This is short, y'all, but it's got a lot of stuff going on. A lot of stuff. Trying to finally put together some of these things that've been spinning around in my head. Got some language in it that I didn't st*r out this time.

Hope it's not too confusing. Well, it's not all explained yet....

This is my Eighteenth Chapter!!!

I love all of y'all, so keep reviewing, 'kay?

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"You're gonna have to give up on him, Bryon."

Here we were. Same place me and Mark had been the other year, except I was in Mark's place and Cathy was in mine. I like to think I wasn't as hard as Mark had become. Actually I knew I wasn't. But I wasn't the same. I don't know how you can go to prison and be the same. I wasn't as angry as Mark had been towards me. I didn't want to kill Cathy. But I wanted to slap her.

Let me explain. Cathy didn't turn me in for something like I had to Mark. I had got myself into this mess. It was a big mess. But I had to. I fucking had to. And I'm not sure Cathy understood that I had to. Hell, she was upset that I was dropping out of school now and not going to college. In jail, I wasn't worried about how I was gonna make up all my work or something when I got out. I was just worried about staying alive right now. But I couldn't tell Cathy all this. I didn't want her to know what happens in jail. She didn't need to know. You figure out real quick not to stand alone in the corner...And I had only had to do it for a few weeks, and maybe just a few weeks more. Mark was in here for almost a year.

And that's why I did it. An attempt to...try to make it up to him. God, that sounds lame. I didn't want him to go to jail again. I had been so fucking stupid before...so fucking stupid. And I hope he's happy now.

Actually I do, I think. I want him to be happy. And I want him to quit hating me. And here Cathy is, telling me its never gonna happen. She forgave me. What if I had given up on her? Huh?

"You forgave me."

"I'm not Mark."

I knew that.

"I know that." I fidgeted with the sleeve of the stupid orange get-up. "Just...well have you seen him lately?"

"I haven't tried to." She paused for a second. She kind of flinched about something and then said, "I think he's laying low at Two-Bit's."

"Cause he's busy thinking about me probably. Trying to sort out what he's thinking..."

"Probably hiding from the cops. They know you didn't do it. They might go after him."

"Wrong. Lazy son-of-a-bitches."

"They like to pick fights though, don't they?"

"Yeah." I knew that pretty well.

I thought about what had happened before, stroking at my face for a second. Mark would have beat the shit out of them if he'd a known which ones did it. Jail or not. But I had been too drunk to remember what they looked like. Just those damn blue suits and those flashing lights that hurt my eyes. And I thought about what had happened now, why I was in jail. Why I had met up with my good ol' friends the cops again so that they could snap those silver bracelets of theirs on me.

*~*

Mark had got Charlie's up and running again. I never crossed the street and went inside it. Just watched. Looking at it as those boards finally came down. As people went inside it. People from the neighborhood helping to clean it up some. Like Two-Bit's mother. Crimedy, my own mom even helped paint over the spraypaint. She loved him as much as I did maybe. The people around town were sad to see it close before. I told you, Charlie was well-liked. I wondered how Mark had paid for the leasing. Gone back to his old ways of money? But I heard he was just doing plain stuff-some poker, some stealing. Never asking for donations. Mark didn't ever want to be a charity case. He sure didn't.

The only way I found out about Mark was to "hear". Hear what people were saying and sometimes watch things from a distance. How Mark kept going. Not caring about me. Opening up a bar, starting a business. Resurrecting Charlie's Bar and I knew I couldn't step a foot in it. He would kill me himself or I'd die just looking around the place. Remembering. It hurt to remember.

Charlie wouldn't be behind that bar. Charlie wouldn't be wiping the mugs with a ragged cloth, carrying on a conversation with a tatooed motorcyclist while the glass squeaked. Charlie wouldn't be there. For me, as sad as it was to see the place close, it was sadder to see it open. And I think Mark knew that.

I stayed good enough, though. I could go hours sitting on the couch with Cathy with my head against hers and listening to her breathe. I loved her so much. And someday I was gonna marry her. I had told that to Mark before. A long time ago. I doubt Mark wanted little prodigies now. Named after him and all. He'd shoot them or something to piss me off.

Damn Mark.

Damn him for all that and damn him for what he did next.