It's PE, ninth grade, and Jen is sitting on the sidelines watching the students run past her. The gym teacher, in the few weeks they've been to school, gave up on her by now. But a lanky boy with sideswept hair, the stereotypical skater, catches notice of the girl sitting at the bleachers

"What on Earth are you doing, missy?"

Jennifer looks up from the bleachers.

"What do you mean?" She doesn't mind the fact that they're complete strangers and smiles at him innocently.

"We're doing drills and you're on the bleachers. Watching. What's up with that? You sick or something?"

"I'm going military-style." Him being a shy, teenage boy, he's torn between giggling and blushing. He and all teenage boys were prone to consider anything-style something dirty and perverted, so to contain himself he settled for looking confused.

"What?"

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way. I'm out of the way."

He laughs out loud, "You are filled with shit."

Her smile widens.

"I'm Jennifer."

"Hi Jen. My name's Titus." She gives a little blush at the nickname; it would be a complete lie if she said she had many friends, and even fewer that would've thought to label her with a term of endearment.

He pays no mind to the gym teacher glaring at the two and sits next to her.

They're now best friends.

Having rich friends with cars came in handy sometimes. The next day, Tyler asks her what food she wants for dinner (acting like nothing out of the ordinary happened at all, thank god). She plays it modest, says anything is fine, until he really insists and she admits she's been craving korean BBQ for ages. Back in the bay area she couldn't walk a single block without taquerias or Korean BBQs. Now she'd be lucky if she spotted a jar of kimchi in the supermarket.

So thanks to the internet, they tracked down the only korean place for miles, and she was able to feast on delicious food once more.

All Kate did was complain about how it burned her tongue.

Reid turned out to love it.

Her heart warmed a little bit without her consent.

"What's this stuff?" Reid stabbed what he was eating with one of his chopsticks and stuffed it into his mouth.

"Kimchi."

"Tastes like God."

"Delicious, spicy, fermented God." She took a moment to think about what she just said, "Ignore that. What do you think?" She turns to look at Tyler with hopeful eyes.

"It's, uh, yeah, it's good. Great."

She smiles at him and he smiles back. Then she notices that even though Kate had been complaining about the food, with how long they had been here even she was halfway done with her food whereas Tyler's plate looked untouched. He notices her noticing and shoves some of the pork into his mouth.

A few seconds later he's choking on it and Reid's laughing and Pogue pounds on his back until finally Tyler can breathe again and Caleb is glaring at Reid for all he's worth, as if it's Garwin's fault that Tyler didn't know how to chew properly.

She misses the normalcy of California.

They go out to Nicky's, later, but Caleb has to have a "talk" with Reid that she overhears when she's feeling a little tired and mostly antisocial and just wants the dick to drive her home. She feels a bit like an ass for staying the doorway to the back, but it's not her fault that they couldn't hear her coming and that she felt too awkward to impose on them when the both of them looked so pissed at each other.

"It's not your problem!" Reid yells.

"It is when it's over petty crap like it was today."

"How come you're always the boss of everybody? I'm going to be eighteen in a week."

"And you're not going to survive past that week if you keep using like you do!"

The two keep arguing, but Jen books it.

So Reid's a drug-addict?

She wouldn't care, normally. She'd be a liar if she said she hadn't gotten high a couple times, gone to a few raves, developed a fondness for Smirnoff and root beer (the oddest combination her friends always made fun of her for,) broken a few dozen laws, and when you were in California if half your friends weren't rolling half the time then... well... you had a very strict moral code and didn't have that many friends in the first place.

But if Caleb (who was a little bit of a stick in the mud, but still had the occasional drink now and then,) had to have a one-man intervention with Reid, maybe he was on some real trippy shit. Life-ruining shit with high death rates. She never saw him use anything, and didn't see any signs of it when he was running around in his skimpy swimteam trunks, but she felt a little shaken nonetheless.

And then a little pissed.

So he was a drug-addict, a blackmailer, and he stole kisses after pretending to drown.

In what way was he not a dickbag?

Author's Note: In case it wasn't clear, Reid used a bit to make Tyler accidentally choke on his korean barbecue.