furniture, except for the day it was donated, and thus the room had remained comfortably stagnant for pretty much our entire stay here at this apartment. It was this that freaked me out the most. I actually liked where the couch was before. I’m also not partial to change.

“Hey little man,” Linx drawled, and stuck his hand out, presumably so that we could high-five.

“Hey,” I said, looking at his open palm, which was, like the rest of him, on the opposite side of the room. “What’s, uh, what’s with the rearranging?”

Tiff shrugged. “I was like, ‘hey, what not?’ So I did. I dunno.”

I cut straight to the point, “Are you drunk?”

“Am I?” she looked off into the corner of the room. “Maybe. It’s been a while.”

“I’m not!” Linx announced in a loud voice, his hand still in the air. “Well, just a little bit. Wine tipsy is different from regular tipsy.”

I noticed the lack of cups. “Have you guys been drinking it straight from the bottle?”

Linx laughed, “We’re fucking hard core like that, right Tiff?” He took the outstretched arm that was still waiting for a high five and instead poked Tiff in the side.

She squirmed away. “Tee hee,” Tiff smiled, too lazy to laugh.

“Well guess what?” I hopped over so I was standing in front of both of them. Without waiting for an answer, I dug out the cash from my back pocket and threw it down as it separated in mid air and fluttered silently like leaves, landing on the floor silently. “BAM MOTHERFUCKER!” I threw my hands up in victory. “MONEY!” I continued with my war cry voice. “And now I command you to move the furniture back to the way it was because I don’t like this.”

“You know, you can keep the money,” Tiff said as she continued to look past my head to the corner of the room, “It’s yours.”

I was momentarily thrown off. “What?”

“I don’t have much spare cash to give you as pocket money so I figure you could get this job for a little bit so you could at least go out and have fun sometimes.”

“Oh.” I looked at the scattered bills, slightly dismayed that I’d have to pick it up myself. “Oh,” I said again, “I thought this would be for the gas bill or something.”

“It’s alright,” Tiff waved a hand dismissively towards me, slouching further down in the couch. “We’ll be fine. I’ve been saving like mad and besides, it’s not fair for you to worry about this sort of stuff.”

“Wait, weren’t you just… but… Okay.” I looked at my sister who still had her eyes closed, looking completely satisfied with the world. This was a true rare event, and I was not one to denounce it.

“You want some wine? We might as well kill it, there’s not much left,” Linx said to me. I picked up the bottle to inspect it.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, about to take a swig.

“NO!” my sister suddenly shot up and pointed at me. “No,” she said again, “It’s a school night, NO. Not allowed. Put that down, right now.”

Never mind, still a hardass.

0 0 0

That was possibly one of the most pleasant nights ever. Feeling really productive (thanks to not drinking the wine), I actually did most of my homework, with my tiny bedroom window cracked and the slightest breeze coming in creating the perfect temperature, the cat sleeping contently at the end of my bed. And Tiff, apparently having finished the rest of the wine herself, suddenly had no control over the volume of her voice.

“Does she have class tomorrow?” Linx asked sticking his head into my room.

“Uh, I dunno. Wouldn’t you know better than me anyway?”

“OH MY GOD, I TOTALLY JUST SPILLED THIS CUP OF WATER ALL OVER THE CARPET.”

“True.” And Linx went back out to tend to the resident drunk girl.

“HOW DID SO MUCH WATER COME FROM THIS TINY CUP? HOW DID I SPILL THIS EVERYWHERE?”

“Tiff, you should drink more water. You want me to get you some more?”

“I know, I drank like, three cups already. BITCH, DO I LOOK STUPID TO YOU?”

Linx was trying not to laugh, “Never. But damn, woman, you are so drunk. This is amazing.”

“NO SHIT. That’s what she said. I THINK I DRANK MORE THAN YOU ANYWA- Oh, god, I think I might need to throw up- NO WAIT. FALSE ALARM. JAY KAY PEOPLE, JAY KAY.” She proceeded to giggle for the next fifteen minutes. I know this because that’s how long it took for me to bullshit the majority of my essay outline that I was working on.

And that’s how the rest of my productive night went until I stuck my head out my door and told Tiff to shut up because I wanted to sleep (by that time, Linx had left after Tiff assured him that she was going to be okay, and so she turned on the TV and began to sing along with the opening song of some old sitcom. It was loud.). To which she said, “NO, YOU SHUT UP,” then ran over and tried to tackle me, failed, and instead punched me really fucking hard on my arm. Even when she’s drunk, she knew exactly where the pressure point was.

And then when I woke up the next morning, it was to the lovely sound of Tiff throwing up in the sink (she is what I consider a bit of a snob when it comes to throwing up. She refuses to puke in the toilet and it pisses me off because, goddammit, I brush my teeth and wash my face over that sink). I had run to the bathroom, pointed at her, and shouted, “Karma! That was for punching me in the arm!”

“Fuck off,” she growled, and I was banished to the kitchen where I had to brush my teeth over that sink instead. And then I really had to pee so I broke into Linx’s place, and woke him by accident- though I suppose if you were used to living essentially alone, hearing someone else pissing in your toilet is enough to alert your subconscious. I ended up telling him about Tiff’s current condition, since it was partially his fault (and he admitted to as much) so as he wandered over to see how she was doing and redeem himself, it was off to school I went.

And found myself, in the middle of first period, revisiting my list of priorities. I had four, mostly revolving around maintaining my kinda kick ass GPA, some incident that is no longer relevant, keeping myself fed, and sleeping. So I had the basics covered at least; I’m surprised I’d forgotten something about shelter or drinking water or something. I decided to expand upon this list, since things tend to change as time goes on, and this list needed some updating.

My Priorities V 2

Priority #1: Still the same old, ‘do good in school, don’t kicked out, don’t get caught drinking or doing drugs or anything to jeopardize this.’ Not a problem since I know not to walk into school with any remnants of booze in me (not anymore since that hangover incident) and I’m just not stupid enough to do anything else.

Priority #2: The last #2 has since been solved. However, the updated #2 is still applicable in a way; I plan on milking the next couple of weeks of guaranteed income, now that I know that it is one hundred percent all mine, however little it may be, and actually be able to be comfortable enough to go, ‘you know, I do want that ice cream bar, and I will.” Like, at least be okay enough to be able to drop two fifty on one of life’s little pleasures and not feel guilty afterwards. It will be nice to not feel like such a cheap ass all the time.

Priority #3: Continue to secretly mooch off of Darwin. Not gonna lie, if he doesn’t mind, then I don’t mind. One day maybe I’ll save his life or something and then I won’t have to feel bad at all. In fact, he’ll owe me.

Priority #4: Sleep is overrated. #4 will be changed to the more pressing matter of how I can get Cricket in a seemingly innocuous manner. I spent my entire school career creating an image of myself as an apathetic, effortless smart ass in both the academic and social sense (Those spastic moments don’t count. I’m serious. They don’t. Because I said so. So there. Shut the fuck up). I mean, I only do the homework if it’s getting handed in and at the very last minute, and I’ve never panicked over tests and I make it look easy when I do well (I tend to understate the amount of effort I put into studying- mostly so I can mock Simon who tended to talk about how much he studied). So somehow I have to make it all seem very natural when Cricket and I get together because I also would like to avoid the petty gossip which no doubt would spring up due to my previous association with Jonine.

Of course, in dealing with #4, first thing’s first: how?

Yesterday I’d decided that I would hold off on asking her out at the moment, at least until I can think of something we can do that wouldn’t seem date like. Darwin’s idea of asking her to Wendy’s dance as casual friends only is starting to grow on me, which I admittedly wanted to avoid at first since this would no doubt get Darwin going on this smug, ‘See, I knew it,’ bullshit. Actually, that is the biggest reason why I wouldn’t fly with that plan; mostly I just don’t like having to confront the fact that Darwin knows way more than me about any of this.

But even then, I’d have to work up towards this. I actually had a point system going. I don’t know how this was going to help me or what this would prove, but for some reason, it makes some sense. Okay, no, not really. I don’t know what I was trying to measure or what outcome I was expecting, but essentially, I’d make a horrible researcher.

Throughout the morning I was in a pretty good mood and was rather friendly, an oddity if you will; this earned a wry comment from Cricket, and I believe I gave a charming enough reply back; +1. Except then, because I was busy congratulating myself, Bublaski called on me to do something, like, read a paragraph out loud, and I tried to do the whole, ‘Pass, I’m insane,’ thing that worked that one time, but it didn’t this time and that sucked; -1. Besides getting called out on by Bublaski, Simon additionally had to add his two cents in about the irregularities of this ‘pass,’ system, a sideways comment about my mental stability was alluded to; -1. I rebutted this by making a comment about ‘passing’ his nose through his face by way of introducing my fist to it; +1.

By the time lunch rolled around, I was at a frustrating 0. No matter what happened, I was to remain in this semi content neutral zone- pretty good for me, but not the clear cut great I craved. Pretty much, I’d rather have this be a roaring +23 or even a -13 because I’d just rather be one or the other today. Lunch, by the way, was pretty much like this: I bought Darwin and me a round of fries today and felt like an equal; +2. Wendy finally got over herself and asked us if she could sit with us during lunch since she realized that isolating herself over her friendship breakup with Jo wasn’t healthy, thus making me feel like a charitable cool kid (Though she was technically looking at Darwin and Dane, but I was there too, so this was by association); +1. However, at the lunch table, Cricket ended up way across from me on the opposite side, between Zephyr and Wendy and did that esoteric girl talk thing all period; -5.

By the end of lunch, I was over this stupid point system, and I moved on with my life.

Calculus rolled around, beautiful, cold and useless, and I have had several existential crises in the span of fourteen minutes. Only because Darwin wouldn’t stop harassing me.

“You ask her out yet, dude?”

I smacked him upside the head in one quick motion, “Will you shut the fuck up,” I hissed, “She’s right in front of us.” We were walking through the hall at that moment, towards our lockers.

“I guess not then.”

Later: “Dude, have you even talked to her since lunch?”

“Fuck off, it’s been like, five minutes since lunch ended. Shut up.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“Stop fucking patronizing me, or so help me god I will beat you until you piss blood.” I held my book out, wielding it as a weapon. Darwin laughed, and darted away. That jerk has been having way too much fun with my particular situation. Smug bastard. Though, I can’t really complain, I did give him hell for his ex.

Anyway, in class, I had yet to start the calculus problems of the day. Instead I’ve been trying to think of witty things to say that wouldn’t make it seem obvious that I was completely aware of myself when I was around Cricket now. Those tended to end badly, so I didn’t want to say anything too stupid, which led me to worry that my overt silence and lack of comments was another indication of my lame adolescent nervousness.

When the work time was up, I still hadn’t done the problems, but luckily I wasn’t called up to do them on the board. I felt a little more pressed for time since the teacher was going to start the lesson, which would give me less opportunity to charm the shit out of her.

I kept watching her out of the corner of my eye, looking for some sort of opening. I missed my chance when Cricket was frantically searching for her calculator and I was gonna... say or do something (like, mysteriously point out where it is as if I was some all knowing and all powerful being), but then she found it. Another opening presented itself to me as she leaned forward to talk to the girl in front of her, and I watched carefully as they briefly touched hands and Cricket smoothly pulled her sleeve over that same palm to hide whatever it was the girl passed to her.

Flicking an old gum wrapper at her, I leaned towards Cricket, “What are you people doing, passing notes? You’re destroying the sanctity of calc,” I whispered in her direction, sounding more obnoxious than I meant to come off as. I meant to mock the teacher at the same time, since he was the kind of guy with a giant pole up his ass and took calculus and the ‘sanctity of the classroom during lesson time,’ way more serious than it needed to be.

Cricket looked over at me, her surprise quickly converting to a glare.

Unfortunately, possibly due to the volume of my obnoxious comment, the teacher had caught on as well and stopped lecturing mid sentence.

“Saena, Cricket, what is this, middle school? Were you just passing notes in my classroom?”

Saena began to protest, fumbling, while Cricket stared wide-eyed at the teacher.

He rolled his eyes and waved his hands toward him. “Come on, let’s see what’s more important than today’s lesson, come on, show me. You know I don’t tolerate this in my classroom.”

Slowly, Cricket got up, and shared uncertain glances with Saena, who remained in her seat.

“Well?” The teacher impatiently stood at the front of the room, palm open.

Cricket stood by her desk, and every person in the classroom openly stared at her. She started to turn red.

“Any day now.”

Cricket still didn’t move, and I swear I could feel the heat radiating off her cheeks. “Um,” she said. And that was all she said as she looked down and held up the offending ‘note.’ Which actually wasn’t a note, but a tampon.

“Uh...” The teacher flustered, at a loss for words, and being a never been married conservative man in his late fifties, turned red himself.

Snickers were heard around the classroom, most notably from myself. During this awkward silence, when Cricket sat back down, and I could feel the lasers shooting from her eyes at my forehead, because I was definitely cracking up, muffling my laughter in the crook of my elbow.

“This is all your fault,” she hissed, and I could feel my body shaking on top of my desk, I was laughing so hard. Okay, yeah, I know I like the girl and am extremely attracted to her and all, but c’mon, this was funny. Besides, I’ll only like her more if she finds this humorous as well, as soon as she got over it. Girls you can laugh with are hot.

The teacher cleared his throat, mumbled an apology and immediately dove back into his lesson, pausing only to yell at everyone to quiet down before plowing on.

I calmed down enough to take notes (and inch my desk away just for my own personal safety), but every once in a while I’d glance over at Cricket. And when I say every once in a while, I meant every three seconds; enough to know that she was trying her hardest to ignore me. Finally she met my gaze and she just shook her head at me, trying to mentally stab me with her piercing gaze.

In response, I gave her my most ridiculous, toothy grin. It was the kind of winning smile I used whenever I was obviously guilty of some wrongdoing and proud of it. I had this stupid grin ready every time Cricket ventured a glance, but even by the third time, her glare hadn’t budged.

Even though this wasn’t working, I kept it up because I wanted to see her laugh, smother her giggles with her hand, look away and then turn back to smile at me. However, forgiveness would come in another form.

“Stop it!” she whispered. “You’re distracting.”

“Yeah, well, your tampon distracted me from the beginning.”

Cricket turned and gave me a scathing look, which I countered with my goofy smile, to which she retaliated by throwing the feminine product in question at my face.

I completely jumped, causing a rather loud commotion as my desk and chair reacted with me. Meanwhile, the tampon bounced off me and landed on my desk.

“... and then we- Excuse me, is everything all right back there? Do I have to make you all change seats?” The teacher peered over at me, suspicious. He couldn’t see the offending product on my desk because of the line of kids who sat in front of me, but he was the only one. Most of my peers saw and their interested and curious looks deviated from me to Cricket. Who was very badly pretending she wasn’t involved at all.

“Yeah, I’m good, there was a fly by my ear,” I said. “It surprised me, that’s all.”

“Very well.” And the teacher continued his droning.

I didn’t touch my desk for the next ten minutes, probably missing out on some important key notes about derivatives, and I couldn’t figure out what I should with this… thing on my desk. I looked up at Cricket and tried to convey to her with my eyes that she should take that thing back, to which she simply smirk, which quickly turned to giggling.

Kindergarten era tease and bait technique: -3. Effectiveness: +6. Tampon on desk: -41. Cricket’s laughter: +12,423 WIN.

Perhaps this won’t be so hard after all. Assuming I grow up beyond kindergarten tactics, then bitch, I got this!

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A.N.: When Tiff was drunk and singing a sitcom opening- for those of you who naturally assumed it was the fresh prince of bel-air rap, HIGH FIVE! Anyway, I think it’s been getting hard to write these chapters only because Lucky’s life is going so swimmingly… But not for long if I can help it HA HA HAAAA.

Thanks to: fusionbeam, Duuude, x-porcelain-x, Jada Writes