The halls were over-crowded, as always, and I was crushed into a locker. I pulled myself away from it only to be smashed into a fellow student. I look up to meet the eyes of Noelle.

"Sorry" I whisper. We glance at each other, then look away and move on. Travis pushed his way through the crowd to catch up to me.

"I really thought you two were gonna get married…" he comments.

"Yeah… these things happen…" I really don't want to talk about it. "Hey, you don't look so good, Raccoon-eyes." He rubs one of them.

"Oh, yeah, I had a late night."

"Again? This is the 3rd time you've said that this week." I assume it's because his parents have been fighting a lot. He pretends like it's not a problem, but I can tell it upsets him. "If you want, I can ask my mom if you can stay with us tonight… ya know, so you can get some sleep."

"Really, that'd be awesome." The bell drowns out the end of his words. We wave and head in opposite directions.

When I get home after school I drop all my books on the floor of my room and search for mother. All I need do is follow the sequels of Jenny's high pitched voice. I can only imagine what earth shattering even took place today.

"And then he looked Kelly right in the eyes and said 'Always and Forever'! It was the most romantic thing I've ever seen my in my life. So that's why I need to spend the weekend at Lisa's house! OK mommy?" She gives mother her best smile. I notice she's also helping dry the dishes. Mother sighs and thinks a moment.

"Lisa's parents will be there?"

"Of course, Mom" Jenny rolls her eyes. "It's not like we're gonna do anything."

"Then why are you even going?" That's my commentary. They both turn around startled. Jenny almost drops a plate, juggling it around in the air until mom grabs it.

"Let me call Lisa's parents to double check, if they say yes you can go."

"Thank you mommy!" She kisses mom's cheek. Nasty. Jenny runs off to tie up the phone lines and I take my turn with mother. She hands me the dish Jenny never finished drying.

"And how's my oldest today?" I hate when she treats me like a title instead of a person.

"Travis has been having some trouble at home and, he's really not doing so well."

"Oh, the poor boy."

"Yeah, anyway, I was wondering if he could spend the night here, so he can get a decent night's rest."

"It's a school night, dear."

"I know, but… I really think he needs it, please?" I look at her all gooey-eyed. It seems to be working. Travis better be really grateful for this. She stops washing for a minute.

"We'll try it. But if I hear any noise past 11:00 PM you're not going to be having any friends over for a while."

"Thanks." I finish drying the dishes. I'm walking a delicate line and I need to keep mother happy with me. Which doesn't happen very often.

When the last dish is stacked in the cupboard I pick up the phone to call Travis.

"-she cried. It was the saddest thing ever. I-" Well, so much for that plan. I call out that I'm leaving to whoever's listening. Then I get in the car to pick up Travis.

As I walk up to his house I can already hear the screaming. From the pauses in the conversation I assume his mother is on the phone. She's a scary woman, never someone I want to anger. I tap lightly on the door. She doesn't hear it, but Travis saw me pull up and he comes running to the door.

"Hey, my mom said it's cool if you wanna stay over."

"Really!? Awesome!" He holds the door open, a sign for me to come in. I don't walk past the kitchen door while he waits for his mother to get off the phone. She starts waving her hand for us to go away so we shuffle to his bedroom.

'Sorry about my mom, she's not been… feeling well." He apologizes. I shake my head. I wish I could say something comforting, but I have no idea what that would be.

"I… my parents yelled… once" I think I just made it worse. He laughs.

"Yeah, was your dad buying the $1.49 cups for the bathroom instead of the $.99 ones?"

"Hey, they had Beauty and the Beast on them!"

"I'm sure they did." There's a lull in the conversation and we both listen for his mother. Silence. I start to open the door.

"That's what you said last year! Well guess what, I'm not falling for that again! If that's-" I close the door again.

"How about a game of cards?" Travis offers. So we play cards… for the next 2 hours. That woman can yell. When at last she was done we emerged from the room. Travis didn't even finish explaining the situation before his mother said yes and to leave her alone.

It only took a minute for Travis to put some clothes in his backpack and we headed back for home. At diner we were both model children. My parents seemed almost scared. I didn't even complain when Jenny spent 15 minutes describing how some boy styled his hair.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. It wasn't until I started laying out some blankets for Travis to sleep on that he livened up the night.

"Hey, I brought some stuff…" He pulled a small bag out of his pocket. I leaned over to see what he was holding. It was about $20 worth of marijuana. I gave him a questioning look.

"It's a school night. How about Friday? I don't wanna be messed up tomorrow."

"Come on, please. I brought just for you." He pleads with me.

"Don't you think my parents are gonna notice something like that?"

"We'll open the window. I do it at home all the time, it'll be fine."

"Yeah, but your parents wouldn't care if you smoked in front of them. Just chill. We'll get together on Friday." He doesn't seem to believe me. I sigh. "Well… let's at least go outside to do it." I pick up his coat and throw it at him.

As we walked down the stairs, careful to skip the 3rd one down, I wonder how I get myself into these messes. I very slowly unlock the door and open it. Once Travis is outside I close as silently as possible. I turn around to do a quick scan of the street. No one is out. We walk down the block a little and sit behind a tree, out of view of my house.

"K, gimme the lighter." Travis demands of me.

"I thought you had it." Great. I walk back to my car to search for one. I find some matches under the back seat. Good enough for me. Travis, however, seems less enthused.

"I said lighter."

"Well, this is what you get." Talk about ungrateful. He sighs and lights one. It burns him while he's lighting the joint and he curses me out.

"Thanks, I needed that." I reply. He lights another match and continues his work. After we get half way through the joint I'm done. I already know I'm not going to be functional at school tomorrow. Instead of just putting it out Travis finishes it. When he's done we start to walk back to the house, a little louder than when we left. Back in my room we talk and laugh until we fall asleep. Why did I ever say no to this?

The next morning I feel dead. I barely have the energy to turn the alarm clock off. When I wake up a little more I sit up on the bed.

"Travis, time to get up." My voice is really hoarse. I cough a few times to no avail. "Travis!" I lean down to shake his shoulder. He slaps me in response. I'm sure to step on him when I get out of bed. I'm so tired, though, I end up losing my balance and fall right on top of him. Which also happens to be right when mother opens the door to make sure we're getting up. She doesn't say anything and closes the door again. That could have been less awkward.

Jenny complains all the way to school about sitting in the back seat. I turn the music up louder. Travis turns it back down; he has a head-ache. He looks even worse than he did yesterday, so much for helping him get some rest.

Over the weekend Travis called me 4 times asking to get high. At first I thought it was because I said we would when he slept over. But it didn't stop there. Anytime he got together with friends he would bring something. Since no one wanted to get high as often as he did, he started coming high. It was scaring me. Weeks went by when I only saw him stoned.

The semester ends. My grades were ok, nothing to brag about but I didn't fail anything. I worry about Travis, though. It looks like he might fail 12th grade. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. I mean, I'm not even sure drugs are the problem.

I try to forget about it and enjoy the winter break, but the thought won't leave me alone. I call Travis and we agree to meet up at the pizzeria. I pay for him in hopes that he won't run away when I try to talk to him.

"Travis, there's something I really think we need to talk about." I say. He looks at me, waiting for me to say more. I take a deep breath and continue "Don't you think you're going a little over-board with the drugs?"

"Listen, you don't know what it's like. I have no peace at home. Even when my parents aren't yelling at each other it's not like we're a family. Sometimes I just want to turn myself off, escape it all. Drugs are as close as I can get. Don't take that away from me."

"Well… I don't wanna see you fail 12th grade. If you think things are bad now…"

"I'm not gonna fail anything, ok."

"Ok" And that was the end of it.

I was hurt that he didn't think our friendship was enough to balance out the fighting. But, I had no idea what he went through every day and I couldn't take away his relief. I never told any one and he passed the 12th grade.