Chapter One – There Goes My Summer

The last day of school was something I loved. Not because I had important things to do over the summer, just because I wouldn’t have to deal with all the bull shit of everyone here in hell.

I’m not exactly the perfect high school girl image portrayed on movies and commercial, the girl with all the friends, the girl with the perfect life; in fact I’m quite the opposite. I’m not a pretty, perfect, preppy cheerleader. They are my enemies. I am the outcast. I have like, three friends and everyone else keeps their distance.

My three friends are, Alex, Tabby and John. But out of those three, Alex is best, best friend.

Alex is tall, and muscular, he has a good build and is actually very handsome. He has dirty blonde thick surfer hair and wears a skater hat of his lovely locks of hair; he’s tan and has pretty blue eyes. I’m not actually quite sure why he hangs out with me. He has girls trailing after him, but if they aren’t okay with me, they aren’t okay with him. Some people call us a couple, but we found out long ago we weren’t made for each other. In seventh grade we tried, and it didn’t work.

But next to Alex is my good friend Tabby. Tabby is just as much of an outcast as I am. She is a bit gothic and is in the poetry club, things like that. She has thick short black hair and wears heavy black eyeliner. She is extremely pale and thin, a bit scary from a far, but once you get to know her she is completely harmless, sure she has some pathetic lines she says when she is sad, but hey, that’s who she is.

And after Tabby, is John. He is probably the most normal. Well not really, Alex is the most normal, he has a ton of friends and never walks alone, but he hangs out with me about ninety percent of the time. And that confuses some people, thus making him a little less normal. But back to John. John is tall and tan, he has long black locks of hair and he is the typical skater/guitarist. But again, like Alex, because he hangs out with me many people are confused.

But, I’m not hated, Its not that I’m un-liked either its just I’m not, well its hard to say. I don’t really know what I am. While everyone seems to be the same, I feel like the Dalmatian with no spots. I’m not sure why, but I do. I don’t look abnormal or strange I’m not hideous I’m not fat or anything, I’m just different. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know, I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know, that for three months after today I wont have to deal with the assholes at this school, who feel the need to lower my already low self esteem.

But three whole months on no jocks or cheerleaders or preppy popular girls shooting me looks. Especially the cheerleaders and preppy chicks, they absolutely hate me for stealing Alex and John and making them ‘not normal’ like myself. They cant stand me and when one of the two isn’t around they try their best to make me feel bad about it, most of the time succeeding, and I don’t know why they do succeed. I know I haven’t done anything wrong, but still I can’t help but feel like their words are true when they tell me I’m useless and that no one care if I died or I would be better off leaving this place, go somewhere else. I know what they say is extreme, but most girls in high school are bitches and that is the straight up truth.

So I walked out of my second period class and headed to my locker to grab my book for my next class. My locker combination had to be the simplest in the world. Ten, sixteen, ten. So I opened the locker and looked at the now empty door and walls of it. I had taken all my pictures down and this book was the last one I had to return. Me being the unlucky person I am, I was pushed back to the end of the line in the beginning of the year checking out books, so my book was the oldest and crappiest, it constantly fell apart. So I wasn’t surprised with I picked it up and the pages fell out of the hard cover.

I sighed bending over to pick them up.

“Damn.” Someone said from behind, but they exaggerated the word so it sounded like “Daaayuum.” I rolled my eyes, already knowing who is was, and I stood back up straight with the pages in my hand.

“Oh, Aubrey your book fell apart.” The same person said.

“Well aren’t you perceptive Riley.” I said turning around to face the group of ass holes behind me.

“It fell apart cause it saw your ugly face.”

“If my face is so ugly why do you bother me to come look at it? Why not go take away some innocent girls virginity.”

“Oh damn Riley, you got dissed.” A few people in the group behind him said.

“Same with you ass holes don’t you have something better to do?” This was the last day of school I wanted it to be a good day, but it might not be.

But then the beautiful boy came to my rescue, Alex.

“Hey Aubrey. Riley.” He said leaning on the locker next to me.

“Hey there Alex.”

“Riley, do you need something? Why aren’t you taking some innocent girls virginity?” Alex said repeating what I had said. I laughed, he had probably heard me.

Riley left after that, he couldn’t handle anymore insults from an outcast and one the best looking boys in school, and his main competition. Riley was the only one I knew whose looks could rival Alex’s.

Riley was the same height as Alex maybe taller and is a jock. So of course he has a very hot body, he is tan and has thick brown locks of hair that fall in his face. His smiles is amazing and of course to top it all off, he has those type of deep brown eyes that a girl, or a guy, could just stare into forever. Yes, he is beautiful but he is also an asshole.

I’m not too sure why Riley bothers me, just for self-pleasure? To make himself feel better? Who knows, but one thing I do know is that I hate him. He has ruined many years of my life with his dumb remarks, but now, I have comebacks, and they stump him. He wont know how to respond sometimes so he will just walk away like he did just then. If only I had, had comebacks many years ago…

“Wow, your book is pretty screwed up.” Alex said.

“Story of my life.” I said shutting my locker and shrugged. Alex walked with me through the halls a few minutes till class began and break would be over.

“I got some bad news.” He said.

“What’s that?” I turned my head towards the sky so I could face him, he was so freaking tall.

“I’m leaving for California in a week.” He said shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Why is that bad? Don’t you have family and friends over there?”

“Yeah, but I’m not just going for like a week like normal, I’m going to be there for two and half months. So like we have two weeks to hang out when I get back and week starting today.”

“Alex. That isn’t bad news. It might suck for me since Tabby is going to camp and so I John but you deserve to go be with your friends and family. All you ever do is protect from Riley you need a break. Besides, I’m sure a rich little boy like him and all is snobby little friends are going somewhere over the summer too. I will be here alone with no one to torture me. Sure, I’ll be bored out of my mind, but as long as you are having fun.”

Alex laughed and gave me a hug, I would miss my best friend for a few months, but he deserved to go back to his normal life for a while instead of chillin’ with a weird like me.

“Don’t be too bored.” He said.

“I won’t. I always have my great little job at Greg’s Grocery.” I said sarcastically, he laughed again and put his hands back into his pockets. I poked him.

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Ha! How can I not, you are clumsy and have a bad attitude, and I could comeback and you could have been jumped by some gangsters.”

“Psh! There are no gangsters out here. This town is too small and boring for gangsters, but gangsters would make things more interesting…”

Alex rolled his eyes, and the bell rang, he smiled and walked off in the opposite direction.

I sat with Tabby at lunch. John was on his way over with a tray and Alex had gone to the bathroom. Tabby was picking at her food and cursing at it for various reasons that are unknown to me. She pushed a lock of black hair behind her ear. And said.

“I hate this place.”

“I know Tabby, I know.” She gave me one of her rare smiles and turned to John who had just sat down.

I think that if Tabby smiled more, she wouldn’t be an outcast like me. She had a really pretty smile, probably could stop a boys heart from beating if she ever showed it to one. But she preferred not to smile, and she preferred not to show it to guys, her out look on love was a bit cynical, but I don’t blame her, her mom has been divorced so many times, I can barely count it.

“Hi John, what makes you join us losers today for lunch.”

“Whatever man, you guys are so freaking cool I just to freaking scream. My freaking God!”

John said freak or freaking a lot because we were getting him to stop cussing, and it was working, except when he got real angry, then he was like a volcano. Sometimes he needed anger management but that was rarely. He was actually very calm, and he rarely got mad, but he couldn’t handle something’s, like for example, he is very protective of his younger sister. She got bullied on day when we were in sixth grade and she was in fourth, and she came home crying, and he, lets just say he got in a lot of trouble, the person who had bullied his sister was in our class, and he fought them, leaving them with a broken nose and some serious bruising. That boy moved away long ago.

John’s family wasn’t exactly perfect, in fact it was probably the farthest thing from. His father was an alcoholic and his mom was a crack head. His sister was the only thing he lived to protect. Their dad worked and was rarely home, but the money he made was spent on his alcohol and their moms various drugs. Leaving him and his sister to do everything, so he did.

John actually works three jobs, and he last year he rented his own apartment to get away from home. His sister lives with him as well, she has a job too, but he doesn’t like it, he thinks she should focus on school. He is honestly the best big brother ever, he is the father figure his sister needs but the cool older brother you can always talk to, and that’s what I like about John.

Johns is sort of outcast-ish because of his family things, he told me he feels like he is so distant from everyone, and that’s why he hangs out with me. Because he doesn’t feel alone when I’m there.

“As always we love your attitude,” I said. Alex came back and sat down next to me.

“So it looks like I’m all alone this summer.” I said sighing. The three heads of my friends looked up from their trays and at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I thought Alex was going to be here over the summer.” John said. Alex shook his head,

“Going back to Cali. For two and a half months. But I thought you two would be back in like two weeks?”

“No, the place I’m going is for two months too.” Tabby said in her usual gloomy tone.

“Me too, because I’m going to a band camp as well. Angelica is staying with our grandparents for the summer, so I decided to go somewhere else.” John saved all year long to go to these camps, he loved them. And Angelica is his sister.

“Don’t worry about me guys.” The look on all of their faces was changing, deciding whether or not they should stay for me.

“I have a nice long summer to look forward to. And I always have my super fun job.”

John laughed, Tabby rolled her eyes and Alex frowned.

“God, you guys are all such worry warts, my goodness.”

My junior year was over. And to celebrate my three friends were staying at my house. My dad had taken me out to go buy tons of things; we rented like five movies and bought way too many snacks, popcorn, ice cream (three flavors), the list of candy would take to long to tell and so many other things. We would all be throwing up later tonight. I told this to my father but had simply laughed and told me everyone needed a good puke every once in a while. I had shook my head and rolled my eyes

Alex came over early like always, he loved being the first one here. I had no clue why really, I’m not really all that fun and neither is my house, but since John and Tabby were coming at eight and it was only six, Alex and headed over to the park.

The park was old and broken down now. The swings sagged and the grass was brown the sand box had like no more sand and the slid was lopsided and if anyone slid down it, it would probably break.

It the park’s glory days, the slide was the thing kids lined up for, the swings did not squeak and kids would push each other back and forth, the sand box was full of sand castles and lots of other things like that. That’s how I remember the park from when I was like five or six.

We walked slowly through the brown grass, slow and silent, we were too busy thinking about things that happened this year and things that would happen next year, but I was remembering the first time Alex and I had come to the park together.

It had been a hot summer day and we had been very bored, so we came here, he told me that in California he had been able to do flips on the swings, so I told him to do it again, and he did, he told me to try, I wasn’t too successful. I had tried, but in the end I ended up on my back on the ground below the swing my back aching and tears welling up in my eyes. I thought I had broken my back.

Alex had helped me up and taken me back home, then he made me a ‘feel better milk shake’ it was his signature thing.

“Hey Alex.”

“Hmn?”

“Remember the first time we came here?”

“When you fell off the swing and almost broke your back trying to be a pro swinger like me and do a flip?”

“Yeah, okay…but that time, now that I think about it I find it pretty funny.”

He laughed, and put his hands behind his head. “You’re right. I can still see your face. That was hilarious.”

“You’re an ass hole!” I said and pushed him.

“Hey, hey, hey! Chill out would ya?”

We both laughed and sat on the same swings. And I couldn’t help but think, what would have happened if Alex and I had stayed together in seventh grade, it had only been for a week, but it had been a little uncomfortable, probably it was both of our first times having a boyfriend/girlfriend. What if we tried again now? How would things work out? Maybe they wouldn’t work out, or maybe they would, maybe we would end up married and with a bunch of kids and live happily ever after forever. Or maybe not, we could go through a horrible break up and never talk to each other again, that would suck. But who knows, I wasn’t about to take the risk, even though he probably would. I still had the feeling every now and then that he still liked me, but I couldn’t see why.

Eventually we went back to the house, at about seven thirty Tabby showed up. And five minutes later John did.

“Hey guys.” I said coming down stairs, my step mom was in the kitchen making a cake for my little sister and brother Jessica and Josh. They were fraternal twins and had just finished their last day of second grade. Lucky bastards still had it easy.

I never knew my mom, so my step mom Samantha was considered my mom, and I called her that and she seemed to like being acknowledged as my mom.

“Hey mom, we’re going up stairs so don’t be surprised if you don’t see us again tonight.”

“Sure thing, Hun.” She said.

First we watch a sappy romantic comedy, then we watched a horror and then we watch a mystery and then a science fiction and then went back to romance. All the while popcorn was being thrown along with candy: skittles, m&m’s and various other types.

“Hey! That was my last sour path kid!” I shouted at John who stuck out his tongue before sticking the candy in his mouth. I glared and dumped the bag of popcorn on his head. He gaped at me wide eyed. Had I really just dumped and entire bag of popcorn on him for one piece of candy? Yes, yes I had.

“You wasted a whole bag of popcorn….” Alex said, tabby was laughing, it was rare but she did and she laughed a lot with us. But you would never see her laugh in public.

“Don’t worry we have like ten more bags.” I said. Alex laughed; he had seen the three or four boxes my dad had bought.

Eventually we fell asleep, somewhere between the laughter and the blur of voices and faces in the movies.

I woke up in my bed the next morning, Alex was next to me, we were curled up together and his arm was around my waist. I don’t know how we ended up like this, but I guess we did, and my face was very hot. I could only imagine how red I probably was. But I sat up and looked at my clock, eleven oh three. Wow, that wasn’t too bad. I got up carefully stepping over Tabby and maneuvering around the mess on the floor and I almost tripped over John, but I caught myself.

I opened the door and headed to the bathroom. No one was home, besides us, my dad gone to work and Samantha at work as well and my siblings at my grandparent’s house. A typical Saturday.

I looked in the mirror, surprised it didn’t break. My hair was everywhere and I had popcorn in it Samantha would die if she saw it, she was a hair stylist after all.

I wasn’t horribly ugly, this I knew. I was brushing the knots out of my horribly tangled hair. I was tall and had pale skin, my hair was plain brown and I wore it back in a ponytail most of the time. My eyes were green and my skin wasn’t that bad. But oh well. I was ugly in some people’s eyes.

I walked back into my room this time I tripped over John, who groaned and sat up.

“Owie…That hurt Apple.” It was a funny story how john and I had come up with these nick names we had for each other, but it’s a long story I don’t feel like explaining, so just know, John sometimes refers to me as Apple and he is mango.

“Be a man mango. You have man in your name after all.”

“Psh, shut up.”

Our little conversation woke up the other two in my room. Alex sat up groggily and looked around, his hair was ruffled and he was so cute in the mornings. He asked for the time.

“It’s eleven cutie.” I said. He smiled.

“Eleven is so early.” Tabby said lying back down.

A week had passed since school had let out and Alex was leaving for the beautiful sunshine state today, I was supposed to meet him there with John and Tabby, they were already there and I was running late. But I got there on time to give him a hug and tell him goodbye and to have fun.

And then I had to say good-bye to my other two friends; sadly they were all leaving on the same day.

“Have fun.” I told them both with a hug.

“Like that’s possible for Tabby.” John said sarcastically she hit him. I laughed. Gave them both another hug and watched them leave. And then I realized I never felt so alone in my entire life.

But as I said earlier I have my absolutely wonderful job to go to. Great. But I got back in my car turned up the volume of my music and drove slowly through our small town. I was in no rush to get to Greg’s Grocery.

But I got there all too soon. So I sat in my car for a few minutes and thought, what the hell am I going to do over this summer? What will I do?

I sighed and just got out. I wasn’t looking forward to this. Allen was bound to be pissed like he always was, so I strolled in slowly, making my entrance it was normal for me here. I had friends at work, but they weren’t at my school or they were older so they didn’t know my ‘reputation’ if I even had one. I’m just the unpopular girl, and since Riley hasn’t had a chance to humiliate me in front of them I’m hoping it will stay the way it is and I can keep my friends here.

I tied on my ugly green apron and punt on my pin that had my name and I tied my hair back from my face.

“Aubrey. Get in here now.” Allen said from his office, he was the manager of the store, so he had an office, if you could even call it that. More just like a space with walls.

“Yes, sir. Right away sir.” I said sarcastically.

“Don’t be so sassy Aubrey. But tomorrow we have a new employee joining us. You are going to show him the ropes, do you understand?”

“Sure.” I saluted him and turned to leave. This job wasn’t all that complicated, and I didn’t know why this new employee would even need someone how to show him stack cans or out away boxes.

My main section of the store was produce. So I spent most of my days at work simply putting fruit away, stacking it up in weird pyramids and making it look nice and appealing.

Then I would head off to the cereal isle. And I would put away cereal boxes and take opened boxes to the back to throw them away.

Then I would go to canned foods, where I did almost the exact same thing with the cans as I did with the produce. I would stack them up in pyramids on display or just put them on the shelf. It was very boring, very, very boring.

And then I would go to cashier, which was less boring than the others. But still, boring.

I sat with my friend Casey, she was a very hyper active girl, she had lots and lots of fire and energy. Sometimes it was a bit too much, but she never let you get bored, she would randomly switch from subject to subject and it was pretty funny sometimes. I wasn’t too sure, but maybe she had ADD. It was a definite possibility.

“I, I mean but seriously, what if centaurs were real? That would be so freaky.” She was saying. And I was holding my laughter. She was…I don’t even know what she was.

But when I got home, I was completely attacked by soon to be third graders, or my siblings. They jumped on me, knocked me down stole my bag and my drink, and some other things.

“Hey! Jessica, Josh, you’re going to kill me. Get off would ya!”

The twins laughed and ran into the kitchen with Samantha. I walked in there and set my bag down on the table.

“Hey there Hun how was work?”

“Um…same as always boring and more boring.” Samantha laughed.

“Sounds like fun.” My dad said walking in. He kissed my forehead and then kissed Samantha sweetly, the typical ‘welcome home’ kiss.

“Get a room.” I said leaving the kitchen and heading up stairs. I opened the door to my room; it was a mess like always. Clothes on the floor bed unmade and shoes thrown around, and a few wrappers still on the floor from the last day of school, but this is how I like my room.

I made my way to my bed and lie down. I sighed, my bed had to be the most comfortable thing in the world. As soon as you would lie down on it your whole body would relax and sink in.

I sighed, this summer would be Riley-less and that would make it good, but it would also be Alex, John and Tabby-less. I frowned. What was I seriously going to do for three months with out anyone? Maybe I could drive across the country and go see Alex…no, he probably wouldn’t mind, but that would be weird and we aren’t even a couple so that would give off the wrong message to his friends over there and I don’t want to be hated by girls I don’t even know.

Alex has been going back to California every summer since he moved out here to the middle of nowhere. He moved here in the middle of seventh grade. So he still got to keep in touch with his old friends. Which I thought was cool.

My cell phone rang, my ring tone was funny, it was Alex singing ‘Walking on sunshine’ and it was funny because as good looking as he was, his voice was horrible.

I looked at the screen; it was the picture that showed up when Alex called me, it was a picture of him and me. He was grinning and I was smiling sweetly, if most people saw this picture it would seem like we were a couple.

“Hello there sir Alex.” I said and answered.

“Hello there Madame Aubrey. I would just like to inform you that I have reached California, and that it is unbelievably beautiful out here as always.”

“Go ahead and brag.” I said. He laughed.

“You have to see it out here one day.”

“That would be nice, maybe before we head off to college next year I will join you out there.”

“Ha, sounds good, hey I’ll call you back later or tomorrow, I just saw my aunt, but I’ll call you tomorrow cause the time difference don’t want to call you at like two in the morning and it only be like one here.”

“Okay Mr. Worry wart. Talk to you later.”

Then we hung up, and I couldn’t help but miss Alex already.

I almost cried when I found out that Riley was the new employee and that he was going to be working with me full time. And then it got worse because I had to show this helpless little rich boy everything, he was rich why did he even need a job?

But I swear I could feel the tears start to well up in my eyes. Because there went my summer, if I had even had one, there it went, down the drain, gone, I was now going to be tortured.

When he walked up to me with that same stupid green apron all employees wore with that stupid white cursive stitching that said ‘Greg’s Grocery’ and that stupid little pin that read ‘Hi I’m:’ and it had his name.

I could have broken down in tears right there. Fallen to the floor and cried my eyes out. No one was here to stop him from being the total asshole he always was. Alex was in California, John was at camp and so was Tabby. I would have to work here alone with Riley.

So I was stuck. I was alone. I would be miserable all summer long. Riley would make me suicidal, I wouldn’t last the summer, and no one would attend my funeral.

“Hi there Aubrey, happy to see me here?” He asked. I glared at him.

“Hi Riley.” I said through my gritted teeth.

“It looks like we are going to be co-workers.”

“Whoop di doo.” I said tying the back of my apron.

“Aubrey, don’t waste time get to work and show Riley how to do things.”

“Yes sir.”

First we headed off to the produce section, since that’s where I always went first. He followed behind me. His hands in his pockets.

“Okay Riley.” I said. “All you have to do is take a fruit” I picked up an orange. “And put it with the same type of fruit. You get it? Can your tiny little brain handle it?”

“Wow Aubrey, I’m surprised.”

“At what?” I put the orange with the rest of them. And grabbed another fruit.

“When you touch the fruit it doesn’t go rotten.”

I don’t know what happened to make me do what I did, but I hurled the current fruit in my hand at him and it hit him directly in the face. Apparently it was Banana. Wow riley really pisses me off I guess, I don’t think I ever snapped like that at him before, but when I saw it hit him in the face and see the pain and surprise in his eyes it felt really good. Really, really good, and I wanted to do it again. But he might just kill me.

Stupid boy with stupid good looks and stupid job choosing and just stupid, stupid, stupid, freaking stupid boy.

“Ow!” he yelled, “What the hell is up your ass!”

I really wish I had thought before I responded to this. John, Alex, tabby and me would say that to each other and our response would be the same, and so I really wish I had thought before I had responded to this and gave him the answer I gave my three friends.

“You are!” I had screamed back at him.

He stared at me blankly for a few seconds processing my response, but then he started laughing, and he started laughing like crazy.

Honestly I had never seen him laugh so hard. And I wasn’t sure if what I had said was that funny. But maybe to him it was, and I couldn’t help but laugh myself, out of embarrassment.

“Glad you to are getting along but get back to work.” Allen growled. We stopped almost immediately. It took Riley a second to get a hold of himself.

“Wow,” Riley said as we started working again. “Good response.”

I let a wall of hair fall between us, I didn’t want him to see how embarrassed I was, I was probably as red as the tomato in his hand.

But I shrugged. “Its an automatic response.”

When we finished produce we headed off to cereal, and as we were stacking boxes I decided we would make a deal.

But I couldn’t help but glare at him, he was so freaking tall he could reach the top shelf, and I had to use a stool.

“What?” he asked.

“Lets make a deal.” I said putting my hands on my hips. I was standing on the stool so for the moment I got to tower over him and he had to look up at me. Riley looked directly into my eyes, and that surprised me, because as far as I could remember he had never done that before to anyone. He kind of avoided eye contact with people.

“Sure.” He said, and again I was surprised. I had expected some questioning from him, like about what the deal would be about or something like that. But I continued.

“I want this summer to be good, and if I can’t be good I would like it not to be miserable.” I said. He nodded and continued to put away boxes.

“So, for this summer since we will be working together, lets call things a truce and be ‘Friends’” I said and used air quotes around friends.

“And then next year when we star school again, and we are seniors you can go back to being your usual asshole self okay?”

“Sure,” he said again. “Sounds good.” He looked back up at me, and smiled and I swear to God I was so glad I was holding onto one of the shelves. His smile was heart stopping. I would have fallen if I weren’t holding the shelf.

AS much as I really dislike him, it was going to take me a while to him smiling at me like that. I had seen it before but it had never been directed at me.

Maybe working with Riley wouldn’t be too bad, but still it couldn’t possibly be good.

I sat at a table in the shade outside the store. I had a bagged lunch. Like I was some elementary school kid. Honestly I didn’t know why I just didn’t drive off somewhere on my lunch break, but then again I guess I do know why.

If you were so much as a minute late back from your lunch break Allen would flip out. He acted like he himself owned the place, which he didn’t and I don’t know why Greg the owner just didn’t fire him, he didn’t do a very good job of anything. Greg could manage the store himself and he was there every single day, so really he was just wasting money on someone who didn’t need to be there.

So I sat in the shade with a sandwich at a table outside my job. I was alone, like I wanted, but I was wrong again.

Because then Riley came and sat down on the other side of the table. He just looked at me and I pretended I didn’t notice him and took another bite of my sandwich.

“So are you just going to sit there and act like I’m not here?” I nodded and looked down at the table chewing my sandwich slowly.

“Then I’ll just talk until you acknowledge I’m here.” I lifted my head and looked at him, eye to eye.

“You have been acknowledged.” I said.

“Okay. So I have a question for you.”

“And what would that be?”

“Why are you eating here, cant you drive somewhere?”

“I can. And I am eating here because Allen gets mad if you are even a second late coming back from break.”

“I see.” He said nodding.

“What about you? Aren’t you rich? Why don’t you go drive somewhere?”

He shrugged, “I don’t have a car.”

“A rich boy like you doesn’t have a car.”

“I’m not rich, just above working class.”

“Oh I see.” I said using my trademark sarcasm.

“I thought we were supposed to be friends this summer.” He said looking at me with a quirked eyebrow.

“Am I not allowed to use sarcasm?”

And I guess that’s how things began. Everyday at work Riley would come sit down with me at that table. The third or fourth day he brought his own bag lunch as well.

“Are you mocking me?” I had asked him.

“Mocking you?”

“Yes, you brought a stupid bag lunch like I have.”

“Am I not allowed to eat?” he said changing the line I had said to him. I rolled my eyes and we sat there in silence and ate lunch.

I was very curious as to why he was sitting with me. Maybe it was because I was the only one he knew at work, or maybe because he really wanted to try and be friends this summer. That one I doubted, it was probably the first one.

“I don’t know, working with Riley really isn’t all that bad.”

“Wow, you must be going insane with loneliness to have befriended Riley.” John was saying.

He had called me later after I got home from work, I have no clue why but my friends were very protective of me. He knew when I would get home from work and he would call about five minutes after. Maybe it was because he was so used to worrying about his little sister that, that’s what he considered me. A little sister. I don’t know, but it was nice to have John to talk to. Alex was my best friend, yes, but when I couldn’t tell something to Alex I told John and when I needed girl talk there was Tabby, she wasn’t enthusiastic about it, but she was definitely there for me.

“Seriously, but like since we made the pact, he hasn’t said anything mean.”

“Wow, what about you? Are you keeping the pact?” He asked sounding skeptical.

“Well, every once in a while, you know, I let something slip. He is really better at self control that me. It’s kind of weird.”

“Ha, well I bet it is, you have to work full time with your enemy and Alex’s rival and you have to be nice and so does he.”

“But I bet when he leaves he goes and talks all kinds of shit about me.”

“Probably.”

“Well, I got to go, Mr. Worry wart is calling on the other line, and he might think I died if I don’t answer, so talk to you later okay?”

“Okay, bye.” I heard him laugh when before he clicked his phone off.

I clicked over to the other line and sometimes Alex could be such a girl. He would rave on and on about everything, and it was pretty amusing.

I sighed. Life was boring. There was nothing to do or as john would say in this situation “nothing and no one to do.”

And to be honest, work was the only exciting thing happening. And that was even boring. I missed Alex, and I missed John and I missed tabby and I missed hanging out with them, and I had only been alone for one week. What was I going to do for two months?

I really had absolutely no clue.