Jennifer works silently at her desk while her class reads quietly from their textbooks, and Lindsey's raised hand goes unacknowledged. "Ms. Cantrell?" she asks quietly. Jennifer looks up. "Yes?" "Can I get a drink of water?" "Sure." She focuses her attention back on her paperwork as Lindsey leaves the room. She walks to the bathroom, where Jessica is waiting. "Okay," Lindsey tells her, "She's wearing red today." "Great." Jessica rummages through her bookbag and pulls out a red skirt, the shortest skirt in the history of the universe, and slides it on. "How do I look?" "Awesome. Go get 'er, tiger!" Jessica smiles and leaves the bathroom, then walks to Ms. Cantrell's class. She opens the door and steps inside, saying, "Sorry I'm late." All eyes go immediately to her legs as she walks to her desk. "I've got that report you assigned," she says as she reaches into her bookbag, then takes the report to the front of the class. She leans over very deliberately as she drops the report on Jennifer's desk, and a few of the male students emit low moans of appreciation. Jessica smiles. Jennifer watches her for a moment, then says, "Go to the office." "What?" Maintaining her level gaze, she answers, "You're disrupting my class. Get out." Jessica glares angrily and almost speaks, and for a moment neither of them move. Finally Jessica turns and storms from the room. Outside Lindsey is waiting, and follows Jessica down the hall. "What happened?" "She sent me to the office!" "For what? Wearing a skirt?" "Get my bookbag," Jessica says, without looking back. Lindsey stops, confused, then turns to go back to class. "Now," asks the vice-principal, Mr. Murphy, while sitting back in his chair. "Why exactly were you sent to me?" "I don't know," Jessica says. "She told me I was 'disrupting her class'. Because I wore a short skirt." "So she thought you were... mocking her?" "I guess." "And were you?" "Well, in a way, yeah! I mean, she wears those skirts all the time just so boys will look at her. It makes me sick. She's got no interest in teaching at all." "So your problems with Ms. Cantrell go deeper than her wardrobe, then?" "Absolutely. You know what she's like, right?" He sits in silence. "You mean no one has ever complained?" "Not until you, no." "Oh my god! It's the worst class I've ever been in! It's like a... toxic learning environment. She has no respect for her students at all. It's worse than just giving out busy work, she doesn't even think we can learn. Her contempt is astounding. I don't think she should even be working here. Did you know she cancels class at least once a week? Just cancels it! She just tells us we can go so she can take a two hour lunch." He leans forward. "Is that true?" "Absolutely! I can't believe you didn't know this. Once, when I complained about her teaching methods, she accused me of being jealous because my boyfriend supposedly wants to have sex with her. It's completely off the page. She has to go." Mr. Murphy raises an eyebrow and looks a little doubtful, but says, "Well, if what you're saying is true there will certainly be repercussions. I'll make sure someone looks into this, but until then I'd recommend not causing any more problems for her; if the pattern you've described continues, we'll do something about it." Jessica seems unconvinced, so he adds, "Look, just let her dig her own grave. If things are like you say, she'll be out of here. There's no sense in you getting reprimanded in the meantime." With that she smiles a little and says, "Okay. Thanks." The last bell of the day rings and five minutes later the school is almost empty. Liam and Elizabeth meet each other in the hall, and she gives him a small kiss. "So you've got badminton today?" she asks. "Yeah, time to show the new guy the ropes. Good to see the younger generation taking an interest in badminton." "Why did you get interested in badminton?" He shrugs. "It's easy to play, and I had to get to know people somehow. And besides," he says, nudging her. "It's all in the wrist." She grins, and he asks, "So what are your plans for the day?" "I'm meeting someone for an hour or so." "Want me to come by after practice?" She smiles. "If you want." "Okay." He leans down and they kiss again, then she gives him a smile and turns to go. He watches her until she turns out of sight, and walks happily to his locker. When he opens it a piece of paper flutters down, and he stoops to pick it up. The line of your jaw The shape of your eyes The form of poetry is the look of your face And god makes only beautiful people He considers is quizzically, then glances back at his locker. A pile of stray paper has built up at the bottom which he gathers and crumples into a ball, adding the poem without a second thought. Grabbing his gym bag, he closes his locker and drops the paper ball into a garbage can on his way past. Sitting in a field, Elizabeth stares up at the sky. She smiles. Steven sits next to her, holding his knees. He glances around, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. "You know," she says, "Now that I'm out here, I don't really know what to say. Welcome to Self-Esteem 101, I guess." She looks over at him. "Stand up." He hesitates for a moment, then gets to his feet. She scrutinizes him. "No, that's no good. You have to stand straighter." She gets up and stands next to him, putting a hand on his back. He straightens it, standing slightly taller. "Good. Posture is very important. Now pull your shoulders back a little. Right; now tilt your head up. Excellent. Just acting the part can help," she tells him. "You can't fake it, but it can help remind you, a positive association of who you are, of what you are. But then, I suppose you have to get there before you can remember. But I'm sure you've been there, at least once. When you feel yourself slipping," she says, looking him in the eyes, "Remind yourself to stand straight. Don't look at your feet when you walk. But keep your body loose, your movements smooth. Sometimes that's all it takes; you won't even notice at first, but twenty minutes later you'll forget that you were ever feeling down. Only do it if it's an aimlessly sort of unhappy, though. Don't bother trying it at your grandmother's funeral." She watches him for a moment. "Got all that?" "Uh huh." "Okay." She looks him over, then asks, "Do you work out at all?" Still standing almost unnaturally straight, he says, "No, not really." "You should. It doesn't have to be a lot. I just do sit ups and push ups, mostly. My legs are already okay 'cause I walk everywhere. Look at this." She lifts one of her sleeves and flexes. "See that? And relax a little, will you?" He returns to a slight slouch as he looks at her arm. He nods at it, but seems a little skeptical. "I know," she says, "It's not much. But it's there. I used to have no muscle at all, but at least now there's some kind of shape, some definition. Building muscles seems like such an intangible thing when you never try it, but it doesn't take that much. All this took was a couple of sets of pushups a day." She moves her arm, looking at it from different angles. "Sure, nobody's gonna say "Hey Elizabeth, nice muscles you've got there", but it just feels better to have some. It feels good to exert some energy, to get to know the limitations of your body a little better." She rolls her sleeve back down. "You should try it out. You might have to do them girl-style, though; I tried them normal 'cause I didn't want to look like a wimp if somebody barged into my room, but I pulled a muscle after a couple of days. So instead I do twice as many from my knees. In fact, you can start right now. Drop and give me twenty." He looks at her, a little unsure, and she says, "I'm just kidding. Besides, you couldn't do twenty." She's glancing over his shoulder, and he turns to see a cat watching them from a distance. Elizabeth crouches down and watches it silently. It glances at them for awhile, then eventually walks up. She scratches its head with a smile. "There's one thing I really admire about animals," she says. "What's that?" he asks, sitting back down. "Human potential may be immeasurable, but we really pay for it." "How's that?" She continues petting the cat, who falls on its side, so she rubs its belly. "Because we're the only ones who know we're gonna die." Evan puts his foot against one of the benches in the locker room as he bends over to tie his shoe. His eyes wander slowly to the side, watching Liam pull up his shorts. "So Evan," Liam asks, pulling on a t-shirt. "Did you play badminton at your old school?" "No, actually," Evan answers. "In fact, I've never played it." Jeff smirks. "Like a monkey being shot into space." He slaps Evan roughly on the back of the head and yells, "Space monkey!" He chuckles to himself as he walks out of the room. Evan grimaces, and Liam says, "Don't worry, it's not that tough to learn." "I wasn't worried about that," Evan says, rubbing the back of his head. "Ah, that's Jeff for you. He thinks he's a jock even though all he plays is badminton. Not that there's anything wrong with playing badminton. He'll give it up eventually." He pulls on his shoes and says, "So, you ready?" "Yeah," Evan answers, and the two of them walk to the gym. "So, do you go to church?" Elizabeth asks. The cat's no longer with them. Steven watches a piece of grass that he holds between his fingers. "Sometimes." "You have to stop." He gives her a questioning look. "Don't you even want to know what church I go to?" "No, it doesn't matter. Fucking religions. I can hardly even stand to talk about them anymore. It used to be sorta fun when I was younger, poking holes in the ridiculousness of people's religious convictions, but it's all so ridiculous, so ludicrously out of whack that I can't even be bothered anymore. I can't even give them a little sanction, they've got no value for me whatsoever. "It's different with other stuff," she continues, "Like how redistribution can completely fuck a society; I don't mind explaining why I think that. In fact I love to explain it, because it can be a complicated thing. It's not immediately obvious. But religion... it's not only crooked, it's stupid. There's never any intelligent debate, it all falls back on blind faith and unsubstantiated belief, every single time. I think most organized religions are for people who want to be stupid, people who seek out some way to be dumb. Or more likely they're born into it and are just too mentally lazy to ever really question the principles that underlie their whole lives. It drives me fucking nuts." He doesn't answer, but frowns slightly. "Sorry if that sounds over-generalized," she says. "But the whole thing really pisses me off. It's just such an incredible amount of bullshit." He still says nothing. "Okay, look," she continues. "If some guy were sitting here, you, let's say, and you were to tell me that you believe in god, I'd have no problem with that. It's just you and me, we're sitting in a field, you believe in a creator, an afterlife, whatever. As long as it doesn't involve me and you're not telling me what to do then fine, it really doesn't bother me at all. But as soon as you bring a religion into it, as soon as you're following a doctrine, no matter how casually, as soon as you accept someone else's ideas about god, it's ruined. There's no sincerity, no genuine quest to try to understand things, it's just fucking phony. It has no validity as a personal spiritual quest. It can't, because the amount of garbage you have to swallow contradicts everything sensible in the world to such an extent that it can only be explained by a group. You're just doing what you have to do to get the group to accept you, believing things you'd never believe on your own just because they say it's the truth. It's fucking disgusting. God is not a group thing. Whatever you think of god is between you and it. It's a personal experience, it's..." She makes a sound of frustration. "I just fucking hate it." "So you don't believe in god?" "Let's put it this way: You know those people who say that god is unknowable? They're right. The problem is that deep down, they think they've got it all figured out, they think they do know. But the fact is that we don't know anything about god, we have no idea what god is. Not one thing. Every holy book, every prophet, all complete bullshit. We know that the universe came from somewhere, you can call that somewhere 'god' if you want, but that's all we know. I just don't understand how anyone can take these pathetically stupid old books as truth. They were written by a bunch of people, that's all. Not by god, not by divine hands, there's nothing special about them at all. "But if you think you've got some kind of direct personal link to whatever it is you call god, then great, run with it. It's not my place to claim that you don't. Check it out, see what you can learn from it, have a blast. But the rest of it, the groups, the history, the scriptures, the dogma, you can't learn anything from that. Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Kill – Wow, fucking brilliant. You don't need a motherfucking bible to teach you that. I mean, jesus fucking christ..." She's silent for a few moments, breathing slowly, calming herself. Steven still says nothing. "That's the other reason I hate talking about religion," she finally says. "It ruins my mood on what is an otherwise perfectly great day." He grins slightly and says, "Well, I'll think about it. But I'm still gonna go at Christmas." She lays on her back and smiles a little. "Go for it." She breathes out heavily. "See, I don't mean to get so worked up about stuff. I go out of my way not too, to try to stay positive. I dunno though... it's rough. But somebody's gotta do it. Everybody's so down... so negative about everything, and it's hard. I mean, who do I have to look up to? Who am I supposed to be inspired by? Nobody. Not to make it sound like I've got some kind of hard life, I just have to remind myself sometimes to snap out of it. You have to remind yourself about the things you have, and the things you've done... and eventually, you'll feel better." She pauses while she looks up at the sky, and for a minute neither of them speak. "You know what I really like?" she asks. He watches her. "What?" "Dorky high school movies. A lot of them are really terrible, but as long as they're even a little honest, just a little thought put into them, they can be great. I just saw 10 Things I Hate About You last night. It was really good." He stares at her for a moment, then breaks into a grin, and then starts laughing. She glances at him and sighs slightly. His laughter subsides slightly and he says, "Sorry; I kinda figured you'd be into something a little more, well... deep." "I'm not saying I loved it. It was pretty stupid and I'll probably forget about it in a month. But while I was watching it, I really liked it. A lot of times it's just the advertising and the presumed fan base that make movies like that look bad. Like Deadman on Campus. I don't care what anybody says, that was a good movie. I saw it with some friends and I expected it to be terrible, but I totally dug it. It's hard to explain, it's not even that it was all that funny, it just had this excellent atmosphere... I don't know, I should probably just shut my mouth right now. I'm gonna regret even mentioning this stuff in a couple of years." He smirks. "Sooner than a couple of years, I think." She frowns a little. "Hey, everybody likes bad movies. I was just making fun of Liam for it yesterday. But that's one thing I really want to do someday: Write a dorky high school movie. You know, like Heathers, or The Breakfast Club. One of the classics. You've got all the groups, the athletic kids, the smokers, the nerds, the freaks. And in 10 Things there was a group of cowboys; I thought that was hilarious, just how stupid the groups were – You'd see them standing in the background eating beans out of a jimmied-open can. And it was a basic stolen-from-Shakespeare storyline, but it was great; there was this kinda harsh girl who I really liked, except she was a little heavy on the feminist rhetoric, and she meets this beautiful australian guy, and it's so simple but it makes you feel good just to watch it. I want to write stuff like that." A little surprised, he asks, "You're not a feminist?" "Nah. Just another label I don't need. I don't want to be "equal" to men, I want to outperform the piss out of them, and everyone else besides. And I need a better reason to ally with my fellow women than that. They've gotta do more than call themselves "feminists" to convince me that they know what they're talking about." "Reject the group before they can reject you, huh?" "If that's how you want to look at it. But the other thing I love about movies like that is how beautiful everyone is, and I'm pretty sure that wouldn't mesh with the feminist viewpoint. I wish I was beautiful like that sometimes, just mind-numbingly, perfectly put together..." She glances over and sees him give her an amazed look. "Yeah, I know you think I'm the greatest chick ever made and I love you for it, but I'm not attractive like that. Not movie star attractive. But it's just an idle fantasy, because I know that looking different wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't make any of my problems go away. That's another reason I love those movies: You can watch them and go to this ridiculous, completely backward world where school is actually fun and nobody has any major problems besides who's taking them to the prom. You get to win the hand of the fabulous boy and hang out with the cool kids for awhile." "What do you mean 'get to'," he asks. "You are one of the cool kids." She smirks. "I don't think you've been paying enough attention. All I've got is one guy and some friends I never hang out with anymore. I'm a total social outcast, I just don't care as much as most people. Really, you and I aren't all that different. If it wasn't for Liam, I'd have nobody." She sits up and examines the bottom of her sneakers, picking a small rock from between the treads. "Listen," she says, "If there were ever any times that I didn't treat you well, or... made you feel bad about yourself, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it." She doesn't look at him, but he smiles and says, "It's okay. Don't worry about it." She lifts her head and gives him a relieved smile. "Thank you." She looks back up at the sky and says, "I guess I didn't really let you talk a whole lot today, did I?" "It's no problem," he says. "We've got plenty of time." Liam breathes out heavily. "Alright, that's it for me. I've gotta go." Carl looks to Lenny and Jeff. "You guys wanna keep going?" Jeff picks up the shuttle from the gym floor and says, "Yeah, let's play a couple short games." "I have to go too," Evan says. "Good to meet you all." Without waiting for a response he turns to follow Liam from the gym. "Okay," Lenny says, "You guys go and I'll play the winner." "Looks like two games in a row for me," Jeff says with a grin, tossing the shuttle in the air and serving to Carl. In the locker room Evan smiles widely. "I think I've got the hang of this already. A lot like tennis." "You played tennis?" Liam asks, pulling off his shirt and reaching into his gym bag. "For a little while. It hurt my wrist." Evan's eyes are again drawn to Liam's chest – He knows he should be more careful, but he can't stop himself. The way he usually explains it is to imagine the exact same situation, except instead of a boy and a boy, imagine a boy and a girl. A beautiful girl, a girl who captures your mind and won't let you think of anything else, and she's undressing beside you. You'd want to look, you'd have to look, you'd want to be around her more than anything else. He finds that once he explains it like that, once he draws it into a feeling that everyone has felt, they don't look at him so strangely. They rarely come to entirely accept that boys could make him feel that way, but it gives them a small opportunity for empathy. He forces himself to look away. He doesn't want to clarify his intentions too quickly, until he can get some idea of how this boy will react to him. And Liam has a girlfriend, which always complicates things. He's done a bad job of it so far, he's moved too fast, but it's nothing he hasn't done before. He feels drawn forward, compelled to take what he wants, and patience has never been his strongest attribute. Grinning to himself, he says, "Time to hit the showers, then?" "Nah," Liam answers, pulling on a new shirt. "I'm going to Elizabeth's. She'll survive me being a little sweaty." Evan frowns slightly as Liam changes his shoes and packs up his stuff. "So I don't know when we're playing next," Liam says, "But I'll find out from Jeff and let you know." "Alright." Liam gives him a final nod and says, "See you later," as he leaves the room. Evan pulls off his clothes and goes to the showers himself, cleaning himself quickly. There's no reason to prolong the process when there's nobody else around. He looks down at his body as he washes, then dries off and throws a towel around himself as he walks to a mirror. He touches his cheek with his fingers – here is a perfectly beautiful face, but it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work if it belongs to him, it has to belong to somebody else. He doesn't see exactly why, a face is a face, but being attached to a separate mind must have something to do with it. But the mind it's attached to ultimately doesn't seem all that important. Beautiful people always have a certain manner about them, a certain confidence that other people don't seem to get, through the simple merit of having lived their whole lives being more attractive than everyone else. He's never, not even once felt attracted to anyone who wasn't physically beautiful, and he's quite sure he never will. After getting dressed he leaves the school, and he hasn't considered until now how he's going to get home. He looks around, and sitting on one of the large rocks that line the walkway he spots Hillary, scribbling in a notebook. A slight grin crosses his face as he walks to her. "Is that about me?" he asks with a smirk, gesturing toward the notebook as he sits on the rock next to hers. She frowns at him. "If you're just going to be an asshole then don't even bother talking to me." He's a little surprised, but smiles. "What's the matter? Angry that I didn't want to hang out with you?" She shoots him a hateful glance, and he keeps smiling. "Tell me something," he says. "What is it that attracted me to you in the first place? Was it something I said? Or something about my personality that you liked?" She doesn't answer, staring down at her notebook. "You didn't know anything about me, only my face. You wanted my body to be seen with yours, your face next to mine. For status, maybe, to have a beautiful boyfriend. How much were you willing to go through to capture my face for yourself?" "Why don't you just get out of here?" she scowls. "Any interest I might have had in you is gone now." He raises his head slightly, trying to get a look at her notebook. "You can say that now because you know you didn't manage it. But if I were to take your hand right now and ask you to go out with me, you'd do it." She rolls her eyes slightly, and he says, "Show me your notebook." She gives him a disgusted look as she closes the book. "No." He looks away for a moment, then darts toward her and grabs the book out of her hands. "Hey!" She yells, jumping to her feet. "Give that back!" He flips through the pages until he comes to the page she'd been working on, letting the book fall open in his hands. On the page is a rough pen drawing of him. He looks at her and she doesn't speak, so he says, "It's pretty good, I think." She snatches the book away from him and he says, "Don't lie to me anymore, Hillary. Look at me." She doesn't, so he claps his hands loudly. Startled, she looks at him. "I think you're amazingly attractive. You're the cutest girl I've ever seen. I love just looking at you." Her eyes are hard, but despite herself she doesn't look away. "All I talked about were your looks, and you don't even think I'm being serious, but you still feel it, don't you? You like to hear things about yourself, you enjoy being praised for your beauty." He takes a step closer to her and says, "I said nothing about you, just about this casing you have. Why would you want that? Why would you pursue it?" She continues looking at him, but her eyes are narrow. "It's none of your business why I want it. And I pursue it because it only makes sense to go after what you want. What else am I supposed to do? Just let you go?" He raises his eyebrows slightly, and smiles. It takes courage to say a thing like that, especially at the disadvantage she's at. He gives her face a closer look. She's actually quite nice looking, as far as he can tell; things always run together for him when it comes to girls. "Why don't you have a boyfriend?" he asks. "Why don't you have a girlfriend?" she counters, then feels a little stupid for asking it, remembering that he just moved to town. "Because I don't want one," he answers. She glances away. "I had a few. They got... old." "Not worth having on the arm anymore?" She glances back at him. "No." He grins, and for a moment they watch each other. Finally he says, "Hillary, I need money." Confused, she says, "What for?" "I missed my bus, and even if I was willing to walk that far I'd probably get lost. I want to take a cab." "And why should I give you any money?" His face has dropped from a smile back to a steady neutral, and he says, "I'm sure the two of us can work something out." Liam knocks on Elizabeth's front door, then steps inside. No lights are on, but the house is still well lit from the light outside; no one's around, and the house is quiet. "Hey, Elizabeth!" he calls, but there's no answer. He walks upstairs and the door to her room is open, so he walks in. He notices her asleep on the bed; she's lying on her side, still fully clothed but for her shoes. He stands next to the bed and watches her for a moment, smiling. She's breathing very slowly, her teeth slightly apart – She looks so strange when she's asleep. Her face isn't smiling, or frowning, it's just... there. Even when she's bored, there's always some kind of expression. Now it's just... blank. Expressionless. He kneels down to look at her more closely. She's beautiful, definitely the most beautiful girl he's ever met. It's not just the way she looks, but the way she moves, she way she acts, the things she says. The way she tries to act more mature than she really is. And besides that one deception, she never lies. When she says something, she really means it, and he even likes when she's holding back, trying not to let something show on her face. As he watches her he realizes that he's never really told her exactly how much she means to him, how glad he is to have met her. He's never told her how much he loves her. He lifts a hand to touch her face, but stops. He doesn't want to wake her. Standing up, he glances around the room. He thinks he should probably go, but he doesn't want to leave. He feels comfortable here. He likes this house a lot more than his own, and this room especially. This room is the best. He walks to her bookshelf and smirks to himself. How can every english book she owns be by Nathaniel Branden? She must have some other books somewhere. He starts to look around and spots a notebook on her desk, the pages full of writing. He looks back to her bed, making sure she's still asleep, then sits quietly at the chair in front of her desk. The writing in the notebook is done hastily, almost in a scrawl, and at first he has a hard time reading it. The date at the top of the page is from almost a year ago, before he moved into town – She must have been reading back over it. He narrows his eyes slightly as he begins going over the lines:      The first rule of self-esteem is that you can never have too much. It works on a sliding scale; it can always go higher and it can always go lower. The second rule is that no one else, at a fundamental level, can affect your self-esteem. You have to build it on your own, no one else can give it to you. Conversely, no one can ultimately take it away from you except for yourself. But I don't know.      It seems like I act differently with everyone I know. I always make the effort to act the same, to act like me, but everyone wants something different, and in one way or another I subconsciously end up trying to accommodate them. Some people just want me to listen to whatever they have to say, some people want me to laugh at everything they do, or to validate everything they enjoy before they can be sure they like it. Some people want me to treat them like they're less, and it's hard not too. It's hard not to take on the role that the other person wants, just to appease them and get it over with (except that it's never over with, because it just goes on and on and on). So I have these different forms of me, different slants on what I am that each person brings out, and none of them are as good as the one I have when I'm alone. No one wants to bring out the part of me that's intelligent, the part that wants to build, to create, to stand as an individual and judge my life by my own standards. It's by far the dominant aspect, it's me, and no one wants it. Everyone just wants me to be someone else, some accessory to their existence, so that the two of us can go nowhere together. So is it any surprise that I'd rather be by myself? Is it any surprise that I don't like people? My full potential, my abilities can only be exerted alone, because no one else has ever been interested in matching me, in running with me and seeing what they can do. It wouldn't even matter if they couldn't keep up with me as long as they tried, and it might even be me that couldn't keep up with them, and that would be so great; I'd like nothing more than to have someone else's passion for their own life outshine mine. But I can't even imagine what that would be like, because these people don't even try. They don't want to stand tall, they don't want to be strong, they don't even want to see me do it. So they find all these ways to undermine me, in the most polite, nicest little ways, so you can't even haul off and scream at them, to tell them to fuck off and take their living dead fucking lives somewhere else, because technically they haven't done anything to you. They're always careful to stay civil enough that they can stay in close and fuck you around for days and months and years, and when you do break ties they can pretend not to understand, they can pretend that you're just a bitch or an asshole and that it's not their fault at all.      Sometimes I wish I had more enemies. At least with enemies you know where you stand. They hate you and you hate them. With acquaintances or half-assed friends you can get locked down, politely dragged into nothingness. I always think of that part in Trainspotting when Renton has broken away, he's working in London and things are going alright. Then Begbie and Sickboy show up and fuck him around, and all he can say is "But they're mates, so what can you do?" And I understand that completely, because there's almost nothing I hold in higher regard than friendship, true friendship, real friendship, it's one of the most powerful things in the world. But lesser friendships, one-sided friendships, they feed off the respect that's supposed to be there, they feed off the idea that people are alright and that associating with them is a positive thing. They take the respect I hold for people and stretch it until I can barely stand it, this joke of a relationship that's not based on mutual respect between two people, but the exploitation of one by another. And I put up with it for a long time, until finally I couldn't do it anymore, and I broke them all. And now I'm all alone. I've got no one, and it's better. But it's not what I want. Now I have to build my friendships again, more slowly, more carefully – I can't let anyone in who I don't want near me this time. Hopefully things will end up better.      Because I can't blame this all on other people. I can't blame school for making me unhappy, I can't blame society for not opening a path for me. I have to take responsibility for myself. This is all within my means to change. I don't have enough time to waste blaming anyone else.      I can't cry. I really only noticed it lately, it's been this way for so long. It's just the way I grew up, the way I turned out, which is a horrible way to explain anything, but I don't know how else to explain it. When I'm feeling really bad or things are just going wrong, I'm sure it would help if I could cry, to help me relax, for some release. But it never comes. I go so far, and I stop. I don't want to be one of those people who cries all the time, they drive me fucking nuts. But sometimes, you know? Not never.      But it's not actually never; I never cry when things get tough, no matter how much I try, I just harden up. If something really bad ever happens, like my mom dies, I'm sure then it'll be different. But cracks are starting to show up. It happens when I'm reading sometimes, or listening to the right song at just the right time, and it just cuts right through me. Ideas that are almost corny to people now, fucking cowboy movie stuff, having personal honor, talking straight, always telling the truth, standing by your friends, sticking up for what's right in the fucking world. If it's honest, if whoever's saying it really means it, it can just stab me in the heart and all of a sudden I start to cry. There's no way I can explain it, there's just a certain feeling, a sense of pride in myself and a vision for the future of the human race that fills me up, and I can't hold it anymore, and it's amazing. One second I'm completely fine and the next second I'll be laughing while tears stream down my face. It's not entirely new, it used to happen before, but it always took a build up then – a particularly inspiring chapter of a book or a really well done movie. But now it only takes a moment, just the right idea expressed in just a few words and all of my defenses go down. But if I'm around people I have to hide it; you can't just start crying in the middle of class, or in a bookstore, or anywhere. So it comes down to people again. When I'm around other people I can't be myself. I get lost around them, and the more of them there are the more lost I get.      When I was in the 7th grade I bought the Faith No More album The Real Thing. It'd been out for a pretty long time already, but for whatever reason I only caught on then. The entire thing grabbed me hard, but the one song I listened to over and over was called Underwater Love. It was simple, just about a guy looking at his own reflection, and it sent shivers through me. I didn't really understand anything back then; some things, I guess, but nothing I could explain the way I can now. I used to lay in the dark and listen to it, and I was transfixed. I'd never heard that kind of unbridled narcissism before, and it made me feel really good. The closest I'd heard was that story of Narcissus, and I couldn't figure out what the point of it was, of what exactly it was supposed to be warning me against. It rang false, just like almost everything else.      A twelve year old girl, laying in the dark, just starting to grasp the edge of an understanding of self-esteem, of having respect for myself, and I had no idea then how much of it wasn't being taught to me, how much was being completely ignored, how much I'd have to figure out for myself... it's happening right now, I'm crying just by remembering it, how amazing it seems that I ever got here from there. If I'd had any idea of the things I'd have to go through, the weight of the world I'd have to push back against... and maybe it doesn't seem like I've done that much, just gone through the system, from an outside perspective it might not look any different than anybody else's life. But if they could see the things I went through inside, the struggle in my own head to prepare myself for a world no one had any intention of preparing me for, maybe they'd understand why certain things are so important to me. Why I can't budge on some subjects, because while I'm here now and everything seems okay, the future is open and the path is more or less clear, I know it didn't have to end up this way. I could have been swallowed, just like all the other kids, but somehow I made it through. Somehow I made it to where I am now, and sometimes even I don't honestly know how I got here. But I always know that feeling, that feeling of being important, and I know a lot of people who've never felt it the way I do. I can tell they haven't, and it's never a coincidence that the things they believe about the world, about the human race and about themselves are never the things I believe. So I have to oppose them. Even if I don't always have the answer, or don't always have the explanation, I have to fight them. I can never lose this thing inside me, that's so hard to define but that I had to work so hard to get... I can never give it up. I just wish there was some way I could help people understand.      I still remember all the lyrics to that song by heart. I knew things, I had ideas about valuing myself before, but it was the first time I remember having any validation, having anyone say it was all right to look at myself, that I could really be proud of my own face. Sure, some people said it, but their assurances were phony and contrived. They didn't really believe it. Maybe if someone had ever taught me that, had ever really let me know that there was nothing to be ashamed of in myself, that it was alright to like myself, to take an interest in myself, maybe the first thing I grabbed on to wouldn't have been so extreme. Maybe things would be a little different now. But maybe nothing would have changed at all. Looking down into the water It's hard to make out your face If our love is drowning Then why do I feel so out of place? Bubbling up to the surface Are you getting a breath of fresh air? Forever longing to make you mine But I can't escape your stare... Liquid seeps into your lungs But your eyes look so serene It's wonderful how the surface ripples But you're perfect, and I cannot breathe Forever longing to make you mine But I can't escape your stare... Hold me closer, keep me near My underwater love Hold me closer, keep me near I'll never get enough Touch me from below I'll never let you go But I can't escape Hold me closer, keep me near My underwater love Hold me closer, keep me near I'll never get enough Touch me from below I'll never let you go He hears her rustle in bed and looks over, seeing her waking up. He turns away from the desk as she sits up and looks around, obviously still sleepy, frowning a little. She spots him sitting on the chair and smiles immediately. "I was hoping you'd come over," she says. "I tried to stay awake, but I was up really late last night..." "No problem." He doesn't move, but watches her as she stretches and yawns, then looks back at him. "Come over here," she says. He stands up and walks to the edge of the bed, and she looks up at him. She hooks her fingers into his pockets and pulls him down onto the bed next to her, looks him in the eyes for a moment, then kisses him. Her hands move up into his hair and he slides his arms around her as they fall back onto the mattress. She pulls her head back and smiles as she watches him, then lays her head on his chest. "I love being with you," she says, closing her eyes. "Never go anywhere." He starts to say something, but the words never come. He lays his head against hers and puts a hand on her hair, his eyes watching her face as she lays against him. He smiles, and a feeling of light amazement passes through his body.