Would you go with me if we rolled down streets of fire? Would you hold on to me tighter as the summer sun got higher? If we rolled from town to town, they’d never shut it down. Would you go with me if we were lost in fields of clover? Would we walk even closer until the trip was over? And would it be okay if I didn’t know the way? If I gave you my hand would you take it and make me the happiest man in the world? If I told you my heart couldn’t beat one more minute without you girl, would you accompany me to the edge of the sea and help me tie up the ends of a dream? I gotta know, would you go with me? I love you so, so would you go with me?

-Epilogue/ Breathe 2 -

Andy sat up from his bed in the hospital that I had sent him to and looked at his shoulder. He grimaced at the sight of white gauze holding in the wound. For some reason he couldn’t remember how that had happened. I mean, he knew he had been almost killed by me, but he couldn’t remember me actually hitting him there.

All he knew though, was that he wasn’t about to be showed up by a girl like me. He flexed the tender muscles in his shoulder, wincing as every movement felt like he was tearing his shoulder open.

But he wasn’t also about to go do anything stupid. He was well aware, thanks to his gangster buddies, that Jesse and I were heading East in the summer. Personally, I wasn’t all that happy about half the LA gangster population knowing where we were headed. That meant a slight chance that I could be caught and killed…for whatever might have made them mad in the past?

In due time, I suppose, I would have to face the facts: You can’t leave The Life for good. It always comes back to haunt you.

Chapter One

Are You With Me?

It was only the beginning of October. Okay, so it wasn’t one of my favorite months or anything, but it’s not like I was complaining about it! I mean, give me a break!

But personally, October is one of those months that make me scared to go outside. I had only been on the East Coast a few times before, and most of those trips had been to visit my Grandmother down in New York City. But the one time I happened to be over there in the Fall, I absolutely refused to go outside alone. It was terrible being out in all those leaves and such! Who knows what people could have hidden in the big piles of them? What if somebody was playing a stupid joke-I only thought about this stuff after I got into the gang business-near Halloween and stuck a bunch of tacks or something in the leaves? Or, even worse, they were hiding themselves and were out to shoot you?!

Yeah, my paranoia only got to a phobic level at the end of the month. Thank god it was only the beginning of the month!

I had settled down into the Harvard lifestyle back when Jesse Villehuarez had gotten here back in July. Unfortunately, I think he was starting to miss The Life though, starting in September. Every few days or so he’d ask me if I wanted to go heist something from a convenience store or something. But every time I said no. I couldn’t help it! My karma would be so bad by now if I did anything bad!

I, Jimena Bourdo, had come clean and given up The Life as soon as I left the California state lines! And, in my opinion, there was no going back! I was happy here in my Tommy Hilfigure and Ralph Lauren Polo club world! And excuse me, but I didn’t see myself hopping for joy over a good first Physics test back in Los Angeles like how I was now.

Personally, I think it’s done me more good to move out East than anything else I’ve ever done in my life. You know why? I, Jimmi the gangster girl, have made friends! I’ve made friends from my own school! From Harvard! And okay, these people are way smarter than me, but not in any sense I really care about. I mean, I wasn’t exactly at Harvard to master Mathematics or anything, compared to my friends.

And you know what the best part was? None of us has any stupid nicknames! I almost leapt for joy when my friend Natalie called me ‘Jimena’ in our first conversations. I mean, normally, when I made friends out in the real world, first thing we did usually was pick nicknames out for each other.

Ever since July I had been sober from The Life. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to even try to get me involved with it again. Plus, didn’t people over in Los Angeles have anything better to do in the fall of 1990 than stalk me? I hoped so.

Jesse, unfortunately, was vying for the West Coast, or at least a way to get himself out of College Life. I’m assuming that he couldn’t stand the structure of Harvard.

Let’s see, maybe I should give you some information about him, hmm? Okay, well, Jesse originally lived in Sacramento until he came to Los Angeles-to my high school, actually-during his sophomore year. Ever since I had known him-not that long, really. Just since last March-Jesse had been a great surfer. Plus he really took to the part of being a surfer just as well. His black hair wasn’t long enough to be called shaggy, but it wasn’t short enough to be called clean-cut either. He had such perfectly smooth than skin that I had nicknamed him The-Greek-God the first time I saw him. It turns out, though, that Jesse’s more Spanish than anything Greek.

Anyway, he was the one who had completely gotten me into such trouble last March. Seriously, that was one of the worst months I’ve ever had! But, well, at the same time it was the best. Jesse had become my beau in a sort of way, although I’m still pretty sure that we’re still not an item.

Last March, I was completely adamant that my life stay away from my school. I didn’t want to have a remake of a terrible accident I’d had in 7th grade. See, my best friend had died and it was her older brother’s fault, so since then I’d been totally out to kill her brother. His name was Andy.

Well, in the end, it never happened because I wouldn’t be like him and kill somebody else. But back to Jesse. Jesse, being a guy who happened to go to school with me, meant that I wouldn’t associate with him. Unfortunately, I was at a party one night in the beginning of March and was just a bit tipsy, and I had bumped into him. I thought he was just about the hottest guy in the entire world at that moment.

But then, Jesse recognized me from a class we had had together. I panicked because this had never happened-meeting people outside of school that happened to attend school with me-and left.

And got in lots of trouble for a week after that because I had skipped the Monday after the party. I would have gone back eventually, but my dad didn’t like that I had skipped school, so I got a few good black eyes for that.

Jesse knew me even at school, and tried to talk to me, make me listen to him and I guess eventually he must have gotten through to me at some point. I think it was right after I caught my ex-boyfriend (Duran) cheating on me with my ex-best friend (Rayshell).

Pretty much, Jesse gave me a change of heart for good, and I swore off The Life after that. I mean, none of it appealed to me anymore! Not even the pretty clothes! Although I did keep some of my kick-ass clothes, just in case I got jumped or something. I didn’t know if I would be able to control myself from attacking somebody else…but seriously, I was done with The Life! None of it tempted me!

Well, most of it anyway.

Lupe, my ‘older brother’-he just treated me like I was his sister, and was constantly worried about me-had moved over to this coast again. He had originally been from New York-that’s where I happened to have met him when I was 8 and he was 10 and there was kissing involved-but he had decided that of course the West Coast was cooler than the East, and had moved over there. But now, after being gone from his beloved New York, Lupe had gotten homesick-finally-and was currently living back in New York. He kept on telling me that he was in no way related to any gang in New York, but we both knew he was lying.

Truth be told, I was worried for him now. My heart clenched every time he left after visiting me and heading back to New York in his El Camino. The cigarette dangling from his mouth…well, it didn’t bother me so much anymore as his being involved in a gang.

Listen to me! I sound like a baby anymore, worrying about Lupe. Lupe could take care of himself! This was a well known fact! And as for Jesse, well…I couldn’t help wondering if maybe he was going to start dipping his feet into the dangerous waters of The Life again.

I, of course, wouldn’t be examining those waters ever again. I had to remind myself everyday pretty much, but I had sworn The Life off, because I knew it was a bad thing to get myself into.

And being in this preppy new Harvard world had shown me the world in a whole new light. Every day it sank in deeper, and I slowly started to realize that the way I had been living wasn’t the best. Everything I had been doing was terrible. It affected so many people that I had never even considered. Robbing a grocery store? Yeah, I only did it once! And the whole time I prayed really hard, begging for forgiveness for this utterly bad sin! Because you know what happens when you rob a store or whatever?

I’ll tell you, because I know exactly what happens. I took a 7 hour class on the effects of ‘give and take in our society’ in the beginning of September. You see, the store has to raise it’s prices up to replace the money that was lost from the heist. It doesn’t matter if it was a small heist! If you and every other zillion gangster wannabes robbed every store for just a little bit of money, it would add up pretty fast!

Anyway, the raised prices means some people can’t afford to buy food anymore, and they may resort to violent ways to get money for that pricey food now. This might include; joining a gang, mafia (just an idea!), robbing someplace else and/or plain getting violent. And once they are finished taking things from the stores, the stores will then again raise their prices up. This means people who produced that food will get paid less, in order to compensate for other people’s pay. That means they may starve.

So, when you think about it long enough, it’s a scary thing to do, robbing places. The entire time I was in that 7 hour class, I had glanced around nervously, wondering if they were lecturing me or something. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to go rob any stores anytime soon. I mean, I couldn’t even picture myself now trying to do that! Really, me, Preppy Jimena Bourdo, with her cute polo shirts and her khaki capris with glossy curly black hair? Could you honestly see me holding up a bank?

I didn’t think so.

So I was pretty self-determined to never again get myself in the kind of trouble I had gotten myself into before. Although technically, I had never been the one making my own trouble. Except when I had been selling some pretty illegal stuff, but that’s not the point! See, every time I had been beaten up in the past year, it had really been Jesse’s fault. He had been the one who reminded Andy of me, who then went on to pay a personal visit to me. I, of course, beat the hell out of the guy, but I had had to chase him, hopping over fences and looking like I’d been through hell and back to actually do so. And then, he had sent 7-seven!-guys after me to kill me, but I won that too! Not to say I came away without a scratch. No, I looked like a wreck for days after that. And then, finally when I had really been able to send Andy to the hospital, Jesse had been the one giving me a ride to go kill the guy anyway! So really, technically it was never my fault that I was getting beat up so much.

Well anyway, since that was all done and over with, and I was living somewhere totally gang free-I hoped-all of it was behind me. I was making a fresh new start! Did it bother me that this was somehow making Jesse and I start to drift apart? Of course! But I couldn’t give up this good life I was starting to make for myself.

I didn’t even carry a crowbar around with me anymore! I considered that a personal feat for myself! I mean, I had absolutely no weapons on me anymore! Sometimes, when I would joke to my friends, I would say that I had been in a gang once-meaning, I had quit before 6th grade ever-and that out of habit I had carried a weapon around the risky parts of Los Angeles until just recently. I loved to brag about that.

Anyway, like I’ve said, I’ve always hated the month October. And, apparently, this year I had reason to hate it.

I was at the Laundromat about 3 blocks from school. It was a Tuesday night, and I was studying for a quiz my Lit. Teacher was going to give us tomorrow morning. I had read enough in my life to ace that quiz pronto, but I was studying because…well, I was in a Laundromat! What else did I have to do while I was there? Check out the other nerdy geeks from Harvard, nervously glancing around at everybody around them?

Look, I’m not gonna stoop so low as to forget everything about the real world in College Life, okay? I have fashion sense, and I refuse to wear those ugly knit sweater things these college kids seem so fond of! Oh no, I’m going to continue reading my Cosmopolitan and learning the best fall and winter fashions for this year on top of all my school books!

Oh, you know what’s the best part about being in college? I didn’t have to write down chemistry equations on a computer anymore! I was so excited about that, I practically was kissing my notebook in physics.

My load of clothes was done, so I propped open my Lit. book-we were reading The Electric Acid Kool Aid Test-and stuffed all my nice, warm smelling clothes into the laundry basket I had brought with me.

I was ready to go a few minutes later, my side bag full of books and a basket full of laundry. I, being the stupid person I was, had decided it was such a short walk back to my dorm, that I didn’t need my car. This was perfectly logical thinking, right?

Well, apparently not tonight, because obviously I just must be the stupidest person at Harvard.

I was walking down the street towards my dorm, all happy and content and not at all thinking how much October freaked me out until I took a turn and noted that the street lights weren’t working on this street at the moment. That really pissed me off, because I mean, I hate it when you can’t see anything! I had always been able to see everything in Los Angeles at any time of the day because there was always light!

That’s pretty much which freaked me out. I stopped where I was-right by the curb, of course-and wondered if I should turn around, go back into the Laundromat and ask some nerd if he’d give me a ride home. He’d have to be gay not to give me a ride home. I mean, I could slather the words ‘sex appeal’ all over me until they had to give in! Don’t give me that look! You know you’d do the same if you had a phobia of being outside in the dark too! You’d be clinging to guys, begging them to take you home and keep your virgin self safe!

Okay, well, virgin part not so true anymore…but, but I like to think it never happened! Because see, the day after I did the deed-with Duran-I caught him cheating on me-with Rayshell-so pretty much we broke up like that. So technically, I try to make myself believe that it never happened because of that. It’s soooo humiliating…

But well, even if the entire Laundromat was full of guys I could not seduce, I could always call one of my friends.

God, I even got excited over knowing I had friends in school! I’m such a little girl…

As I wondered who I should probably call if no one would drive me the 3 blocks back to school, a heard the ominous footsteps. Of course, I had heard footsteps like this all my life. It was the part of being bait in some heists! You wait in an alley until you hear people coming to pay you for some drugs, but your crew jumps them instead and takes all their money. Lupe never liked doing this when I was the bait, but he had never objected. He knew I was a tough gangster girl.

Well, not anymore. I started moving back towards the Laundromat because I had learned long ago that standing in one spot made it easier to be beaten up. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. You know, it was probably nothing! It was probably some mailman! I could believe that, couldn’t you? (I mean, it was only 9:30…) Yeah, see? No big problem…I was just getting paranoid because it was October and it was dark…and windy and cold and there were a ton of leaf piles around…

Paranoia was slowly creeping into my thoughts, and I really thought I was going to pass out from this new kind of terror. I really, never in my life, had spent a night alone outside when it was so dark, because the truth was, it scared me. And it still does apparently. I mean, I had driven outside in the night and everything, but this…

God, this was like sending me out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing to protect me except a laundry basket! What was up with that?!

The footsteps continued and I was relieved-okay, only slightly relieved, but it was a start!-that I could only hear one pair of steps. Unfortunately, I was so scared. I was scared witless of being out with nobody around but who could possibly be a serial killer. Oh, don’t lie to me! I know all about the crazy psycho killers they have roaming the East coast! I watch the News! I’m not blind!

So I did what anybody else would. I dropped my basket of laundry and turned around, instinctively reaching towards the side of my khakis for my crowbar. Don’t’ even say, ‘how stupid is she?’ As far as I knew, I was in control of this situation. My mind was skipping back and forth from preppy girl to gangster girl-gangster girl was starting to win this one-and that was just a but confusing, but I managed. I was just trying not to remember all the ideas in my head that dealt with people with guns shooting at me from those giant piles of leaves.

“Jimmi.” Someone said solemnly from out of the darkness. I recognized that voice perfectly. It was possibly only because I had made myself recognize it so I would know if I could kill him or not.

Fury replaced fear in my mind. “What are you doing here?” I asked coldly.

“I am here to ask you something. A favor, really.” I reached for my crowbar, but my hands found nothing resembling a crowbar at my side.

My heart stopped cold. I had no protection against this guy. In other words, I was so screwed, you couldn’t even imagine how screwed I was. I swallowed a lump in my throat and waited to see if I was going to be dead or not by the end of the night.

Chapter Two

The War is Not Over Because it’s Never Over. It’s Always Just Begun.

Well, I couldn’t really imagine things getting any worse after that. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have minded a serial rapist killer compared to him. He scared me much more than any other person in the entire world. This was perhaps because the last time I had seen him, he had been staring at me, wondering how on earth I had caught him in the ultimate act of cheating on me.

I hadn’t seen Duran since. I know he had tried to call me, but unfortunately for him, I had disconnected my phone line. I also know Rayshell had tried to contact me, but I couldn’t face her. That was too humiliating and painful for me. So I had been a brave little girl and dropped all contact with my so-called friends, with the exception of Lupe, JJ, Cinna and Bon and Jesse.

Oh man, I desperately wanted some company right now! And preferably not Duran! Duran was like, my public enemy number one that I wouldn’t beat up no matter what!

Why, you might ask? Why wouldn’t I just go brawling with this guy? Well, for about two reasons. He was the first guy who had really handled me like I was the most precious person in the world. And, while he wasn’t exactly solely in love with me, I didn’t want to hurt him because of that. The other reason was because Duran was not some Abercrombie Pansy. Oh no, he was an Abercrombie Gangster. He was tough and it showed! I wasn’t so stupid as to go beat up a guy who could easily just kick me in the head and kill me. Not, at least, without my crowbar or some kind of weapon.

Hm, I probably should have kept the gun I had taken from him, too. That may have helped in future situations. Of course, I would have never taken it with me anyway to a Laundromat because I was fantasizing about this College Life; this life where nothing bad was going to happen to me.

“No.” I finally whispered, managing to keep myself calm enough not to breakdown and cry that very instant.

“Jimmi, you gotta listen to me for a second.” Duran said carefully, starting to take a few more steps towards me. For every step he took towards me, I took a step backwards until I bumped into my laundry basket.

“No.” I said again. That was pretty much the only word going through my head, besides the occasional obscenity like ‘bastard’ and ‘freaking bitch’-except I didn’t think ‘freaking’. Duran tried again.

“Jimmi, please, I just wanna get some things straight with you-“

“No!” I cried, interrupting him. “I don’t wanna hear anything from you, okay? Just go away!” God, did I sound a like a drama queen or what?

“If you’d just listen-!” He shouted back, trying to be heard over me.

“I’ll call the cops!” I said desperately, trying to figure out a way to make him back off. “I’ll-I’ll…I’ll call the uh, the Abuse hotline!”

“Would you shut up for a second?” Duran snapped, obviously mad at me now.

“No!” I said, but shut up anyways because then I couldn’t think of anything to say. Personally, that was a little lame on my part. I mean, shouldn’t I have had some witty comeback to that? I was losing my gangster touch.

He strode towards me again, and I really wanted to basically hide in my laundry basket, but that would not be happening because I was frozen to the spot and Duran didn’t look like he would willingly help me into my basket. Oh no, he looked more like he was going to keep me in this spot so he could make me listen to whatever he wanted to talk to me about.

And of course, I’m only right when bad things are happening to me. He roughly grabbed me by the arms and held me tightly. Hey, don’t think he was going to get all romantic on me, because I definitely wasn’t going to stand for it tonight. If he got romantic on me later though after explaining whatever he wanted to explain well, maybe I wouldn’t be so stubborn. I mean, I’m a girl! If you apologize enough and I feel like you’re worth a kiss or two, of course you’re gonna get on my good side!

And Duran, apparently, knew this too.

“Look, Jimmi,” He began, “I’m sorry it ended like how it did back home.”

No he wasn’t, I told myself! That jerk absolutely wasn’t sorry! I glared up at his dark hooded face. Oh, did I mention at all that Duran likes his Hoodies, just like every other gangster on the planet? Even in the darkness of the night, I recognized his dark blue Los Angeles Hoodie. He had worn it a lot back when we were dating. I wondered if he had worn it, just to make sure I would recognize him.

Of course, guys, I’ve come to realize, don’t think like that. Oh no, they take it a few steps in front of my way of thinking or they overcomplicate things.

“No you’re not!” I informed him haughtily. “You’re not sorry at all! If you had been sorry, you would have never humiliated me like that!”

“I humiliated you?” Duran asked incredulously. “When did I ever do that?”

Hello! Was this typical or what for a guy? You know, that he had absolutely no clue what I was talking about?! Was I insane or what for remembering practically everything in my life? Seriously! He had to be brain-dead not to remember exactly what he had done to me!

“When did you ever do that!?” I repeated, furious. Let me tell you, I wasn’t about to let him get off the hook for this one! “You freaking cheated on me! You had sex with my ex-best friend and personally, I really feel like I just a joke to you! You told me you loved me, de-flowered me and then went and fucked me best friend! I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate you for that!”

“Jimmi, I did!” He shouted at me. “I did love you! But Rayshell…she was all saying you were practically going out with some punk from your school!”

“Oh, and you’d believe her over me?” I inquired. “I was your girlfriend! You were supposed to trust me! The entire time we went out, I was absolutely loyal to you!”

Okay, well, there had been some head-resting-on-shoulder with Jesse, but you’ve got to understand; I was in a different area code! If you do anything in a different area code, then it’s technically not cheating! It was emergency cheating! I needed a place to crash and I couldn’t bring myself to ask anybody else but Jesse, and we ended up at his house-it was a bomb shelter really, which was only the slightest bit creepy-and we watched the second Rocky movie, and I fell asleep and his shoulder just happened to be there for me to rest my head on!

Happy? See, nothing romantic happened between me and Jesse while Duran and I were dating! I happen to have a sense of moral, thank you very much!

“Yeah, but I’ve known Rayshell longer than you, and aren’t you supposed to trust your friends more than who you’re dating?” Well, D had me there. I mean, we girls always say we’ll put our friends before our dates…But still, that wasn’t the point!

“But Rayshell apparently wasn’t your friend! She was your other girlfriend!” I pointed out crossly.

“Would you at least believe me that it was only the first time we’d done anything the whole time you and I went out?” Duran asked, looking pained. Well, it wasn’t my fault he had come here to explain this to me! I had been perfectly happy, so he was really brining this upon himself!

“No!” I shouted. “You thought I was seeing Jesse while I was going with you, so why on earth would I believe that you weren’t sticking your tongue down Rayshell’s throat the whole time?”

“Jesse?” Duran said, a puzzled expression on his face. “You mean, De Stupid?”

“What?” I wailed. “Jesse De Stupid?! Don’t call my boyfriend an idiot!”

“I didn’t call him an idiot.” Duran growled. “That’s his name out on the streets! He calls himself De Zote and we all thought it was funny and he said it meant stupid.”

Personally, I was confused. “Why would he call himself stupid?” Duran rolled his eyes. For a second there, I felt like I was a gangster again, back on the streets and having a grand old time with D.

“You remember this kid named Payaso? He hung around with Andy and his crew for a few years? He was calling himself a clown, you remember that?” I nodded my head. Dang, Payaso had been pretty hot, too. “Well, it’s the same thing.”

Personally, I thought Griego Dios made more sense, seeing how I had thought he looked like a Greek God the first time I saw him, but that wasn’t something tough sounding obviously.

“Wait,” I said thoughtfully as something occurred to me, “You’ve talked to Jesse?”

“I know Jesse.” Duran replied, offended that I thought he didn’t know everybody-basically-from Los Angeles. “We pals. We hung out once or twice. We did a heist with him once, you remember? You were there…”

I had been there? How come I didn’t remember this? God, I really was losing my gangster touch! I didn’t remember knowing Jesse from anywhere before last March! Well, maybe I had been on something back whenever we had heisted with him. I mean, I wasn’t a junkie or anything, but if you had handed me something back then, I probably would have smoked it. That is, if it was before 10th grade when I was too busy trying to act all cool still to not want to take it.

“No, I meant recently.” I said, correcting myself so I would sound so stupid. Duran shrugged.

“Maybe, but that’s not what I’m here for.” I let the whole Jesse thing pass, since I really wanted to just go home, maybe hide under my covers and cry because I saw Duran again. Pathetic, I know, but it’s all I wanted at the moment!

“Fine.” I said, my voice already betraying me. I sounded like a shaky 4 year old who’d tripped on something! “What are you here for?”

“Look, I’d never have asked you unless you were the only one I could count on because I know how much you hate me. I don’t think Lupe could have made it more clear that he’d kill me if I ever hurt you like that again.” He smirked. “You know, I hurt his little sis, and he still aint’ too happy about that.” At the moment, I swear to god I could have kissed Lupe for being such a protective older ‘brother’ to me!

“But,” He continued, “you’re the only one on this coast that I know won’t let me down.”

“Tch, you’ve got the wrong person nowadays!” I babbled angrily. “Ain’t no way in hell I’m going to help you do anything!” Duran sighed and checked his Rolex, as if he was pushing his luck at the moment.

“If you don’t listen to me, you’re not gonna make it through the year.” He told me seriously. I couldn’t help it-laughter bubbled from my throat! Duran had to be kidding me! This was really stupid of him to do!

“D, just tell me what the hell’s going on.” I said, still laughing. “Don’t get all serious and say I’m gonna be dead by the end of the year, cos that’s not happening! I’m in college! There’s police, like, everywhere! Nobody’s gonna hurt me!”

“Oh yeah?” Duran challenged. “Then how come I scared you so bad tonight?”

Well…he had me there, too.

“Um, well,” I stammered, “I uh, I don’t like to be in the dark or anything…”

“Don’t say that!” Duran shouted at me. I winced because he was really too close to be yelling. In a quieter tone, he added, “They’ll know your weaknesses if you say that kind of shit out loud.”

Okay, now I was really confused. I kept my eyes on Duran’s to see if he was trying to fake me out or something.

“D, would you just tell me what’s the matter?” Duran kept his gaze on me, but he let go of my arms. That, to me, wasn’t all that much of a relief, because he seemed like he wouldn’t at least be taking me back to my dorm and now I’d be left out on a dark street alone. He took a deep breath before he said anything.

“He’s coming to you.” Duran began. “He’s coming to this coast right now. He told one his friends who told a friend who told me that he had given you a few months head start.”

Okay, now really, wouldn’t you think if you were getting hunted down once again by a psycho who had killed his little sister that this was just a bit silly? I mean, god, Andy had to be crazy! Well, he was, but that’s not what I mean!

Still, this was something I would have to be careful with. I took a moment to think about this before I replied.

“You mean…Andy, right?” Duran nodded, so I continued. “So…he’s coming here?” He nodded again. “To beat me up or whatever?” Another serious nod. I sighed.

“Great!” I said. “That’s just great.” But then another thought struck me. “Why are you telling me this, and if you knew, how’d you get here before him?”

“Before you get all angry,” Duran said, “you just gotta trust that I’m not on his side. You gotta trust me on this, just this once, okay?” I slowly nodded my head, very suspicious now. “I was sent here before them to give you a heads up. Andy thought I was mad at you or something, so he had me go here first to give you a sort of warning of what was to come.” I jaw dropped, but I don’t think Duran noticed. He just went on. “So I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta pretend I’m beating you up. But really, just trust that I’m on your side, no matter what.”

“Why,” I wondered aloud, “are you on my side?”

“Because I loved you.” Duran murmured. “And I’m not gonna just let Andy kill you. I’m sorry, but this is for your own good. You’ve got to stay as close to college as possible. Don’t be left alone at anytime. You’ve really gotta be careful. I’ll see what I can do to persuade Andy to something else, but until then…you and me, as far as anybody knows, are complete enemies.”

As he finished up his little speech, he swung his right fist back and then slammed it into my stomach. He had knocked the air out of me, so I couldn’t really scream after that. I just doubled over immediately. God, I didn’t think I was so out of practice! Seriously, first thing in the morning I was gonna hit the gym!

“Jimmi, I’m sorry.” Duran whispered, as if this was painful to him. “Come on, get up and hit me all you want. It’s gotta look like you beat me up instead.”

“I…” I started hoarsely, “I can’t. D, I haven’t beaten anybody up since March.” I tried to get back up, but my god, my insides hurt! I don’t think I had ever felt so much pain before! I mean, when I had been beaten up by 7 guys, it didn’t hurt all that bad! But that’s because I had a lot of morphine in my system right after that. This was like getting stitches ripped out right after they’d been put in though!

“You’ve gotta.” He pleaded with me. “If you don’t, I’ll have to smack myself against a wall or something!” I almost laughed at that, but laughing hurt at the moment, so I settled for a pained grin instead.

“Knock yourself out.” I replied as I slowly picked up my laundry basket-surprisingly nothing in it was dirty yet-and made a feeble attempt to get back up.

But, of course, I feel back over again. Really, I was pretty weak by now. I mean, I had done absolutely no rough-and-tumble kind of activities since last year!

“Could you please get me back to my dorm?” I begged. Duran shook his head fervently.

“No.” He said. “I can’t. If I did, I would know where you lived. They’d want me to tell them where exactly.”

Why couldn’t D just lie to them? God, this was crazy! It was also becoming really tiresome.

“Would you at least get me back to the college?” I asked impatiently. “I’m pretty sure Andy knows how to get there himself.” Duran smirked.

“Okay. I can do that. I’m really, really sorry, by the way.”

“I bet you are.” I replied sarcastically as he helped me stand back up and took my laundry basket for me.

Duran ended up helping as far as where the dorm buildings were, and we didn’t talk much. I really had nothing else to say to him besides lots of colorful words. I mean, he wasn’t exactly helping me by punching me! If he really wanted to help, he could have at least convinced Andy that I was going to Princeton or something! That would have been much more helpful!

“By the way,” I said slowly as Duran put my laundry basket down for me, “How exactly did Andy figure out I was at Harvard?” Duran shrugged.

“Well, doesn’t he know De Zote?” He asked me. For a second there, I had no clue what he was talking about, but it slowly dawned on me that he meant Jesse.

“Oh, yeah.” I said. “Yeah, he knows Jesse.”

“He probably figured you were going here since De Zote was gonna go here.”

Well, it did make sense. I would have to have a word with Jesse later. You know, tell him off for basically making my life a living hell as of now.

“Thank you…” I mumbled finally. “You know, for warning me and not really beating me up all that bad.”

“Oh, no problem.” Duran assured me, examining a light post nearby. “I just gotta make it look like you beat me up now.” And with that, he swung his fist directly at the light post. You could have heard the bones in his first cracking at least 30 feet away. Seriously, that must have hurt badly!

Duran though, he just sucked it up and grimaced at me. “If you need me, I’ll be in the hospital for at least the night.” He started to head away from the dorm buildings, but turned back to me after what looked like some consideration.

“Be careful now, ya heard?” He reminded me gravely. “You and De Zote won’t be able to handle Andy and his new crew now. They got some tough players since you been gone.”

I nodded my head to assure him that I wasn’t gonna do anything stupid, waving to him as he turned again and disappeared into the night.

But personally, I was ready to handle Andy any day of the week. I’d just need to work out like hell for a while. Maybe, you know, practice hopping over fences and stuff too. But I was always ready for him.

And besides, I could always get Lupe down here. With him, Jesse and me, we’d be able to kick ass anytime!

But the thing that worried me was that I hadn’t heard from Lupe in a while. Okay, well, a week, but that was a long time for him. I supposed he was busy though, you know, him being a newbie back on the Streets of New York. I would have to pay him a visit soon.

As for Jesse though, oh boy he was in trouble with me. I didn’t even care if we weren’t that close of friends anymore. Yes, I hadn’t seen or talked to him in a week, but it wasn’t like we were enemies or anything! I’m sure he would love a surprise visit from me in his dorm tomorrow morning! But first I’d need to get some sleep.

I could feel a bruise the size of Duran’s fist forming on my waist already. God, I had moved to the East coast to get away from The Life, yet here I was, only about 3 months into living here and I was already getting sucked back in! And this time I didn’t even want to!

Chapter Three

It Hurts, but your Girlfriend is Not your Best Friend.

First thing I did when I got back to my dorm-I know, you’re gonna think I’m a spoiled bitch, but my dorm was a suite. I mean, I told you my parents were making bank, right?-was shut myself in the bathroom and examine my injury. Okay, so it wasn’t as bad as some of the scrapes I’d gotten in my life, but my god it had to be the most painful of them all!

Ugh, I’d just have to wear some modest clothing for a while until the bruise went away. Right now, it looked like my skin was changing its pigment to a deep bloody purple color. I honestly had never been hit there before, and now I knew why people hated being hit in the stomach!

I started to make up a list while I put my clothes away in my room, most of my list involving things I would need to have in my possession in the near future. It included my beloved crowbar-maybe I could sweetly ask my mom next time I called her to mail me my crowbar. I’m sure she wouldn’t think anything bad about it!-a gun-although I highly disapproved of those things, but I figured Andy would have one, so I’d need one too-and maybe some mace. Why, you wonder, would I need mace? Well, I’d actually wanted some of that since the beginning of the school year anyway. You never know if one of these nerdy sweater vest wearing guys is gonna pull some stupid moves on you or not! Finally, I would need to go get a nail-strengthening manicure. You wouldn’t know, I guess, but when your nails are strong and healthy and not at all likely to chip, then you can claw away at people. I’ve done it before. Andy still has my claw marks from 7th grade around his neck.

I’d also need a gym membership. Or maybe I could just go to the one at school…naw; they’d think I was a freak for working out with weights and all. I mean, it wasn’t everyday you saw some hot girl lifting about 250 lbs without anybody spotting her. Seriously, those nerdy sweater vested guys thought they were all that! Tch, I’d show them…

Now see, my night would have been much more exciting if I had gone out partying with Natalie, but she had already left without me and I wasn’t about to stand playing Dungeons and Dragons with Kimmi-the Asian gothic girl who was also my roommate. Needless to say, we don’t get along and I’d like to keep it that way. I mean, if she threw out the plastic black pleather outfits, then I’d maybe consider hanging out with her-so I decided that hitting the hay was the best course of action for me. Seriously, what could be safer than going to sleep in a dorm room that Andy had no clue where it was exactly?

So basically, I had the most boring night of my life after the little fiasco with Duran. I practically passed out on my bed and didn’t wake up until 10 the next morning. Unfortunately for me, that was only like, 20 minutes before my Lit test so pretty much I put on some Adidas, prayed I didn’t look too stupid in my pajama bottoms and my cami, grabbed my bag and got the heck out of my dorm. Breakfast could wait. I mean, if I passed out in the middle of the test, they would let me take it over again, right? They couldn’t penalize me for a medical emergency that technically wasn’t my fault.

I slid into my seat just as the professor was handing out the tests. He gave me this disgusted look and I shrank in my seat. Every day that I had attended this class, I had been the fashion icon of the class! Now, as I looked around at me, I could see that my fashionista ways had slowly rubbed off on these sweater vested nerds. Lots of the prepster girls from New England-Natalie and I liked to joke that they were future ‘Marthas’, as in, Martha Stewart, that lady they just put on TV who made all those fancy little pies-had that same disgusted look on their face as the professor.

I would have loved to shout, ‘I’m from the West Coast, I have better fashion sense than you all every other day of the year!’ but my heart just wasn’t in it today. I think it was because I would have been disgusted seeing myself in pajamas too.

Okay, so I would have really finished the test if it wasn’t for one minor distraction. Um, let me rephrase that-I mean, major distraction! So, I had been stupid enough to actually look up at the window on the classroom door when I happened to see somebody staring in it.

You know who it was? Nope, it wasn’t Jesse. Jesse was busy, I don’t know, pining away for The Life in his dorm room on the other side of the campus. Personally, I would have been delighted to see Jesse!

It wasn’t Lupe either, which really started to get me worried about Lupe. What was going on with him? He usually came down to visit or check up on me every few days or so…I was really starting to miss him.

Thankfully it wasn’t Duran or Andy, either. If it had been either of them, I think I would have had a breakdown!

Oh no, it was somebody I had hardly ever talked to in my life. Although, now that I think about it, we had always been tight. He had usually been who had gotten my crew into parties. I remember I had asked him a few times if he knew where some of the good parties were. He’d never said he didn’t know. The questions was, why was Armani on this coast and why was he on Harvard premises? As far as I knew, the rumor was that he’d been kicked out of UCLA for a few years.

Yes indeed, Armani. Oh boy, he was basically the most important gangster to know in Los Angeles! He threw the best parties, he knew the best rappers, and of course, he made it so you would have a good time.

I wondered what he wanted with me then! I mean, I was having a blast over here! I don’t think I could get more excited over having a normal college life! Really, I don’t remember a time when I was so excited over having a nerdy friend like Natalie! You know, somebody I could discuss books with! Somebody who I totally related with, as long as it had nothing to do with the streets!

Unfortunately, Armani also happened to be one of the hotter gangsters in Los Angeles. I wasn’t about to miss a chance to get to see him again. I dropped my pencil on my desk and stared back at Armani, waiting until we made eye contact. As soon as we did, I knew he was there to see me because he got this big grin on his face and beckoned for me to come out there with him. My god, his tanned Mexican skin was so gorgeous on his rock solid body. I mean, this was like, the perfect version of a guy to about 98 percent of the world.

Just to fill you in, Armani had been born in Mexico city-in the better part of it, not the slums-and his family moved here when he was about 10. He didn’t quite catch on to American culture, but he did happen to find The Life very intriguing. He joined the Crypts for a few years before he graduated from high school-okay, I mean, dropped out two months before he would have graduated-and then quit right before that. I guess he got his G.E.D. because everybody says he went to UCLA for at least a year. I’m guessing also that UCLA kind of wanted him out. I mean, Armani wasn’t your typical college student. He was only there because his family had insisted he go.

Anyway, he was a true blood Gangster, and he was basically stuck in it for at least until he’s over 50 when he can use all this money he’s been collecting and buy a place to retire in Arizona with. The thing is though, I don’t think he really cares if he’s stuck in The Life or not. I’m pretty sure he enjoys it.

Anyhow, I got a cough started in my throat and began to pretend like I was going to choke or something on my coughs. The professor looked at me and then down at his class roster.

“Miss Bourdo, would you like to visit the restroom for a moment?” He inquired of me. No matter how stupid he sounded, I was taking the excuse. I nodded my head and coughed some more before I got up with my bag and headed for the door.

“Thanks.” I muttered to the professor before I flung myself out of the room. Armani burst out laughing when he saw me pretending to choke.

“Chola girl still got her touch!” He teased, wrapping a strong around my shoulders. God, I loved Armani. I mean, not like I was passionately hoping he’s ask me to marry him or something. God no, he was just like, the perfect version of what a man should look like.

To humor him, I pouted seriously in the chola style and crossed my arms, looking like the tough-ass gangster I once was. But I couldn’t help breaking my pout back into a smile.

“God Armani, it’s so good to see you!” I don’t care if that sounded stupid! It was true! Armani hugged me closer to him for a second before glancing around.

“Well girl, we all worried about you back home! You party like an animal and then all a sudden you aint’ showing up at no parties no more! My bro’s, they all wondering why you ain’t coming around no more, so they send me to go check out yo situation.” Knowing I was missed made me feel pretty damn special, but I shrugged.

“Armani, I got shoved into the College Life! Pretty preppy around here, ain’t it?” I said. “How’d you know where to find me?” Armani dodged my question like a it was a bullet.

“Hm, well, I was talking to Lupe a while back…anyway, what you been up to? Getting an edumacation?” I stifled a giggle and nodded my head.

“Of course. Sorry to say it homie, but I’ve given up The Life.” Armani stared at me for a second before unwrapping his arm from my shoulders. He whistled long and slow for a second.

“Damn girl,” He said quietly, “here you are in some preppy school and you’re already giving up The Life?” I avoided his accusing gaze and looked down at my shoes. They were, unfortunately, the only shoes that I could find in ten seconds of less this morning, and they happened to be my old tennis shoes. They weren’t even the nice adidas! They were the ugly ones from way back when!

“Well,” I began softly, “it’s not like I have any business doing it anymore. I mean, look where I am. I’m not gonna just pull out a gun again and start blasting these nerdy kids away.” Armani smirked, but suddenly got very serious again. I had always known him as a fun-loving type of guy, so this sort of worried me. God, was he here to warn me about Andy too? Because, I swear, if he laid a hand on me I wasn’t going to be so courteous about it!

“That’s good, that’s good…” Armani told me in a low voice. “You know what? You should keep that up. Like, I couldn’t imagine my precious chola homie getting in any kinds of gang busts around here. Plus you’d look like an idiot, wearing sweaters and all.” I laughed softly at that.

“Yeah, sweaters…” I said. But suddenly it struck me that Armani was indeed here to tell me something important. I mean, you don’t just go make cross-country trips for anything! I frowned at him expectantly. “Armani, what’s up?” He looked down at me from his 6 foot something frame nervously.

“Huh? Naw, nothing’s up with me.” He told me with a smile. “I just, you know, wanted to check up on you is all.”

“Um,” I guessed, “to make sure Andy hadn’t already come and killed me or something alone those lines?” Armani jerked involuntarily away from me and tried to recover by casually leaning against a wall.

“Andy? Andy ‘Crypto’ Christiansen?” He asked. “Where did you get a crazy idea like that?”

“Well gee,” I informed him sarcastically, “I mean, we’ve only been after each other since like, forever. Plus, I beat his ass so badly last year! If I were him, I’d want some revenge too.” Armani started shaking his head back and forth, slowly at first but steadily shaking his head faster. Finally he put up his hands in an I-surrender gesture.

“Okay, okay,” He said guiltily, “I lie, but it’s not what you think! I started hearing some things, you know, back in L.A. Some people were talking about how Andy was out to get you now. I asked one of his bros if that was some serious talk, and he said yeah.” Armani smirked. “But…I got my sources over here. I connect all over the world, you know, so if you ever need outta a fix, just ask around for Armani G. until somebody recognizes it.”

“Hm.” I commented. “Well, that’s great and all, but what else about Andy?” Armani’s gaze got distant for a second, as if he was searching through his mind for something to say.

“Pues, I don’t know much else, Jimmi.” He finally said, rubbing the side of his neck. “All I know is Andy said he was coming out here to finish things with you. It looks like I got here first, though.”

Not quite, I thought, but I wasn’t about to tell him Duran was sneaking around here. Armani continued.

“Look, just be on your best behavior, alright?” He asked of me. “I’m not gonna tell anybody I know you’re here, but I can’t guarantee that they don’t already know exactly where to find you.”

“Hah.” I remarked. “Oh, Jesse De Stupid already took care of that! See, they know where he is, and if he’s here, then I’m here so they’ve already got me trapped.”

“De Stupid’s here?” Armani wondered aloud. “Hm, he must have been one smart cholo to be here.”

“Oh yeah,” I snorted, “smart!” Armani only looked at me helplessly, as if talking about Jesse wasn’t important. Which, I guess, it wasn’t for the moment.

“I’ll be down in New York for a while, ya heard?” He told me, glancing around again. “I got some unfinished business with somebody I know, and I’m thinking a personal visit by the Armani man himself will cool this guy off. Don’t attract any attention, you got me?” I nodded my head obediently.

“Of course, captain obvious.” I joked. “I’ll make sure I’m out of any harm’s way.” Armani smiled at that, but he seemed less than convinced that I would. I sighed and crossed my heart while I held up my right hand.

“I promise.” I assured him. “Scout’s honor!”

“Good.” Armani said, trying to convince himself that I was being serious, which I was! He apparently had to wrap things up though and get to New York fast though. He put a hand on my shoulder and kept his serious gaze on my face.

“I’m gonna jet, but just know I’ll be around New York for a while. If you need anything, like somebody to beat someone up for you, just jet down there too. You’ll find me in about 10 minutes, no matter where you start looking for me.” I grinned.

“All right, Armani.” I said, happy to know I was at least being looked after by people who understood the dangers of The Life as much as me.

“Take care, ya heard?” I called after him as he set off down the hallway. He didn’t bother to turn around-it was one of those macho man things guys did in L.A.-but he waved a hand back at me.

Jeez, I was already starting to miss my Hoodie and bandanas world…I mean, Armani looked pretty sexy in his dark red Hoodie and the black bandana wrapped tightly around his wrist. He’d never been one to actually wear it over his face like a regular gangster. I guess being more than cool came with the status of Party-Thrower.

“Jimmi?” I heard a voice call from behind me in the distance. “Hey, you outta class?” Ugh, my ears prickled at Jesse’s voice. I swiftly turned around and saw Jesse-not surprisingly, he had on a black Hoodie. I guess he really was getting homesick for The Life-hurrying to catch up to me.

Okay, I hadn’t talked to him for a week now. Don’t give me that look! Yes, he may have been my sort of boyfriend, but it was starting to get old! He would not, for the life of him, change! I swear, he refused to make any friends except with his roommate-who happened to miraculously not be a nerdy sweater vest guy-and he refused to even try to fit into the East Coast style. Well, that wasn’t a bad thing because as far as I was concerned, most of these geeks were just too smart for their own good and they were kind of conceited. But Jesse hadn’t even tried to see past that! God, it was like the reverse high school scenario for us! I, Jimena Bourdo, was making loads of friends, while Jesse on the other hand, was doing absolutely nothing to get himself a couple of decent friends! And no, the dorky kid who only talked about video games in his dorm did not count.

So I wasn’t really happy with hanging around with Jesse for the time being. We were drifting, but I couldn’t help it! He was the one being stubborn now!

“Um, Jesse?” I said carefully. We’d gone over this a few times before, but still he couldn’t keep it straight! “Remember, you promised me you’d call me Jimena from now on? I mean, Jimmi is such a boyish name…” Jesse grinned.

“Oh yeah.” He said. “Sorry about that. So, are you done with your class? You wanna go get something to eat?”

No, I did not want to get something to eat! Jesse, who had practically gotten me into this whole mess, was not someone I wanted to be all buddy-buddy with at the moment.

“No, I’m not done with class, Jesse.” I said pointedly. “And I don’t want to go get something to eat. Tonight though, we’re going to go work out really hard at the gym, okay? I apparently don’t have a lot of time, and I want to at least be able to put up a fight!” Jesse was clearly lost. He cocked his head to the side.

“What?” He asked. “What are you talking about?” I headed back for my professor’s door, glaring at him.

“We’ll talk about it later.” I informed him coldly. “Meet me at the gym. I want to get some things straight with you, Jesse De Stupid.”

His jaw dropped and he started to stammer out a question, but I opened my professor’s door and slammed it shut in his face.

I was so not in the mood to listen to him tell me he had no idea how much trouble we were in.

Chapter Four

La química (The Chemistry) is not there anymore.

Jesse, as promised, met me at the Harvard gym later that evening. He had a gym bag slung on his shoulder and I had my tennis one-from last year-around my own shoulder. As soon as he saw me come in through the doors, he leapt up from a bench press and hurried over to me. Man, he was getting so old to me! I mean, jumping up and rushing to meet me? Um, clingy much? Seriously, I had never even been that clingy with Duran!

“So um…Jimena!” He said, trying to be slightly serious but playful-I guess?-at the same time. “You wanted to talk about something?”

“Yeah,” I said solemnly, “I do, in fact. We need to have a little chat. But we’re doing some reps first, because I’m losing my touch and I can’t imagine you’ve exactly been busting your ass out on the streets around here.” Jesse shrugged nonchalantly.

“Well, I’ve been in here practically everyday…” He remarked. I just about choked, but I wasn’t gonna let Jesse see me feel defeated! Jesus, no wonder why I hardly ever saw him anymore! He was busy keeping his abs all tight and solid!

All while I had been studying and making friends that I probably wouldn’t see ever again once I got out of college. Damn him!

“Oh.” I said, feeling stupid for such a lame comeback. “Well, um…so have I, but I guess it’s not enough. Wanna spot me?” I asked. I would have never actually needed a spotter, but I was rusty with this gym stuff, and I wasn’t sure if I could actually bench 250 anymore.

“Sure.” He said, eyeing me suspiciously. “So…you wanted to talk about something?”

“Oh yeah,” I said as I lay down and grabbed the bar, “that. Okay, so I’ve been hearing some things from a few anonymous sources back home.” I began. Jesse, unfortunately, interrupted me.

“Oh really? Yeah, I’ve been talking to some guys back home too. I was thinking about-“ I cut Jesse off, mainly because I was trying to lift something heavy and I needed to have something to take my mind off it.

“Andy’s coming to this coast, you know that?” I told him. “He apparently is coming over to get me. What I’m wondering is, who exactly told him where I was?” Jesse shrugged.

“Don’t look at me.” He said innocently. “I haven’t talked to him since he shot you.”

“Did you tell him you were going to Harvard though?” I inquired. Again, Jesse shrugged.

“Well, not him exactly. I did tell one of my old friends though.”

Ah hah! So now I knew how Andy knew where to find me! And it was all because Jesse had told somebody who happened to know Andy!

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t tell Andy, Jimena.” Jesse finished, eyeing me intently. “Did you tell any of your friends maybe?”

Hm, I hadn’t actually thought of that. I mean, maybe Rayshell had a big grudge against me or something. And so, I was back at square one again…

“Okay, well, it doesn’t matter who told him, but he knows.” I told Jesse harshly. “Also, I heard you’re calling yourself De Zote now?” Jesse blushed, embarrassed that I knew I guess. I frowned, disappointed it was true. “Jesse, I thought we were gonna give up The Life!”

“Well,” He said quickly, “I wanted to, I really did! But I’m seriously sick of this place! I can’t get used to it! I mean, I’m sorry, I tried but I can’t give it up. It’s too much a part of me.”

Hold on a minute. Jesse was too much of a gangster to go to Harvard and get a degree? Okay, don’t get me wrong, but he was being such a baby! I had been in The Life much longer than him! I had locked my inner Gangster Girl away so I could become a decent human being! But Jesse? God, he just wasn’t trying hard enough!

“That’s why,” He said quietly, “I think I’m gonna move back to the West Coast come the end of the Fall Term. I’ll finish my classes up back at USC or something.”

Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I mean, I knew he wasn’t all that happy here. But, well, Jesse being Jesse never ceased to do things I didn’t think he’d do.

“You’re moving back?!” I hollered, immediately losing control of the weight over my head, and, if Jesse hadn’t been spotting me, I would have been one dead chica later that evening!

“Well, yeah.” Jesse said, as if it was obviously and that I should have known. “I mean, it’s not like you want to hang out anymore outside-“

“It’s October!” I whined. “You know I hate this month!”

“And I hardly have any people to relate to over here.” He continued, ignoring me. “I just…I just wanna go back to where I know I belonged, you know?”

I still couldn’t get past the fact that he was leaving me!

“You’re leaving me?!” I wailed, sitting up on the bench and pouting. “Jesse, if you wanna make some friends just come with me this Friday or whatever! We’ll go to a few parties and by the end of the night I can guarantee you’ll have a lot of friends!”

“I don’t want to make friends here.” Jesse replied bluntly. “These people and I have absolutely nothing in common with me.”

Except a 4.2 GPA and an outstanding school record, my mind told me. What else did he need to think he had something in common with these nerds?! Did he need them to go shoot somebody up or something?

My god, I was desperate to find some way to make him stay! Look, I know I said I was getting tired of him, but he was one of the only hot guys around on the campus that I could relate to without having to make fun of his sweater! He was my man! My pal! The guy I could mess around with! And if he left…

I’d be stuck with Kimmi and Natalie and losers who wore the ugliest polos and sweaters you could imagine! I was seriously desperate for him to stay!

“Jesse, you can’t leave!” I moaned. “What’ll I do without you?”

“Um, raise your grades up to perfects?” He suggested in an unkind manner. I shot him a glare and stood up, grabbing my tennis bag.

“Fine.” I told him haughtily. “I guess I’ll have to beat up Andy on my own when he comes around for me. I guess, when you read the news next time and see my dead corpse on the front pages, that you’ll wonder if I even got a good shot at him…” And then I proceeded to leave the gym in a huff, with him following after me.

“Jimena, don’t do this…” He pleaded softly. I shook my head angrily.

“Do what? Be upset because the only person that I truly am tight with over here is deserting me?”

“I’m not deserting you!” He said, offended that I would even suggest that.

“Yes you are!” I cried. “What, moving out of here and leaving me to deal with gangsters coming after me after you-who got me into this all in the first place, remember-ditch me doesn’t mean deserting anymore?”

“See, this is why I didn’t tell you earlier!” He said, frustrated. “We hardly ever talk anymore since you went all preppy, and I knew you’d have a fit!”

“You already knew you were gonna move before any of this even came up?!” I gasped. “Jesse, you really are De Stupid!”

“Hey!” He said sharply. “Don’t call me that! You’re not in The Life anymore, remember? So you don’t get to call me that!”

“Wait,” I said thoughtfully, “So if I was back in with my crew, I could call you stupid all I wanted?”

“Yeah.” Jesse replied before he caught that I meant that as an insult. “Hey! Jesus Christ, Jimena! If you’re gonna be so lame about this, then butt out!” that shut me up pretty fast, so he continued. “Look, it’s been pretty clear for a while that we’re losing common ground, all right? You’re pretty much the only person I know around here that I could relate to, ya know? But then, you just brush me off like I’m just some random punk! Well Jimena, I’m sick of it. I’m not gonna stay here if you don’t wanna hang around and if nobody else will accept me for who I am, either. I’m not gonna change for this freaking school!”

“Jesse, you don’t have to change-“ I babbled pleadingly, but Jesse interrupted me with a hand gesture to his throat. He glared at me in anger, and for the first time in my life, I knew how it felt to be the person who should actually be blamed.

“You say that like it’s so easy.” He hissed harshly. “Look at you, Jimena! You’re a changed woman! I can hardly recognize you anymore! You aren’t who I fell…” He paused for a moment. “You can’t possibly be the same person I once knew. I’m sorry, but I’m leaving. I have nobody here. You…You have plenty of people you can fit yourself in with. You don’t need me, and I don’t need you.”

He turned away from me with a cold shoulder and started to walk back towards the gym. I, for one, was speechless. I watched him go, but I felt like I couldn’t say anything that would make him feel any better about it. He was clearly disgusted with this whole place.

And, apparently, with who I had become.

I silently sat down on a bench and began sifting through my tennis bag for nothing in particular, but I felt like I needed to be busy at the moment.

I replayed our conversation in my head, wondering when exactly I had become such a changed person. Why, I wondered, did it feel so bad to me to be such a good, changed-for-the-better person now? Why wasn’t…this wasn’t making sense to me, really. I couldn’t imagine how much I had changed.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was true. I mean, the way I had been talking to Duran and Armani? It was nothing like how I talked to my new friends! Could it be that I was putting up a front with these guys now?

I started back to my dorm and numbly let myself back into my suite. Kimmi was sitting on our one and only couch and Natalie was sitting on the floor, painting her toenails an obscene shade of pink. Kimmi, I decided, needed to move.

“Move.” I told Kimmi feebly, who looked up at me with her squinty, gothic-smudged-black eyes.

“You aren’t the boss of me.” She retorted. Well, there was only one way to get the couch then. I let out a ragged gasp and started crying.

That automatically freed the couch for me. Both Kimmi and Natalie got up, led me down to sit on the couch and asked me what was wrong, trying to comfort me.

I couldn’t do anything else but cry for the moment, though, because it was real. This pain that I was feeling? I had no idea why it hurt so much, but it was almost worse than last night when Duran had punched me.

Chapter Five

I said I would love you until my dying day, but I’m afraid it’s impossible.

“It’s because you have no personality.” Kimmi told me wisely, after the first hour I had been bawling and sobbing to them that my boyfriend-well, basically he was…we just weren’t official-had broken up with me and was moving back West.

Natalie shot Kimmi a glare. “Kimmi, of course Jimena has a personality! She has a great one!” I took one look at them both and started crying again.

You could totally tell they were only trying to make me feel better! Was it that obvious that now I apparently how no personality whatsoever? Jeez, I had never cried so much about something so dramatic in my life, either.

“Well it’s true!” Kimmi argued with Natalie. “All those clothes you buy, Jimena? They’re just proof that you’re a drone, working for the lame American fashion industry!”

Okay, not that made me a bit miffed. I mean, I had never gone around telling her how ugly her plastic pleather skirts looked!

“Kimmi?” I asked in between sniffs. She glanced at me. “Why do you always wear black?”

“That’s easy.” She scoffed. “It’s my favorite color. It means I have no interest in a stupid consumerism society like everybody else.”

“Hmm.” I remarked. “Well, I like the color pink, but you don’t see me wearing it twenty-four seven…and I also don’t buy plastic pleather that doesn’t recycle as well as cotton and real leather.” I left my insult at that and started crying again, letting Natalie comfort me and say that we could bake chocolate chip cookies all night if I felt like it. Personally, scarfing down cookies all night sounded pretty good to me. I wanted to wallow in all the self-pity I could muster and if Natalie wanted to help me, then so be it!

Kimmi got disgusted with such a display of emotion after a while and went to her room, saying she had better things to do than listen to me bitch and moan about a boyfriend. That, however, made me feel worse because I was pretty sure I had been the worst sorta-girlfriend ever to Jesse now! Fortunately, Natalie was studying to be a top-notch psychiatrist, so she told me to let it all out and that this was normal for breaking up with somebody I totally loved.

Unfortunately, that just made me feel worse. Again. So Natalie tried again, saying I could scarf down as many cookies as I wanted later-as long as I made a dedicated trip to the gym tomorrow. I totally agreed with this plan, so we made cookies, and I made it a point to whine and cry and be as babyish as possible because I sure as hell wouldn’t be doing it anytime soon.

Natalie was such a sweetheart to me, too! That made me feel even worse because I must have been an ice cold bitch when her boyfriend had broken up with her in September-the bastard went to Oxford and hadn’t even told her-and I had just been like, oh no, what a jerk! Don’t worry though, you’ll find another guy! There’s more fish in the sea!

Come on, does that make anyone feel better? It surely didn’t make her feel better because here it was, already October and she still burst into tears sometimes when she saw a cheesy ‘Diamonds are forever’ commercial on TV! (they had apparently been deeply in love and she was convinced he was going to propose to her a few days before school because he was acting so strange around here, but I guess he ran off with some British bimbo instead of this super nice, super gorgeous-although I guess the sweater was a bit much-girl! What a freaking bitch! Seriously, he seemed like a shallow guy to me, but I guess there must have been something to love about him…)

Anyway, we made chocolate chip cookies-without chocolate chips for me, because I’m not a big fan of chocolate-and watched late night soaps on HBO-I swear that’s the best channel they ever invented-until ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ came on. Natalie and I had a thing for Will Smith. He was so funny and hot!

After about midnight, we started seeing these commercials for Aid help in the Middle East. You know, because the Gulf War was starting and all. Seriously, it had only been about two months since we had gotten into the whole mess in the Middle East, and now they wanted Aid from us? I thought it was complete bull from the beginning.

However…

An idea started to dawn on me after the first or second commercial we saw for Aid and I grabbed a pencil and some paper, writing down the information to get into this Aid thing.

You see, they were saying that they would fly us over there without about as much notice as a few business days. That meant, I could be missing in the Middle East by Thursday!

All I needed was to find someone who would do it with me! But I had to be careful who I wanted to come with me. I mean, Jesse wasn’t even close to being on my list of people-to-take-overseas! Besides, I didn’t want him being influenced by any types of gangs over there. Let’s see, Kimmi was out because, well, I didn’t want to be stuck with someone who moped and hid from the sun all day long!

So, I guess I was taking somebody who I was greatly in debt to, and plus she would be the coolest person to travel with-as long as I managed to get her to stop wearing the sweater vest things!

Yes, I would have to convince Natalie to go with me for the safety of our lives! I was pretty sure that as soon as I spilled out my deep dark secret-okay, not the gangster one, but that I had gotten in the middle of a gangster fight instead and now they wanted to kill me cos I was their only witness. I mean, you’d believe that, right?-and that we were in serious trouble if we stuck around any longer she would have no choice but to wanna go!

Okay, I know, it was a stupid plan, but it had to work, all right? I figured even if she didn’t wanna go, I could just hitch myself up there for a while, do some charity work, and manage to be missing from Andy in every way, shape and form!

Fortunately, I didn’t need to make up an elaborate lie to get Natalie to believe me.

“Hey Tally…” I said, wondering myself why I was suddenly using nicknames. “You wanna do this Aid program? You know, until the end of the month or whatever?” Natalie stared at the ad for a moment, and then turned to me, a smile curling on her lips.

“You’d really like to do that?” She asked. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to go do charity work! It looks so good on your resume, plus it makes you feel so good! I did it in Mexico once and I felt so distressed when I came back home!” She gave me a quick once-over, just to make sure I was being serious. “But…only unless you really want to go Jimena. It’s really serious business.”

“Oh,” I gushed dreamily, “I know! I’ve always wanted to do it too! Let’s call them right now! We’ll be off helping those poor refugees by Thursday at least!”

“Gosh Jimena, don’t you think maybe we should wait for a while, to make sure we’re ready for it? I mean, I don’t know if we have the right immunizations or anything.”

“No!” I said firmly, but cheerfully. “Nope, I’m good! Besides, we can’t wait! Not when there are people who need us! And think about it, we’ll be out of hectic classes for a while!

It only took like, 5 more minutes of convincing her before it was settled that we were leaving for the Middle East on Thursday. We called up the Aid agency and they were more than happy to have us. They told us to be at a designated spot at JFK on Thursday morning at 8 in the morning and to pack comfortable but sturdy clothing-of which I had no taste for, so only my rough and tumble gangster clothes matched that category-and to be prepared for anything.

I can’t help it, I’m an excellent convincer when I have to! Of course, I still had my list of dangerous weapons to buy before I left the country. I mean, I wasn’t stupid. If Andy could figure out where I was now, he’d surely be able to figure out where I’d be on Thursday. That is, if he didn’t come to kill me before then. I was really hoping that in two day’s time I would be alive and prancing off to some place I’d never been to!

So of course Jesse might have wanted to know why I was up at 6:30 on Thursday morning in a pair of camo shorts and my favorite red cami and working out at the gym. But I, of course, wasn’t going to stand for any of his nonsense anymore! Nope, in the time it had taken me to pack a suitcase, I had decided I was over Jesse. No way I was going to break down and beg him to stay now. Oh no, he could beg and grovel for me, because as far as I registered what Natalie had been preaching, he was the one at fault here! He wasn’t giving this place a fair chance! So, like I said, I could care less if he wanted to know why I was up so early-I’m never usually up before 8-or where I was going.

Anyway, I was working on a treadmill-I had to be ready for a nice long run if Andy was going to be chasing me anytime soon-and listening to my walkman when Jesse happened to step up on the treadmill next to me. He glanced over at me and had to do a double take before he recognized me in my ghetto clothes.

“Jimmi?” He wondered aloud before he remembered he was supposed to be super disgusted with me. “I mean um, Jimena?” He glanced at his fancy Swarovski watch-it was a graduation gift-and tapped it, like he didn’t believe what time it was. “Uh, what are you doing up so early? And exercising, might I ask?” I shrugged, my bitterness towards him having only gotten stronger with each passing day. Corny, I know, but true!

“Oh, nothing.” I replied coolly. “Just want to get in shape for when, you know, I get attacked by Andy.” I glanced over at him-and regretted it immediately-noticing that he was, indeed, still one of the hottest guys around, no matter how much I was mad at him. “What about you?” I asked nonchalantly.

As if he suddenly got the message that I was mad at him, he backed off.

“Oh,” He said as he turned up his treadmill, “I always get up this early to work out. If you’d paid more attention, maybe you’d know that.”

“Hah!” I laughed sarcastically in a high-pitched squeal. “That’s really funny! You should tell me some more of your jokes later!” then I feigned a conflict by putting a hand up to the side of my forehead. “Oh wait, sorry De Zote! I won’t be here to listen to it! Could you maybe tape some jokes and mail them to me? I’d be like, super happy if you did!” Jesse snorted.

“You’re not going anywhere like I am.” He scoffed. “And thanks for reminding me how relieved I am to move back home! I mean, for a while there I was wondering if maybe I should tough it out at least until the semester was over.” I smirked.

“You have no idea, Jesse.” I said grimly. “No idea at all…But maybe I’ll send you a postcard if I get too bored over there.”

“There?” Jesse repeated blankly, turning up his treadmill when I did. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re already going on a vacation Jimena. I thought you were tough enough to stick it out over here!” I shrugged.

“Well,” I remarked, “at least I won’t be anywhere where someone can rat me out. I mean, I don’t want a repeat of last time, now do I?” I shot him a glare, making him well aware that it was his fault that Andy knew where I was and now I was getting hunted down. Jesse looked me over for a second before responding to that.

“Jimena,” He said seriously, “don’t do anything stupid and expect me to stay so I can get you out of it.”

“Me?” I replied, wide eyed and innocent. “Tch, I’d never do anything stupid!” I grinned at him apologetically, hoping that maybe I would come of as sincere because I was sounding sheepish. “Besides, I’m not really going anywhere…I’m sorry I’ve been teasing you this whole time.” I punched my treadmill off and stepped down from it, looking at Jesse’s face. Man, if I had known the next I saw it would be during a fight, I may have been more heartfelt.

“I’m just feeling a little unsteady now.” I told him softly. “I’ve been trying to figure out how I could manage here without you.” With each word, my voice got softer, and I actually started to feel the prickling sensation of tears. Of course I wouldn’t cry in front of Jesse. Not anymore, anyway. I mean, I had been one hell of a crybaby back in Los Angeles when I was around him.

“And I guess I’m just having a hard time coping with that.” I finished, blinking my eyes rapidly so I would not-absolutely not!-shed a tear in front of him. Besides, I was supposedly over him, remember?

I grabbed my water bottle on the side of the treadmill and walked out on him, because that’s the only thing I could think of doing that was dramatic and made me feel like I was being brave about this whole thing by escaping-basically running away-to the Middle East for the moment.

I didn’t look to see if Jesse was feeling as bad or as guilty about his moving back home as me, because personally I didn’t really want to know if he actually hated me that much or not.

Besides, I had better things on my mind for the moment. I was going across the Atlantic to help a bunch of Middle Eastern refugees! And the best part was, it was an area that nobody would suspect me of being in! If anyone even asked where I was, no one would know because the only person we’d told where we were going was Kimmi and our professors because they absolutely had to know why we’d be gone for two weeks.

Things were looking up for me already! The crazy part was though, how come I wasn’t feeling any better about anything?

Chapter Six

Mundian to Bach Ke, What did I get myself into?

So, for the record, I really, really never wanted to do aid work again in my life. Why, might you ask? Hm, well, it seemed like such a good and charitable and warm fuzzy thing for Natalie and me to do when we were discussing it back in our dorm! We had planned on helping little kids-my god, I don’t know how I convinced myself that it wouldn’t be as worse as it was-with colds or maybe little bruises and scrapes! Boy, were we in for a shock when we arrived.

How stupid were we to think that it wasn’t gonna be a bloody battle scene right out of a freaking World War two book!? I mean, I really hadn’t considered that it was gonna be some giant conflict as soon as we got off the plane!

Guess how long it took the natives to realize we were white-which means valuable I guess over there…I don’t know why cos we’re college students. We’re useless!-and apparently packed with money. Yeah, it only took them about 10 minutes after we got off the plane and out into the airport. I had suggested to Natalie that we split up-I would go get our bags and she would go scope out the Aid agency that was meeting us, and then I would meet up with them back where the plane had landed. Natalie, of course, didn’t know that I was once a gangster kind of girl and could kick the ass of anybody who tried to mess with me so she was strongly against that idea, which I guess was good in the end. We started getting these off-the-wall looks from complete foreign strangers, and at first I thought it was because of the clothes we were wearing (Natalie in her usual sweater and Birkenstock getup, me in my gangster border shorts and cami with a Hoodie draped over one arm).

But then it became apparent that they were checking us out because we were obviously white and not accustomed to the area (thank you, Natalie’s mother, for insisting we take a picture of ourselves in the airport with a disposable Mickey-mouse tourist camera). Well, the one possible thing I learned from this whole thing was that being a white American girl did absolutely no good if I was visiting anywhere else but inside the states.

Anyway, so we went to get our bags together-Natalie insisted on the ‘buddy system’, something I still don’t have the hang of quite yet-and really tried to ignore these people checking us out, but we’d had it by the time one of them got brazen enough to ask us if we’d like a ride to a hotel.

“Hey!” I barked at the guy who had asked us that. He glanced at me for a second and then promptly ignored me.

“We happy to escort you to big hotel.” The guy said brightly in broken English to Natalie, who got this odd look on her face. It almost looked like she was going to burst into laughter! But I’m pretty sure she knew as well as I did that laughing probably wasn’t the best idea at the moment.

“You have money for plush ride?” He inquired. Natalie rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Nope.” She said clearly. “No money!”

“We figure out way to pay.” The guy replied, still looking very cheerful. “Me take bags?”

“No!” I shouted at the guy, who was still ignoring me. “Do you have any idea how out of line you are? Come on, Tally! Let’s go find the Aid agency.”

“We take you to Aid agency.” The guy insisted. Natalie finally laughed in his face, grabbed her bag when I did and we deserted him. Seriously, if he had gotten anymore persistent, I would have busted his ass so bad…I was so not in any mood to have people wanting to kidnap us or hold us hostage or anything.

We found the Aid agency pretty easily because they had a giant sign for us. I mean, if they didn’t have a big sign, we would have mistaken them for overly enthusiastic tourists!

They ushered us into their big Aid bus and we ended up going about 3 hours away from the airport to this tiny bomb struck village in Kuwait. Natalie and I had been discussing that maybe we should wash up before we handle anything, but oh no, the Agency didn’t want that. Nope, they wanted all the help they could get-right now! So we got shoved into a hospital room with like, zillions of dying people-I’m so not a fan of dying people-and the agency expected us to know exactly what we were supposed to do!

Well, Natalie started cooing and trying to comfort the dying while I leafed through a medicine journal-it was in Arabic-and tried to figure out what exactly we should be doing to help these people. Personally, I felt bad for these people because they had been dealt the losers of the agency!

Yeah, we were basically the two who really sucked at doing any kind of charitable work, seeing how dying screaming kids scared us mostly and it didn’t look like we’d be getting used to it at any point either. But no, that didn’t stop the Aid agency from giving us depressing things to do. On Friday-the day jet lag happened to kick in-the agency wanted us to go downtown in Muslim disguises and pick up some supplies from another hospital. That sounded easy enough, right?

Hah, no! No, it wasn’t easy in the least! They just tossed us some blankets, right? And then they said that it was a chadir. Natalie and I had absolutely no clue how to put the things on, so we just wrapped them on until it looked sort of like some of the girls we had seen running around, wanting to see if their relatives were okay or not. In fact, we’d asked one girl-we’re assuming she was making fun of us while she did it-to help us, and she directed most of the wrapping of the chadir while fussing over how to hide our eyes and stuff.

And we were totally ready to get going, but then one of the Agency people looked us over oddly-I swear they were laughing at us later!-and finally declared that we needed an escort, because no local person would believe something like two Muslim girls just walking down the street like idiots. Oh, did he say idiots? No, he meant, fine young ladies!

But being escorted wasn’t such a bad thing after all. You know why?

Oh yes, you should absolutely know why, because we are 18 year old girls! We love boys! Especially ones who show an interest in us, but not some type of obsession with us or whatever. That’s just creepy.

Yep, we got to have hottie Michael Golem escort us. The dark brown/shaggy haired with the pretty icy eyes and the tanned skin…my god, he was ultimately hot. If it wasn’t for Natalie going, ‘oh my gosh Jimena, Michael…my gosh, I just met my one true love!”

I’m a girl, so it was only natural that I giggled about that and laughed even more hysterically when Michael made googly-eyes at Natalie, who was practically swooning already.

“So uh, where did you two travel from?” He asked us, mainly only Natalie but that was fine with me. I was busy eyeing some hot Arabian men. You have no idea how hot local men can be until you’re surrounded by them with their shirts off and they’re sweating from some kind of hard work out in the sun. I mean, I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed this at Harvard. Wait, no, I wouldn’t have noticed it there, what with their sweater obsession and all. Natalie, at the moment, didn’t appear capable of talking, seeing as how she was fidgeting with a strand of brown hair poking out from her chadir-and giggling-so I answered for us.

“From the states.” I said. “We’re attending Harvard, actually.”

“Harvard?” He murmured sensitively to Natalie. “I live around there as a matter o fact. Are you familiar with the New York region?” Natalie gasped, and I swear to god, it was like they were thinking something psychic with each other!

“As a matter of fact,” Natalie replied giddily, “Yes I am! I live just on the cusp of the New York city boundaries.”

Hm? The cusp of the city? Well, that was new to me! I mean, Natalie and Kimmi and I hadn’t gone through all those stupid get-to-know-your-room-mate games for nothing! I had been led to believe that Natalie lived in Kingston! I don’t know about you, but that was plenty far away from New York City! I listened intently to their conversation after that.

“Oh? Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised that a sophisticated young woman such as yourself wouldn’t at least live close to the city.” Okay, so if someone who had never said a word to you had just suddenly said that, you might have felt obligated to slap them! But, of course, Natalie and Michael were flirting, so it sounded mushy and cute and I’m pretty sure Natalie wasn’t noticing it. Nope, she was busy giving Michael these big starry eyed looks and batting her eyelashes. I think if she had brought her compact, she would have been constantly checking herself out in the mirror, too. I mean, not like there was much to see but above her nose. Everything else was covered drastically with purple and red chadirs.

“Anyhow,” He continued, “I happen to live right by the city as well. Maybe you could come visit me sometime?” It was a totally sexual invite, but I’m guessing Natalie wasn’t thinking all the way, because she was totally giving it back.

“Maybe I could.” She replied in a sultry voice.

Or…maybe she knew perfectly that it was a sexual invite. Um, I tuned out after that, because I didn’t want the details about that. Although I did catch some tidbits of the conversation-enough to learn that Michael was 22 and had been in this charity business since he graduated high school. Prep high school, might I add. I mean, not even like the private prep school I attended back in Los Angeles. Oh god no, that was like, kindergarten compared to where these kids went on the East coast!

Yeah, while they flirted heavily I turned my attention back to the streets of Kuwait and the hotties walking about, holding heavy objects on their shoulders and showing off their perfect abs. Oh my god, I must have missed out on some fitness craze while I was in Harvard or something, because I swear almost everybody was ripped around here!

Back at Harvard, Jesse was feeling pretty low. I have no clue why, obviously because I wasn’t there. And I was also making sure I wasn’t thinking about him. That was probably because I was still pretty pissed at him and I didn’t want to ruin my ‘vacation’-okay, I’m sorry, but I sucked at being a charitable person besides mailing money to organizations so I tried my best, but I don’t think I helped all that much!-by thinking about some stupid boy who was saying I had changed and how he didn’t want to hang around me anymore and was going to leave me because he couldn’t get along with any of the pansies at Harvard! Tell me something isn’t wrong with him!

Anyway, Jesse had cooked some stir fry up one night-I think it was Saturday, a few days after I’d left-and since he was feeling a bit guilty for being so harsh to me-Hah! Serves him right!-he decided he’d go take me some for dinner. Why he thought this was a good idea, I don’t particularly want to know. Especially since we’d been over it more than a few times that I’m not a fan of stir-fry. I mean, you would think he’d have gotten my point by the third of fourth time!

Nonetheless he knocked on my dorm’s door and waited until Kimmi opened the door. She was all dark and edgy looking with her black pajama pants and her black pajama shirt. Really, Tally and I cracked up in private when she wore it. It totally didn’t compliment her pale skin.

It was pretty late, so it was understandable that she was wearing pajamas. However, her disregard for Jesse was appalling in my opinion.

“Who are you?” She demanded sullenly. Suddenly a look of utter amazement crossed her face and she lit up like a freaking Christmas tree! “Don’t tell me!” She gasped. “You’re here for a booty call for that unbelievable bitch of a girl!” Jesse cocked his head to the side, confused.

“Um…” He began, ignoring Kimmi’s excitement. “Is Jimmi-I mean, is Jimena around?” Kimmi smirked and shook her head.

“Nuh-uh. She’s in Kuwait, remember? Or did she just tell me to make sure that when she and Tally died over there, I’d be able to claim their ugly corpses?” Jesse began to get the distinct feeling that Kimmi and I weren’t the best of friends and shrugged.

“Well, uh…she never told me that.” He muttered. “I guess she forgot.” He looked down at the floor for a second. Now, see, if I had seen that I would have been all praising myself for finally breaking the boy down and making him feel bad for treating me so badly! Jesse stopped looking at the floor though and held up the stir-fry to Kimmi. “Um, you like stir-fry?” He asked. Kimmi, thinking that Jesse was flirting with her or something was flattered and nodded her head.

“Oh, yum!” She exclaimed. “I love Asian food! Here, I’ll get a couple of plates!” Jesse quickly looked at her, startled.

“Hm?” He wondered aloud. “Oh. No, I meant, do you just want it? I kind of don’t like it that much either, but I figure it’d be a waste to throw it out…” Kimmi was only slightly disheartened by his comment and slowly deflated her from giant ego.

“Oh!” She cried, acting silly. “Whoops! Hah, I thought you were asking me out or something, but obviously you wouldn’t if you’re going out with a tramp like Jimena.”

And with that, she slammed the door in Jesse’s confused little face.

What can I say? Besides…um, the fact that if I had known that was going on when I was overseas, I would have laughed so hard! Because it was totally his fault that he was being a bitch to me this whole time!

Chapter Seven

We Are the Youth of the Nation

“Where is she?” He only asked it once. Jesse immediately opened his eyes wide and looked up to an angry face. Lupe had a grip around his neck, slightly cutting off Jesse’s windpipe. Cold sweat dripped down Jesse’s face as he began to realize that Lupe wasn’t the only one in his dorm room. He glanced over to the other kid in his dorm, wishing he could have laughed, but the look on Stan’s nerdy face sent a shiver through his spine. The poor guy looked like a rat trapped in the tiniest cage imaginable with a dozen lions surrounding him!

In reality only two other people were in the dorm with them besides Lupe. Duran was standing by the door with a crowbar in his good hand. His right hand was still bruised from hitting it on the lamp post by my dorm. The last person who had broken in was Armani. Jesse guessed Armani was only here because he had nothing else better to do now that he was on the East Coast. Hah, kind of like himself!

“You’re the one she told everything to!” Lupe snarled, bringing Jesse back to reality. “Tell us what happened!” Jesse shook his head and tried to sit up on his bed, but Lupe wasn’t going to make that possible anytime soon.

You see, after Jesse had had a door slammed in his face by Kimmi, he had went home, sulked; moped around and finally went to sleep. Of course, he really didn’t sleep because now he really felt bad that he had no clue where I was and didn’t that mean somebody hated you if they didn’t tell you where they were?

And now Stan and he were being held up in their own dorm room. Stan wasn’t the brightest kid-well; he was since he was in Harvard, but he was pretty forgetful-in the world, so he had probably forgotten to double-lock the dorm.

Oh, how terrified Stan would be of the West Coast for the rest of his life…in fact, in 2004 he would be offered the CEO of a major computer company in Silicon Valley, but he would turn it down and continue working his corporate job in New Jersey because of his little-known fear of the West. He was absolutely convinced that the only people in the West were gangsters and thugs who carried guns and crowbars with them at all times.

“You gotta be kidding me.” Lupe said, seeming like maybe he’d given up on Jesse and was going to leave. But no, Lupe was unpredictable. He began to release his grip on Jesse but at the last moment he tightened it and yanked Jesse’s face closer to his until Jesse could smell Lupe’s anger.

“You better tell me right now or else I swear to god you’re gonna have bullet holes all over that stupid head of yours! You gonna be bleeding rivers, ya heard?!” Jesse didn’t even flinch, but it was clear he was uncomfortable.

“Look, I don’t know where she is!” He replied in a choked voice. “She left and didn’t tell me cos she got all mad at me a while back!”

“Liar!” Duran barked from the door. His sudden involvement in the conversation apparently scared Stan because he shrieked like a little girl and fell over his bed to the floor. Armani laughed but stopped when Lupe snapped his head to him and glared.

“You’re lying.” Duran continued in a very calm manner. “Jimmi would have told you. When I visited her, yeah, she got angry about you trying to get back into The Life, but she’s got something for ya, man.” He threw the crowbar towards Jesse; it missed but it hit the wall behind him making a sickening cracking sound. Armani stepped in, clearly trying to cause the least amount of trouble for Jesse…and Stan.

“Just tell us where we can find her and you won’t get hurt, all right?”

“I don’t know where she is!” Jesse shouted back angrily. “All I do know is she’s somewhere in Kuwait!”

“Kuwait?” The three gangsters repeated in unison.

“Why’s my little sis in Kuwait?” Lupe demanded. Jesse would have answered, but Armani was on top of that.

“Lupe, my man, there’s a war going on there.” He explained. “Probably thought it was a good place to hide for the moment.”

“Yeah, I told her she had to leave here or at least stay out of sight.” Duran added. “Maybe she listened for once.” Lupe gazed at the floor for a moment, thinking about that.

“Maybe.” He finally said. His eyes flickered back to Jesse. “Listen, de Zote. Andy’s gonna be showing up pretty soon. You tell him a damn word about where she could possibly be and you are dead, ya heard? If he lays a hand on my little sis again, I’m holding you personally responsible. Cos you’re the only one he’s got real ties with on this coast now.”

It was a genuine threat and Jesse wasn’t taking it lightly. He nodded his head.

“I ain’t know nothing bout where she is.” He said loudly, to prove his point that he wouldn’t rat me out to Andy. Lupe kept his glare on him but released Jesse and slowly started to back up towards the door. Armani glanced back to where Stan was cowering and stifled a laugh.

“Yo, cochino! You still alive, right?” He asked. Stan looked up from his side of the room and whimpered. Armani just laughed. “So you know nothing about nobody, right?” Stan, shaking, nodded his head. Armani leered and held up two fingers to his temple.

“Good.” He told Stan before turning his interest back to Jesse. “Lie low, my brothah. You got yourself into one giant mess with this girl, but there ain’t no way you’re getting outta it now.” Jessed nodded his head in agreement before lying his back on his pillow. Relief settled over his body like a blanket. He was so happy to know he wasn’t gonna be killed just yet for not knowing where someone was.

Lupe, Duran and Armani left without another word. Stan, who was still shaking in his corner, dared to ask Jesse about them.

“Were those…your friends?” He sniveled. Jesse looked over at him and shrugged.

“No, Stan.” He replied. “They’re just some of my girlfriend’s friends. They won’t be back, all right? Just go back to sleep.” Stan nodded his head, but the geek didn’t look too convinced about that.

Jesse, however, wasn’t all that convinced either. If they didn’t come back, he knew who would come pay him a visit.