Things were back to normal the next day between fifth and sixth period. Well, almost. My path to woodshop once again crossed with Meghan's, except this time we engaged.

"Hey, the girl from the office." I tried to act casual, pretend our meeting was coincidental rather than routine.
She stared at me in a way that made me oddly self-conscious. A strange feeling for me who aired unnecessary confidence.
"Are you seriously going to act like we haven't passed by each other every day this whole year?"
A slow smile spread across my lips. "I honestly didn't think you noticed."
"I didn't think you cared," she countered. So it seemed we both were much more aware of the other than we let on. We were more than just two ships passing in the night, looking but not actually seeing.
"I didn't…" I admitted, "Until the other day when I noticed something off about my day."
"That was the first time you noticed I wasn't in school?"
She had a point. From what she told me the day before I should have realized eleven times ago.
I shrugged. "What can I say, I'm a rather self-absorbed person." It was true. When it came to school the most I cared about was how long until it was over or what I could do to make the day more interesting for myself.
"So what made this time different?"
Another rightful question. Why the other day of all days did I take the time to notice the girl I never noticed before wasn't crossing my path. It was an answer I did not have. One I never did. At least not one I found believable. "I don't know."

We lapsed into a silence, chatter fading into the background around us as fellow students skirted around us to scurry to class before the late bell chimed.

"So how did that meeting with Bash turn out? Did he throw the book at you?" I'd been wondering about it since leaving the office. Part of me wanted to linger, knowing I'd have been able to conjure up some kind of excuse to keep the secretary off my back, but I also hadn't wanted Meghan to feel like I was stalking her or something. So I hiked the long way back to my class and decided to wait and take advantage of our common travel route.

"Well, if I want to make it to graduation on time I need to pass summer school," she sighed, "If I can't make it through the regular school year I have no idea how I'm going to get through that."
"I mean, did he actually throw the book at you?"
Her brows knit in a questioning frown. "What?"
"He actually threw a book at me once," I clarified, "He has a copy of 'Common Sense' in his desk drawer. I think he hoped the irony of getting hit in the head with it would knock some into me." That was no tall tale, either. I even threatened to sue him for assault. We both knew I wouldn't, but it was fun to get a rise out of him anyway.
Meghan's lips pressed together in a small smile. "I assume it didn't," she guessed.
I shook my head. "Not at all."
"Didn't think so."

My eyes widened and jaw slackened as I pretended to be affronted. "My God who knew you could be so cruel. I'm regretting this conversation. You're meaner than I imagined you to be." I was kidding of course, the smile on my lips as I spoke gave that away.
"I'm just going by what I hear, which isn't a lot of good things. Personally, I think you're smarter than you let people believe."
What she said surprised me for real that time because it felt almost too personal for someone I barely knew to comment on. "What makes you say that?"
I could see my follow-up suddenly made her regret saying what she had and a look of relief softened her features for an instant when the late bell rang. It was a fleeting moment - until she realized she was the one going to be late.
"I gotta go." And she was gone, leaving me to turn and watch her slip into her classroom as the door swung shut to lock out any tardies. It was the point of no return once that door closed. Either you had a late pass or your ass was sent packing to the principal's office to get one, which usually resulted in an interrogation as to why you were late and sometimes a write-up if the excuse wasn't valid. Ridiculous, right? Now you have some idea why I thought school was such a joke. It was treated way too seriously.

It was my friend Seth's birthday that day. So instead of coming back after my daily cigarette break, I skipped out altogether to meet him and some other delinquent friends of mine atop the water tower - our usual hang out spot. It wasn't the easiest vertical climb to make holding a paper bag of booze and Jason got the brunt of our jeers when he managed to drop a perfectly good bottle of Jim Beam that he'd swiped from his grandfather's reserves. But even with a bottle down, there was plenty for all of us to get good and trashed.

We sat with our legs hanging over the edge, leaning on the railing and staring out toward the mountains of glass and steel that made up the inner city, passing various bottles around to each other. A lot of times when we gathered there we shot the bull, talked trash, voiced our pipe dreams, created wild futuristic fantasies of our lives then laughed at how much none of that was going to happen while toking on a joint and splitting a handle. That day was no different, except all of those topics centered around our man of the hour. We laughed until Jason almost slipped off the catwalk then toned it down. It was too early for anyone to go tumbling down before they could blame it on the booze.

Residual chuckles rumbled through us as we swigged whiskey and gazed out toward the metropolis, lost in our own thoughts and still reeling from our stories.
"Hey, Ty, what was with you and that Donovan girl today?" Tommy asked, bringing up a startling change of subject that suddenly had everyone turning to look at me for the dirty details. That's usually how our conversations turned when girls were brought up.
I shrugged dismissively. "Nothing. I just ran into her in Bash's office and wanted to see what her sentence was. What do you know of her?"
"We had freshman math together. Her family is bad news. Or what's left of it, anyway."
"Is she the one who's father murdered her mother than drove around with her in the trunk of his car for a month?" Jason asked, causing everyone to stare at him with wary and disgusted expressions.
"No," Tommy answered. "That's some messed up shit. Who told you that?"
"I don't know, I saw it on the news somewhere."
"That was one of those cop dramas, you dumbass. It wasn't real." Seth rolled his eyes.
Jason defended himself. "Those stories are based on true events, you know. It happened somewhere."
"Oh my- they're fictionalized for television." Seth argued.
That was when I decided to redirect that train wreck of a debate, not wanting Jason to get himself pushed off the tower for being an imbecile. "What about her family, then? Can't be much worse than any of ours." We all came from similar low-income backgrounds - except for Jason who was kind of our wild card. He came from a decent family, working parents, and wealthy grandparents. He was the one with access to the good booze and high class transportation for when the SkyTrain just didn't get where we needed to go.

"Word on the street is her dad used to be a lawyer that embezzled a lot of money from his clients, spent a bout in the slammer, and lost his license. By the time he got out his wife took the kids and shacked up with some other guy." Tommy shook his head, draping his arms over the steel bar in front of him. "Once that shit hits the fan there is no coming back from it."

A chill shivered down my spine at the familiarity of the story. It was like Tommy just narrated a slightly askew version of my life. It was unsettling. The only difference was my own father hadn't been successful in any job he tried to maintain and his embezzling was in the form of card counting.

"I'm not seeing the 'bad news' part. We've all got at least one asshole for a parent." In my eyes that only gave us something in common.

"Not all of us," Jason piped up, who actually got along with his folks and rebelled simply because he got into a crowd of friends who did the same.

"You're like the black sheep of this friendship circle, Jase, nothing we say applies to you," Seth snatched the whiskey from him.

"Well, it's just rumors." From the way he hesitated to answer, I could tell Tommy didn't want to say something that could tick me off. I think that was why he asked about Meghan and me, wanting to know how close our budding (I liked to think so, at least) friendship was before he went and insulted it. Still, we were all usually really straight up. We dealt with too much bullshit and lies in our lives to do it to one another.

"Come on, man. Did she sleep around the school or something? Cause half the girls in our grade have." And it was usually with Seth, but that was old news. I wasn't looking to get with her, if that's what they were implying.

Tommy glanced at Seth, who shrugged. They made me wonder if it was a more widespread rumor than I thought and I was the only one who hadn't caught wind of it. Or, as I jokingly told Meghan earlier, was too self-absorbed to pay any attention.
"It's not her. But the guy her mom is with is said to be some kind of pimp on the Eastside."
"So… you think she's working for him?" Truthfully, I didn't care all that much what her mom's boyfriend did for a living. I grew up with two drunks for male parents that sucked my mother right down with them. Everyone had their family troubles, some were just worse than others.
"I don't know," Tommy raised his arms defensively. "Like I said, it's just a rumor, but my sister's friend supposedly had a friend that did and that's kind of how I found out about it. But you know how those grapevine stories go - by the time they get to you they can get all kinds of warped. I'm just saying I'd be careful before inviting yourself over or anything."
"I appreciate the concern, but I don't think things are going to get that serious. We were just talking." I shrugged, so naive. I had been so wrong and it didn't take more than a couple of weeks for me to realize it.