I was high. I was fucking high. I must've been. Why else would I sit on my balcony and chain smoke and honestly think for even two seconds that I could be in love with a girl that I've known for two weeks? Not even considering the fact that she's seventeen because I guess how old she is doesn't really matter. But still. That's beside the point.

The point being, what the hell was I smoking?

So it's tomorrow. And by tomorrow I mean that yesterday is, well, yesterday. Yesterday being the day that I say on my balcony, completely sleep deprived and convinced myself that I'm in love with some kid.

Oh. Wait. It must have been the sleep deprivation. So it's because of work. Well duh it's because of work, I wouldn't have even met her if it wasn't for work. It's all because of work. Work ruins lives.

I'm gonna become a hobo. Good plan. Good plan. My life will be so much better that words can't even describe it. Oh, I can see it now. Sleeping in dark allies, begging for change and food. Definitely the good life right there.

Speaking of work, that's where I am. At work. Like always. My god, do I ever do anything else? I can't wait for school to start.

Did I just say that? I think I just said that.

"Hey, Spencer, you wanna play cards?" Some guy's asking me. I glance over at him. Ricky, Afro-man (I don't even remember his real name) and Angel, except we all call him Barrack because he looks exactly like Barrack Obama. It's a little bit scary, actually. Cards with the guys. Exactly what I need.

Besides, I'm beast at cards. I have this crazy, practically photographic memory so I can remember every card that's been played and keep track of the whole deck and everything. It's pretty crazy, but it's good. I had a pretty steady cash flow from playing poker with some of the guys in my dorm until they realized how good my memory is and then they stopped letting me play when money was involved.

I love being the cool nurse. I get to have a social life even at work, even if the socializing is with high school kids with mental disorders and drug problems. I need it, considering work is all I do. Work this, work that. Then again, it's not that much different from my normal social life, which involves mostly college kids with drug problems and, no doubt, mental disorders.

I need a pet or something. Maybe I'll get a goldfish. Except then I might start talking to it and trying to play cards with it. How pathetic would that be? I'd be like a crazy cat lady, except with fish. Spencer the crazy fish lady. I'd start betting fish food on the games and everything.

I'm such a pathetic person.

"Yeah sure. You got a deck, right?"

Barrack/Angel nods, and the three pull up chairs next to the table I'm sitting at.

I feel kind of pathetic, but I need it. I need some kind of distraction and some kind of socialization besides with my imaginary pet goldfish and a seventeen year old druggie or else I'm going to go insane. Insaner. Is that even a word? I don't think that's a word. Whatever.

--

I'm standing outside and it's lunch, which is chain smoking time for me. Thank fucking god, I need it. I'm halfway through my third, and I'm twirling the cigarettes I have left absently in the pack. Fuck. I only have five or six left. I need to remember to buy more later. Thank god I'm not going to school in New York. As pathetic as it sounds, that was another deciding point in my coming to California instead of going to New York. Cigarettes are something like $8.50 a pack in New York City. I would be even more dirt broke than I already am if I was living there. Or I would've quit smoking. I doubt it though. And it's not like that would make the fact that lunch would set me back about $10 a day or I'd gain a billion pounds from eating fast food every day go away.

Then again, whatever I lost in food and cigarette money, I might've saved in gas money.

Who knows.

I don't. I do know that I miss taking metro-north to tiny little upstate towns. Not Westchester upstate, which is hardly upstate at all, but way up to the end of the Harlem Line to Wassiac, and then I'd just wonder around and walk and walk and walk. I ended up in this tiny little town once. Really run down and lower middle class, but they had cheap (and by cheap I mean $7.50 a pack) cigarettes and it was absolutely gorgeous there. It was right along the New York-Massechusettes border, and there were the biggest mountains there. They weren't dirt colored, they were just.. blue. I don't know, but I loved it. I've always had a soft spot for rural areas and the mountains and farms and everything that's the exact opposite of the cities I've spent the last few years in.

I like to travel. I think it shows. I also think I've said that before. Oh well.

Shit. My cigarette's gone. I glance at the watch on my hand (yes, I've taken to wearing a watch) and wonder for a moment if I have time for a fourth.

Nope. Fuck. Three in fifteen minutes. I'm thinking too much.

I know I smoke too much, and I know how bad it is for me and I really honestly do plan on quitting someday. Maybe when I can deal with life. Maybe when I'm done with school and things settle down, but honestly, right now I can't deal with trying to quit on top of everything else. Which makes me sound like an emo teenager, but whatever. I really don't care. I'm juggling working and putting myself through college and trying to get the best grades I can because if I don't, I don't have my parents' money to make everything better anymore.

My phone vibrates, and I look down at it for a moment, wondering if I should even bother. Then I decide, why not? I'll have to deal with it either way.

I flip open my phone, and it says that I've got a new text. I wonder for a moment again, and then shrug and hit open.

"hey, i was thinking dinner tonite? maddie 3"

I think I just got asked out.

I type, "sure" and then send the text and pull myself up, walking back inside.

What do you know. Spencer Carlin just might be regaining her social life. Shocking.

God, I need it though. I seriously am considering that goldfish for company. I know I could never take care of a dog or a cat or something, but a goldfish doesn't seem like that much work.

Wow self. A goldfish for company? New all time low. I'm pathetic. I'm so fucking glad I opened that text, or I might walk back inside and sedate myself. Even though that really doesn't make any sense and it wouldn't make my social life any better, but that just goes to show how much I'm losing my mind.

Ew. My mouth tastes like metal or something. I didn't even need a smoke.

Hey. I didn't need a smoke. Maybe I'm less addicted than I thought.

Nah.

I'm back inside, and the living room is empty.

Motherfucker. They have "quiet time" after lunch, don't they? I could've stayed outside and smoked and nobody would've even noticed. Except for the fact that I didn't even want a smoke, so I probably would be back inside either way.

I don't think that anybody who knew me when I was fifteen would've ever seen this as my future. When I was fifteen I wouldn't even look at a cigarette. I didn't have any weird mental disorders or anything and I'd never even kissed a girl. Ever. I'd never even thought about it.

Look at me now.

I guess it just goes to show that nothing's set in stone.

I shrug myself off, shrug all my thoughts and how caught up in the past I've been lately off, and sit down to the table of markers and draw a third grader's flowers. It makes me feel better, so I do it for the rest of the hour.

--

So it turns out that "dinner" actually meant going to the 24 hour diner at one in the morning, when Madison called me and asked if I wanted to go out. I was awake, smoking cigarettes and contemplating that pet goldfish. Of course. What else do I do with my time?

And now we're sitting here in an empty diner, waiting for our orders and we're playing with each other's fingers on the table like we're dating.

Are we dating?

I don't think so. We're not. We had a one night thing. Which, considering the fact that we're out for dinner, wasn't really a one night thing. I don't know. Whatever. I don't care. She has nice hands and they're warm and I like dorky little things like this, so I guess it's okay. I guess I don't mind. I don't mind. At all. It's nice, actually.

"So, miss Spencer, when you're not sitting outside bars chain smoking, going out with closeted lesbians or obsessively writing papers, what do you do?" She's asking, giving me this sort of cute half smile.

I get a little crazy over school. Which I should, considering I'm paying a gazillion dollars for it and working crazy ass hours and it'd be kind of a waste if I didn't bother to try.

"Uh, I work," I reply incredibly charismatically.

She chuckles a bit. I think she thinks I'm trying to be funny.

I definitely need to invest in that goldfish.

What the hell. It's like I'm in love with my imaginary goldfish and the prospect of talking to it and playing cards and chain smoking with it.

Geez. I should check myself into a mental hospital. Considering how much time I spend working at one, it wouldn't be too much of a lifestyle change. Except, wow, imagine when they asked me why I was there. "I was getting worried about my obsession with the pet goldfish I don't have."

Yeah. No. Nevermind. No way is that going to happen. I'm not that pathetic. Yet. It'll come in time. Much more slowly, so I won't even realize it until me and my goldfish are living in a box on the street, begging for spare change and goldfish food.

Okay. Stop with the goldfish. Right now. No more fish.

The waitress just brought our food. I ordered chocolate chip pancakes. Madison ordered salmon. I think it's a sign.

I want to slap myself.

Madison looks at my plate, and then up at me the same way she did when I ordered. Maybe she thought chocolate chip pancakes was code for something. It wasn't. I just like my pancakes, okay? I've never gone to a diner and not ordered pancakes. It's just how I am.

"I like my pancakes, okay? And if you can't accept our love, then.. too bad. You'll accept it anyway," I say, drenching my pancakes with fake maple syrup and butter.

I'm such an unhealthy person. I don't care. I control my calories and everything, but I will never, ever skimp on anything when it comes to diner pancakes. We've had a lifelong love affair.

"And I like my salmon," It's almost two in the morning and she's eating salmon and I'm eating pancakes and we're in a diner and she's a cheerleader and I'm a chain smoking school freak and we're together. I don't know what's weirdest.

But she's cute and I have pancakes, so it's all good.

I guess she noticed the look on my face as I contemplated exactly how I'm going to devour these, because I can hear her chuckling again as she says, "You're cute,"

We sit in silence for a moment as I stuff my face, and slowly realize that these aren't good diner pancakes. They're actually very, very bad diner pancakes, and now I'm absolutely heartbroken.

"I hate sitting across from people. It's so awkward," She tells me, before putting a forkful of fish in her mouth.

I look at her for a moment, and she makes a kind of "come here" motion, and then in a wonderful "I'm a total freak" fashion, I push my plate to the other side of the table, kneel down under the table and pop up on the other side of the booth next to her.

"Boo," I say, grinning at her from under the table.

She grins back and pokes my nose (no, I don't know, but I think it's kind of cute) and then goes back to her salmon. I pull myself up onto the seat and resume eating my horrific, freak of nature pancakes.

I just realized how many times I've said I think that she's cute in the last ten minutes. I need to stop. Right now. or else she's going to turn into the next goldfish.

Motherfucker. Stop with the fucking goldfish, Spencer. It's unhealthy.

"So where are you from, originally?" Madison asks after she swallows a mouthful of salmon. I guess I gave her a weird look or something, because she added, "Because you're definitely not from L.A.,"

"Originally, Ohio," I pause and stuff another bite of pancakes in my mouth. They're not very good, but they're pancakes. Pancakes must be eaten, no matter how horrible they are. Almost no exceptions. "But I've been here and there the last few years. I spent a bit of time in Vancouver, Boston, Baltimore, Washington.. most of the northeast, actually,"

I forgot New York. How do you forget New York?

"Oh, and New York,"

"New York City, New York?" She asks, looking over at me like it's more foreign than Timbuktu. Then again, it is three thousand miles away, so I dunno.

"Mostly, yeah,"

"Get out. I was born there,"

"For real?"

"Yep. I moved out here when I was thirteen though, so I didn't exactly get much time to go and explore the city or anything," She says, drinking from the huge glasses of ice water we got.

I give her a "you lived in New York but you never explored New York" look. I have looks for a lot of things. Either that, or I read too much into people's facial expressions.

"I was born in Manhattan, but I lived in Westchester for most of the time,"

I never really spent much time in Westchester because I didn't really think there was anything very interesting there, but me and my crazy photographic memory, I still remember almost all the towns and cities there.

"Which part?" I ask, drowning my pancakes in even more syrup.

"Around. Yonkers, Peekskill, then Chappaqua."

"Damn, are your parents loaded or something?" Chappaqua is like, the richest town in the second richest county in New York State. The richest being Manhattan. Yonkers and Peekskill are shit though. Better shit than I could hope to afford any time in the near future, but shit none the less.

"For a period,"

For a moment, we fall back into silence and sit and chew and considering the fact that it's almost gone, I'm guessing that the salmon is better than the pancakes.

"So how'd you end up all the way out here?"

I watch her chew and swallow before she answers, "My parents just got sick of the east coast, I guess. What about you, Ohio girl?"

"It was here or New York and.. I dunno. I'd never been to California before. I wanted something new, I guess," I say honestly. I stop for a moment and stare down at my pancakes, wondering if I should talk or eat. "And cigarettes are cheaper out here,"

We both laugh, chew, swallow and drink our water.

"Geez, how much do you smoke, anyway?"

It's weird, because most people ask things like that and sound absolutely disgusted. She sounds like she's actually interested.

Oh boy. A girl who's interested in my smoking habits. How romantic.

"Uh. I'm down to a pack a day or something," Shut up. I actually do feel accomplished about that. There was a period where I would go through two or three packs a day.

"I'm up to half a pack a day," She offers sheepishly.

How cool are we?

"You wanna.. uhm.." I'm indicating our empty plates in my caveman-esque manner, and she smiles again. She smiles too much. But she's pretty when she smiles and I guess she smiles enough for the both of us, so it's okay.

So we got our check and we paid and we left and we stood outside in front of her car for an awkward moment, until she leaned over and kissed me and I gracefully mumbled something about whose place she wanted to go to, but she just smiled, kissed me on the cheek and then opened her car door, leaving me standing there blushing and absolutely confused.

Do I have a girlfriend?

I have no idea. I need a cigarette.

So I sit down on the curb and fish one out of my bag, light it and star up at the sky.

Of all the things to cross my mind, Ashley does.