"Is it true your father's in death row?"
He's used to the question by now and it doesn't hit him in the gut the way it used to. Just a twinge.
"No," he trails as he passes her the joint. "I have no father."
---
There's a muffled chuckle to his left but he doesn't bother turning his head. The new girl gazes at him as she inhales, with an eagerness that almost makes him uneasy.
There's an awkward silence after she lets him in. Her room's still full of cartons and messy piles of clothes.
"You know, my father's in jail too," she says with false detachment, toying with the zipper of her hoodie. "That's why we moved here."
He knows. Everybody does. Yet, that's probably the weirdest preamble to sex he's ever heard, although he's becoming accustomed to being a real freak magnet. He braces himself for a dramatic life story that doesn't come. She just stares expectantly.
---
That's the upside of being a teenage boy: sex is like a really fucking potent drug.
For a little while, there's nothing to the world but heat, soft hair and bouncing breasts. He shuts his eyes and let himself drown.
