Hi, I'm Chastity, nice to meet you. I don't think I've wrote any author's notes in this story, so I thought I should. First off, I want to warn that this story is angst, meaning, get ready to really hate it. I like making the characters go through the worst possible scenarios, I'm just sadistic like that. Anyways thanks for any and all reviews and I apologize for taking so long to update, I've just been super busy with school, and work, and life all together.

Grrr... I wish I didn't have to sleep, or at least didn't have to eat and shower, then I'd have some extra time for writing LOL Well hope you like this fic. I am aiming at about 10 chapters, but you just never know with me. I have a history of keeping it going, though I'll try not to do that.

Well I'll let you read now, hope you like!

PART 1

I needed to get away, maybe smoke a joint, maybe drink a beer. I had some cash on me, but not a lot. I drove around looking for the homeless man that had bought me beer the last time, he was nowhere in sight. I set my mind on finding any homeless man. After a while of fruitless driving, I set my mind on finding anyone, any person who could get me beer.

I hated being seventeen.

I parked on the side of the Circle K and waited. Out of all the people coming in and out, someone had to give me the "I'll break the rules for a few bucks" vibe, and that's the one I would target.

I didn't have to wait long, guess who was at Circle K trying to get booze on a Saturday morning?

They parked behind me, that's how I knew they were up to no good. Why else would they park on the side of the store instead of the front? But I couldn't really say anything, I was trying to do the illegal too.

Charlie Escobedo and some other guy went inside the store, and I was about to go in there and ask if they could hook me up,when they both came running out with two packs of beer each. They passed me with barely a glimpse, and got into their car, throwing the beer in the back seat. They took off burning rubber. I went inside the store, curiosity I guess. The cashier looked scared, cops were on their way, the scene looked like something out of a movie. No beer here for me was what I was really worried about, I rolled my eyes and went back to my truck.

I was about to give up on the whole getting shit faced drunk deal, the rush off anger was starting to wash away, and Dante was crawling into my brain again.

I rubbed my eyes with both my hands, I was getting a headache. I realized that I was angry, so fucking angry, and that I hated him so much. I wanted to shake him, and make him understand what I was feeling.

It's like he didn't want to be with me. We were together weren't we? I mean, It's not like I ever popped the question and neither did he, but it's obvious that after you confess, if that person likes you back, you're together, right?

Or did I miss something? Is it not official until you ask the question?

That would be stupid. There's no way.

But if it isn't that, then what is it? He had no trouble making out with girls and kissing Daniel. He says he loves me, but he doesn't even let me touch him.

I was slamming my hands on the steering wheel without realizing. I stopped myself, and was really close to swallowing any pride and going to knock at his window to talk to him, when I realized, fuck Dante. I didn't need him. I didn't need anyone.

I turned the truck on and drove to Charlie's house. Why would I go sulk somewhere alone and sober when I knew someone that had lots of beer to drink?

I knocked on his door. No one answered so I knocked again. I saw someone peeking through the window and was about to knock a third time, even harder than the first two, when the other guy- the other guy he had done the beer run with- opened up.

"Yes?"

"Is Charlie here?"

"Who's looking for him?"

Charlie spoke from behind him, three other guys were there, "What's up, vato? You're here to rat us out?" He had a bat in his hand. I know I should have been scared, but I wasn't.

"I'm here to drink," I said.

He laughed, "What the fuck?!"

I walked into his house uninvited, "I know you have beer, and I can't buy any at the store because I'm only seventeen. I'll buy it off of you if you want."

They all stared at each other, two girls were sitting on a couch in the living room. They looked tired, dressed in shorts, with bags under their eyes.

"Who is he?" Asked the guy that had opened the door for me.

"Ari Mendoza. He used to be cool, but now he acts like a gabacho and ignores his gente-" Charlie answered.

"Well I'm here, and you don't want to share your beer," I interrupted.

The other guy, the one that had opened the door for me, laughed. He then got a beer from the fridge, took me by the shoulders, and sat me next to the two girls in the couch. They were watching cartoons, all of them drunk and high and watching cartoons at ten in the morning on a Saturday.

The first conversation that came up was the bruise on my face of course. "I got hit for trying to grab someone's ass."

Everyone thought that was funny. One guy said, "that's what you get."

A girl added, "I would have punched you too."

"Yeah, I deserved it," I answered, and that was the end of that.

I found out that that guy's name (the one in the beer run) was Manuel, he was Charlie's cousin and was staying with them for a while. He had just gotten out of jail, did eighteen months for an assault charge, it was barely his third day in the free. I drank beer, about two or three, before they pulled out the blunts. Yup these guys weren't messing around, they smoked blunts not joints.

With the first hit I was high out of my mind, but I kept smoking, partly because I didn't want them to think I was a... well, you know, and another because Dante kept creeping up on me, his words, his image. The more I thought of him the more I smoked, and the angrier I got at him, the more I drank. I was completely gone before I knew it.

Marijuana won, and I fell asleep on the couch in front of everyone, but no one really cared. When I woke up it was three in the afternoon. One of the girls, Blanca I think was her name, awoke me with her loud snorting. Seriously, if you are going to snort cocaine in front of someone when they are asleep, at least try to keep it down.

Manuel and some other guy made us tacos. We ate tacos de bistek with chips and beer, and we talked about shows and played cards and watched TV. Before I knew it I was smoking again, I don't know how, but weed was constantly ending up in my hands. I guess they had rules too, and one of them must have been: take two hits and pass it to your right, because that's how they'd been doing it. Some guy took three hits, and everyone got after him, so I took my two hits and passed the blunt to the next person.

Charlies parents were at work, but Manuel told me that even if they were at the house they wouldn't mind. "I rather he be here with us, than out who knows where," is what Manuel told me they had told him. So basically, they let Charlie do whatever he wanted in his house: drink, do drugs, skip school, well anything.

It was getting late. I hadn't been home all day, but I didn't want to go back. I was kind of having fun there, and the best thing about it, Dante was nowhere in sight. Out of sight out of mind is how that saying goes, though it wasn't really working. I was still thinking about him way too much.

Charlie sat with me. We were both so high we talked about the dumbest things from back in the day when we were little. I laughed so loud I almost choked on my own saliva.

"You're cool, Ari," is what he told me.

"You're alright," I answered back, and we stared at each other and laughed for no reason other than Mary Jane.

PART 2:

When I woke up again it was dark outside, I checked the clock, ten-thirty. I asked Manuel for mouth wash, but he said they didn't keep that stuff around the house in case Charlie was having a "bad day." He said that in several of these so called "bad days," when Charlie didn't have any mood-altering substances, things got so bad he drank clorox, fabuloso, or anything with chemicals that he could get his hands on.

It made me sad to know that. I wished things didn't get that bad for him. I had already established that he was "all right," after all.

I knew I should go home, or at least call, but I didn't really want to. I'll call later, I kept telling myself.

Manuel heated up some left over tacos from earlier and we ate again. Around eleven, more people started showing up, especially more girls. Pretty girls with little shorts and big breasts. They looked nice, I'm just saying. They drank and smoked too, some of them did coke, other politely declined... I liked the ones that politely declined.

I started talking to one of them when she passes me the joint, her name was Teresa, but everyone called her T. I decided that she was all right too.

The people coming in were bringing new supply, it's like beer and weed never ran out in that house. It got to the point where I had to refuse, my head was starting to hurt. I looked at the time, one in the morning.

I decide to sleep it off and go home the next day, didn't want to drive like that.

Manuel told me to crash anywhere I liked, so I went to the room where him and Charlie were staying, but Charlie and some other people were shooting up in there. He asked me if I wanted some, I told him I wasn't ready. He thought that was funny, and didn't try to push it.

I tried another room, but walked out as soon as I heard the moaning. Finding a place to sleep was becoming a necessity and there was no place in sight.

Teresa came up to me and offered me a pill then. She had one for herself too. She slipped it into my mouth and handed me a beer telling me to drink it.

I was mad, and frustrated, and sleepy, and this really pretty girl was smiling at me telling me to swallow some drug she had placed in my tongue, so I did. I still don't understand the logic behind it even now or how my mind decided that it was a good idea to take any random pill, but I did.

After that, she leaned into me and we kissed. She tasted like beer and cigarettes, and her body wasn't right. She had breast and a small waist, and long hair, and she wasn't Dante. But I told myself, remember what you said earlier: fuck Dante! Maybe he didn't want to kiss me, but Tere did, and so I kissed her back.

I don't remember anything that happened after that.

PART 3:

I woke up scared. I didn't know where I was or what the hell had happened. Music was playing softly, I guess that's what woke me up. I didn't recognize the room, but I knew I had to still be in Charlie's house. I got up and went to the kitchen. Charlie was asleep in the couch. His parents offered me cereal, I kindly declined. The whole thing was awkward.

I couldn't remember anything that happened. How did I get so bad that I couldn't remember a thing? And that's when I recalled Teresa, and the pill she slipped between my teeth.

I went home, parked in the front of the house, and got off the truck.

My head was hurting, I felt weak and kind of nauseated. All I wanted was to get to my bed and close my eyes, but of course, that wasn't possible. I had been gone the whole day, I knew what was waiting for me.

I expected mom, I knew she'd be there, but I didn't expect Dante sitting next to her. The two of them were drinking coffee like old best friends.

"Thank God! Ari, are you ok? Where have you been?" Were the first questions she threw out there as she jogged towards me, Dante remained at the table, and then, "Where were you?!" a little louder, a little angrier.

"I was at a party."

"What?"

I walked to my room, I wasn't about to stop and talk to her with Dante there, staring blankly at me.

"A party," I repeated. "You should be happy, I finally socialized."

"You smell like beer... and weed, Ari!" She was mad. Of course she was mad.

"Yeah, I drank and got high. That's what people do at parties." I shut the door, but she re-opened it, "mom, please."

"No! No 'please'!" She said, "I am drawing the line here! Do you know how worried I was? How worried your father was?! Even the Quintanas have been looking for you."

"I'm fine! Shit!"

"Don't curse!"

"Then don't push me to it! It's not my fault that you failed as a mother once and now you're so traumatized you can't leave me alone!"

Her face went white.

Oh shit! I didn't mean to say that. She looked baffled, she couldn't believe it. Well to be fair neither could I, but I was angry, and the anger didn't let me apologize. I just slipped under the sheets of my bed and turned the other way.

I head her swallow hard, her eyes must have been watery. "I can't believe you just said that to me," she said and then left the room.

My eyes were watery too.

Someone else opened the door and I knew it was Dante. I knew what being in the same room as Dante felt like, so no need to look to confirm.

"That was cruel," he said.

"Life is cruel," I said.

"You're being very cruel, Ari."

"As if people haven't been cruel to me."

"Not this cruel."

I said nothing back, so he asked, "What are those things on your neck?"

What?

I jumped up from the bed and went to the mirror. Marks, hickies, what the fuck?! But where? How?

I rubbed at them, maybe they would go away. They didn't. One, two, three, four, and a super small one for a total of five.

"Please don't tell me that they are what I think they are."

"How would you know what they are?"

"Don't even start with your jealousy right now," his voice cracked. "You're the one with marks all over! Who did that to you, Ari?"

I knew I should apologize, go to him and beg for forgiveness. Maybe if I explained I had no idea how I got them, that I got tricked into drinking this pill, and after that I didn't remember anything-

But I didn't do that, because anger makes you do dumb things.

"I don't know," I replied.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I was too drunk to notice."

Should I tell him about the pill just to be crueler? Tell him I had so much fun with a bunch of drunk boys and girls, and how I couldn't stop laughing and didn't want to come back home because I didn't want to bump into his face. I wanted to let him know that I could go to parties, get high, and make out with random people too, just like he had. Just like he had rubbed in my face while I was stuck at home with broken legs and nothing but his memories after saving his ass from being ran over by that car!

My headache was getting worst. I was about to explode!

"You cheated on me?" His eyes were watery now too, and I liked that. A part of me thought he deserved it. He should cry every once in a while, just how I cried all the fucking time!

"I don't know," I said again.

"Was it a boy or a girl?"

"Why would it be a boy? I don't fucking like guys!"

His eyes opened in shock. I hadn't meant for it to come out so rudely, but it did. It was the truth though. I mean, I had told Gina I was gay the other day, but that was because I wanted to have a hold on Dante, something that marked him as mine. I don't know how to explain it. I guess I was jealous, saying what I said at that moment sounded good, but in reality, I'm not gay. At least I don't think I am. I don't like guys. I've never looked at a guy and thought, hey that guy is cute. However, I do look at girls and think they are cute, so I must not be into guys.

"But I'm a guy." He looked sad as hell, like he might break down in tears, and I kind of expected him to, only that he didn't. "You said you liked me, and I'm a guy, Ari."

I said nothing back. I couldn't comfort him. I couldn't even stand myself.

I looked at him, and he was still waiting for an answer, so I spoke. "I do like you, Dante. I like you a lot."

It's true, maybe I didn't like guys, but I liked one guy. And I liked this one guy way too much.

"Then why-"

"I was drunk, ok? I didn't know what I was doing. I took some pill, don't know what it was. I don't remember anything after that." Only that I did. I did remember Teresa kissing me, and I did remember accepting the kiss, but of course I didn't tell him. That was like admitting to cheating. He'd leave me if I said that, and what was I supposed to do without Dante? No matter how much I hated him, to imagine being without him was way, way worse.

"I don't know what to do?" He said. "This is all so ugly." He cried, just like I knew he would, and I didn't feel a tad bit bad about it. It scared me how much I didn't care. "Ari why are you doing this to me?"

Because I hate you, I wanted to say, but I didn't. I said nothing at all.

"You said... you said to me that you loved me."

"I do love you, Dante."

"Then why are you doing this?"

"I was drunk! Understand that! I didn't know what I was doing."

He cried some more, "and that's your excuse."

"It's not an excuse."

I guess he realized he wouldn't get a confession. Like hell I would confess to cheating on him. He left and I just stood there. I thought regret would come for me at any moment, but it didn't.

I slept the rest of the day, no nightmares, no troubles. I slept like a newborn baby.

TBC...