Nyagh (this is supposed to be a random happy noise) I love diet coke so so so so so so so much.....nothing to say that's actually related to this chapter, but I wanted to put something up here anyway.

Thirteen: Collins

I am sure that one day the members of the Young Republican Youth Center will thank me for burning down their club house. It may take the Dean a little longer to come around, but at least he isn't suing. I mean, he can't really. There's no proof that I did it, just general suspicion, so they can't arrest me or try me. But the Dean decided to expel me anyway. I would have made an issue of that except that he kind of hinted that there WAS a tad of evidence against me, but he'd be willing to over look it if I got the hell out.

So I am getting the hell out.

I'm explaining this to Roger as we drive down the interstate in my arthritic Honda. It's late, probably around two or three in the morning, but none of us have watches so I'm not really sure. It's a warm night and the windows are all down. The breeze smells warm and rubbery, like melting tarmac. Sweet Child o' Mine is playing on the radio and right now everything is good. Roger and I are in the front and he's moving his head from side to side slightly with the music. Mark's conked out in the back seat and Benny's taken advantage of this by sticking tooth picks in his hair. The sad thing is that Mark's hair is so messy that they stay in.

To be honest, Roger really wasn't what I expected. I thought any best friend of Mark's wouldn't be I hate to say it, but it's true. Mark is a nice guy but he isn't cool, just weird.

So I was caught off guard when I finally did meet Roger.

Mark, Benny, and I were sitting under a tree on the edge of campus. Technically I wasn't supposed to be there. I'd signed some contract that said I wasn't to come too close to the university ever again but I had conveniently forgotten about that.

We were eating French fries and dissing the system when this six foot five monster with shaggy hair and stubble plonks down next to Mark and says,

"Are there Mormons in Seattle?"

My first thought was that we were being accosted by a psycho homeless drug addict but then Mark said,

"There are Mormons everywhere, you fuckstick. And hello to you, too."

The psycho grinned and his whole face looked suddenly off kilter. He peeled off this prehistoric leather jacket, tossed it onto Mark's head and leaned back on his elbows.

"I just rode a bus full of brain washed Canadian Christians all the way from Seattle and you call me a fuckstick? Thanks so much, Mark. I feel really loved." He had a great voice. For most of the sentence it had an even, slightly rough cadence but then he would hit a syllable and suddenly it wasn't just a beat in a larger word, it was a smooth delicious dip. I've always been able to tell if people are good singers from the way they talk and this guy was kick ass.

He swept his eyes over us like a king surveying his people. "Are they coming with us?"

Mark nodded. "This is Benny, and this is Collins. Guys, this is Roger, the village idiot."

"Shut up I are smart."

There was more banter, but I tuned it out. I was still trying to decide if I liked Roger or not. The impression that I got was that he was one of those charming, sexy, arrogant guys who everything just comes easily to. Usually I don't like people like that. It seems to me that if everyone else loves them that I have some sort of responsibility not to. I'm just going to have to grin and bear it, I thought.

What I didn't take into account was Roger being a surprisingly comfy person. After three hours he'd won me over.

It turned out that Mark and Roger were a great double act. They played off each other so well that I began to suspect that telepathy was somehow involved. They seemed to have a joint instinct for picking out weakness in their enemies (ie cops, Mark's family, people who spell theater with an 're' and fake punks) and exploiting them mercilessly.

I've never had a best friend, but I have observed best friends interacting and they all seem to have their own language. Mark and Roger had a particularly complex language composed mostly of inside jokes, half finished sentences, and some sort of code consisting of eye contact, quirked eyebrows, and half smirks. I had the feeling that I could know them for eighty years and still not completely understand their language.

Benny told me later that hanging out with them made him feel like Jane Goodall. I knew how he felt. I'd had a big Jane moment just before we left for New York.

Benny had gone inside to get his bags and I was just coming into the parking lot. What I saw I know I was not supposed to see.

They were standing by the Honda, staring down at it like they'd never seen a car before. Mark was hugging himself loosely, Roger had his left hand behind his head. He gnawing on the corner of his lip and smiling ruefully.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Mark pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose gently.

Roger snorted, not loudly, just a spurt of air through his nose. "Yeah, man. Awhile."

Mark rubbed the dent above his left eye and shook his head. "I still think about her. I think about her all the time."

"Me too," Roger looked over at Mark and the breeze caught his hair and ruffled it. "I'm sorry. I should have stayed or.....I should have had the cops stay a little longer or something."

"They'd have left eventually," said Mark. "Don't be sorry."

"Maybe he'd have cooled down....."

"Don't be a moron." Mark kicked at a rock and shook his head again, like he had water in his ears

Roger shut his eyes, brought his hand up to his face and squeezed the bridge of his nose. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, it's my fault."

"Don't do that, it isn't. It's no one's fault. Life just sucks sometimes is all." He opened the backseat door and dropped in heavily. Roger slid into the front and let his head flop back against the seat.

"Yeah. Life's a bitch." He started to laugh suddenly, his stomach jerked up and down and he rolled on his side, snickering into the seat back.

"Oh God!" Mark whooped. He was laughing too, laughing hard, laughing desperately. "It's not funny!"

"No it isn't!" Roger gasped.

But they just kept laughing and laughing and laughing like the world was ending and it was all they could do anymore.

And now here we are. Now here we are driving into some sort of promise. Something as obscure and meaningful as the blink of an eye, the turn of a mouth, confusing and exciting as laughing into the crack of a fake leather seat. Laughing laughing laughing about something that only you understand. Something that was never funny but you have to do something so you laugh.

Roger twists around in his seat for a second and smirks at Mark with his tooth pick crown. His glasses have slipped off and they're dangling off his left ear. Roger reaches back, snags them, and puts them on.

"Look, I'm Mark," he says, grinning his crooked grin at me. "I'm Mark! I'm Mark! Aspirin anyone?" his head thumps back against the seat like it did earlier today and he giggles. It's then that I notice that his pupils are the size of pinheads.

Mark comes blearily awake. "What did you say?" he slurs.

But Roger is laughing too hard to choke out anything but. "Jack Daniels! What a killer headache, man!"

Mark stares at him for a long moment before he closes his eyes and rests his head against the window.

"Maybe I should drive," I say, glancing again at Roger's nonexistent pupils.

"No, no I'm good. I'm good." Says Roger, taking off the glasses and handing them to me. "I'm fantastic."

I stare at the air between them, hoping to read some sort of message in the charged space but it is empty as a mason jar. There is so much I don't understand between them. There is pain and love and comedy and everything because when you have a best friend like that they aren't so much a friend as a part of you.

Tell me if it's confusing or anything. I'm working up to explaining what happened after Laura slowly, so bear with me. I've noticed that my boys spend lots of time in cars. That wasn't intentional but I guess just try to think of it as symbolism or something. So, I guess review and stuff!! Much love.