Dinner time. The land mine. His father had cooked and it was good. Juicy roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes. Every time his father cooked it was like a gourmet thanksgiving dinner. It tasted good and Craig chewed it dutifully, but he could feel his stomach cramping up.

"You talked to your teachers?" His father's questions, his calm and reasonable voice, that look on his face like he was a calm and reasonable man. Craig narrowed his eyes at him. Was he the only one who remembered getting hit with belts and golf clubs and being thrown against walls and kicked in the stomach?

"Yeah," He couldn't lie quite so convincingly anymore. He put another bite of roast beef into his mouth.

"Good," There was such a threatening edge to the word. Craig read a million things into it.

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"Hi," He was lying on his bed and talking into his sliver of a cell phone. He knew it was either Sean or Jay without looking at who was calling. They were the only ones who called him.

"Hey, man," It was Sean. Craig's room was dim, lit only by the glow of the T.V. He could see the shadow of his school books stacked on his desk. He had no desire to open any of them.

"What's up?" he said. Jay would call and just babble about nothing. When Sean called there was usually a reason.

"Hey, uh, you know Ashley?" Craig closed his eyes. He could picture her so perfectly in his mind. He could see her eyes looking at him, that amazing smoked blue.

"Yeah,"

"Well, she kinda likes you. You should talk to her tomorrow and ask her out," Sean was point blank. Craig swallowed, licked his lips, sat up.

"What? Ask her out? What about Jimmy?"

"Fuck Jimmy. He doesn't control her…or you. Look, she called me and told me to tell you this, to get you to talk to her. So do it,"

Craig smiled, the wide, almost innocent smile and thought about Ashley. She'd gone to the trouble to call Sean so he'd talk to her. And he couldn't have realized how long it had been since he'd smiled like that. A year. Maybe more.

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The library wasn't exactly quiet. More like hushed. Craig stood just outside the glass doors and scanned the room for Ashley. Then he saw her. He sucked in his breath, knowing he could still run. Why did the thought of just going over and talking to her make him feel so…weird? She'd called Sean about it. She wanted him to talk to her, to ask her out somewhere.

But the moment could somehow hold on, spinning away or stretching out like taffy while he listened to the hush and did nothing. Always paralyzed by fear and his conviction that he was worthless, and that he didn't deserve anything. He certainly didn't deserve anything like Ashley, a beautiful and smart girl who made him feel almost alive.

Closing his eyes, feeling a little dizzy. He'd go and talk to her. He would. His hands on the glass doors and he could feel the cold from the glass under his fingertips. He took the steps across the library like walking out across a mind field in war torn Asia, the strange shapes of the exotic trees twisting off in his peripheral vision. As he got near to her she glanced over, and he felt pinned in her gaze.

"Uh, hey, Ashley," he said.