Dear Nobody,

So, I know that I've said this before, but I really hate this school. Seriously. I'm in math right now, and I think that somebody needs to tell the teacher that we don't need to spend three weeks learning the Pythagorean Theorem. In calculus. Especially considering it's a geometry theorem that I learned three years ago. And I think that I saw a rat run along the side of the room about ten minutes ago. I hate this place. I don't even like anybody in this class and I can hear a girl in the back row talking about the sex she had with her boyfriend over the weekend. The guy in front of me keeps leaning back so far that the back of his head intercepts my personal space bubble because these desks are so small and cramped that personal space barely even exists.

I hate this place.

I'm supposed to be taking notes right now but considering I know basic geometry, I don't need to learn it again. Then again, I guess I can understand why we're still learning it in calculus because most of the students in this class don't understand it. I never really learned anything from this school either. The way that I learned about 85% of the book smarts that I've learned is by reading old text books that I can find hidden in the public library in my down time at work.

I can hear something crawling through the wall beside me- it's almost louder than the sound of the broken dreams of my fellow students when they're hit with the realization that none of us are going anywhere in life due to our socioeconomic status- but nobody else seems to hear it. That, or they're all immune to the rodent infestation because we've grown up with mice in our classrooms and we're all used to it. I'm not sure which one is worse: rats in the wall or being used to the rats in the wall.

Picture included: The front of my school-it can't even begin to describe the horror stories from within.

Sincerely,
Luna Rose

The bell rings and everybody springs from their desks like a volt of electricity just pulsed through our seats. The teacher at the front of the room stops drawing triangles on the chalk board and sits down at the big desk at the front of the class, not saying anything else to the class such as a goodbye or a 'have a nice day' he just looks exhausted and done. I would too to be honest, if I had to teach geometry theorems to a calculus class.

I shut my notebook and put it in my school bag before standing out of my chair and following the rest of the class out of the room to get to my locker so that I can go home. Calculus is my last class of the day, so I just have to meet up with my friends so that we can go hang out somewhere to make this Monday a little less bland.

We meet by Jules' truck because he's the only one of us that has a car and actually drives to school. I live close enough to the school so that I can walk and Faith lives close enough to Jules that she can walk to his house and he'll take her to school but Cece, Tasha, and Grey all have to take the bus to school. Most of the time though, we'll all go somewhere after school unless we have to work (most of the time, to the Ronlux building) and Jules will drive us all home.

Today, I'm the first one to arrive at the truck in the student parking lot so I hop into the bed of the big white vehicle and wait for everybody else to arrive. I don't know everybody's work schedule so I don't know who is going to be able to hang out tonight but I wish that they'd hurry up because it's freezing out right now.

The first person that I see approaching the truck is Grey and he greets me with a wide smile before hopping into the back of the truck with me.

"You look lonely," He observes, scratching his head through his shaggy-but-kind-of-short dark brown hair and then he looks at me with his stunningly gray eyes. I've always loved his eyes because they remind me of storm clouds, always threatening to burst.

"What's taking you guys so long?" I demand, pulling my arms closer to my body to stay warm. "I'm freezing my ass off."

"Well, I just saw Tash and she's got to work, so she's not coming," He informs me. "But as for everybody else, I have no idea. Jules is probably still talking to Riley, because you know that they're going out again this weekend."

"Ew," I cringe. "You should talk to him about that- you know, guy to guy or whatever- he could do so much better than that girl."

"He doesn't want to do better, he just wants to get laid," He tells me with a loud laugh. "He's a big kid, Luna, he knows what he's doing. I mean, look at us, right? None of our friends approved of us getting together but we didn't listen to them and now look at us."

"Yeah," I grumble. "Happy as ever."

"All I'm saying is that he can handle himself, and if he wants to risk an STD to get with Riley, then so be it. You never know, it could be love," He says with a small shrug.

"We're not in love," I remind him with a dead stare.

"I know that," He says, laughing again as if he has no problem at all in the world. Totally carefree. "I was talking about Jules and Riley."

"But you were comparing them to us," I add. "So if you think that they could fall in love, then you shouldn't compare them to us."

"We could fall in love someday," Grey says, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and I almost push him off but it kind of makes me warmer, so I just lean into him and let it happen.

"You don't really believe that," I tell him. "And I don't either. This is not where people go to find love. This place is where love goes to die. Nobody falls in love here."

"Your problem is that you're too pessimistic," He says with an admonishing tsk. "I know that we're not going to fall in love, but I wouldn't go as far to say that love doesn't exist."

"I would," I refute.

"What are you guys talking about?" Faith joins us in the back of the truck with a curious look on her face.

"We're back on the subject of Jules and Riley," I inform her, deciding not to get her involved in our debate about the existence of love because that conversation is too deep for a Monday afternoon. I'm actually really glad that Faith showed up so that we don't have to talk about it anymore. "They're going out again this weekend."

"Really?" She makes a disgusted face as she sits down on the other side of me so that I'm sandwiched in between Faith and Grey. "Didn't they go out last weekend? Did he not get what he wanted or does he want more? What's wrong with him?"

"Grey thinks that they're in love," I inform her.

"I do not," He scoffs in his defense. "I'm just saying that you guys need to give him some space. He's just horny and if none of you are willing to relieve him, he has to do something. And he could do worse than Riley."

"But he could do better," Faith refutes. "But fine. He can do whatever he wants to do. Speaking of Jules, where is he? I got held up by my English class so I figured that I'd be the last one out here."

"The theory is that he's talking to Riley," I add. "But he needs to hurry before I just break through one of the windows to get inside, it's so cold out here."

"Well, it is November," Grey confirms sarcastically. "I think that cold is expected."

"That doesn't mean that I have to like it," I huff, exhaling and I can see my breath form a fog as it leaves my lips, which is the sign that it is too cold to be outside for this long and that Jules needs to hurry up and get out here.

"Look, there they are," Faith sighs, motioning toward the school where both Jules and Cece are exiting the building and making their way to the truck that we're sitting in.

"It's about time," I mumble irritatedly from my frozen lips.

"Somebody is really grumpy today," Grey observes, teasingly pulling me even closer to his side and I just push him off of me, not in the mood to joke because I'm so sick of the cold and also the idea of living with my mom's new boyfriend is still tugging on my mind and it's just putting me in a not-so-awesome mood right now.

"I'm just as grumpy as usual," I assure him with a sarcastic smile. "So kindly fuck off."

"Whoa, so much hostility, Luna," Jules admonishes me as he and Cece are approaching the truck. I hop out of the bed of the truck, eager to get into the cab to get warm.

"Whatever, just get me in the truck," I demand, waiting impatiently for him to unlock the truck so that I can get inside. When he does, I instantly claim the passenger seat and then Faith, Grey, and Cece all climb into the back row of seats, which are smaller and kind of uncomfortable with three people squeezed back there.

"So, where are we going today?" Jules asks us as he's starting the car and then I put my hands by the heat vents, waiting for the air to heat up to warm my frozen fingers.

"Not to the Ronlux," I say quickly. "Somewhere with heat."

"Okay, so how about my place? My dad is still at work, so it's empty," Cece suggests from the back seat and Jules seems to agree with that, so he nods and then puts the car in reverse to get out of the parking lot so that we can go over to Cece's house. Cece's neighborhood is small and less trashy than the rest of this part of the city, but it's still trashy and sketchy. All of the houses here are run down and would cost a fortune to repair. They leak when it rains, there's rust and mold and infestations, the doors fall off of the hinges. But they're still bigger and better than the apartment that I'm crammed into with my mom and brother and now, David.

Cece only lives with her father but her mom lives about half an hour away in a suburb on the southern side of the city. Her mom is in the middle class but when she divorced Cece's father, she totally cleaned him out and so he had to move here. She got all of the money but he got Cece and child support, which he spends on whiskey and chew every month.

"We can't smoke in here though," Cece adds once we get inside and head to her room, which is pretty small but we can all easily cram into the room. I'm sitting on the bed with Grey, Cece, and Faith. Jules is sitting in Cece's desk chair because there's no room for him on the twin bed. "My dad can smell the shit like a bloodhound."

"No fun," I decide, looking around the room even though I've been in here plenty of times before. The walls are mostly covered with posters and original artwork of Cece's and then there's a twin bed on the right hand wall, a desk on the left, and a dresser on the back wall with a mirror on the back of it. That's all that fits in her room because it's so small.

"Just ignore her, she's being very grumpy today," Grey adds, motioning toward me with a teasing smile and I just roll my eyes at him to show him that I'm not amused.

"Did something happen?" Cece wonders, pulling out one of her sketch books from the side of her bed and then she starts pulling her short blonde hair into a stubby pony tail.

I just shrug, really wishing that we could smoke right now. "Not really. My mom has a new boyfriend now though. His name is David and he's living with us."

"Ouch. That's seriously creepy," Faith comments, slipping out of her heavy coat and then her sneakers and then she tucks the shoes under the bed so that they're not in the way.

"I know," I agree.

"Wait, how is that creepy?" Grey wonders with raised eyebrows. "He's your mother's boyfriend, so he's obviously not into you like that."

I scoff at the surprising innocence of Grey. "Have you ever met a grown man? You'd be surprised at how many of my mom's boyfriends have tried to cop a feel. It's disgusting."

"Same here," Cece adds, not looking up from her sketch pad as she gets to work. "Except, they're my dad's friends and coworkers whenever they come to the house. I really feel bad for you, Luna, I don't know what I'd do if I had to live with one of those creeps."

"Do you want me to kick his ass, Lune?" Jules asks me, leaning forward in the desk chair to rest his elbows on his knees. "Because I will if you want me to."

"No, but thanks," I say, flashing him a grateful smile. "I just don't like him is all. He seems slimy."

"That's judgmental," Grey accuses me.

"No, that's realistic," I defend, sliding my coat off of my shoulders and I let it slump to a pile of fabric behind my back. "And it's cautious. I swear to god, Grey, you'd never survive in this world if you were a chick."

"You're probably right," He agrees with a small shrug. "But can you really blame him for wanting to touch your boobs? You do have a magnificent rack."

I glare at the boy sitting beside me and then I lift my hand and punch his thin bicep. "Fuck you, Grey. Just because you have a nice dick doesn't mean that it's okay for everybody to just randomly grab it when they want to."

This makes him grin, which is what I should have known that it would. "Babe, you can grab my dick anytime you want."

"That's not what I meant. And don't call me babe," I refute, pushing him off of me when he tries to lean over and kiss my cheek. "You're such a jerk."

"Okay children, please," Faith interrupts. "We need to talk about what kind of weekend plans we have."

We hang out at Cece's house for quite some time but eventually, her dad comes home at about nine o'clock and so we decide that parent's supervision is boring so we all say goodbye to Cece and Jules drives us all to our respective homes. Once I get home and inside of the apartment, I see David sitting in the living room watching a talk show on TV and I almost physically cringe.

When I walk in, he looks up at me and grins a wide, creepy grin. "Hi, Luna. Can we talk for a minute?"

"Uh. Sure," I mumble, wishing that I could just slowly step back outside and get back in Jules' truck and never come back to this apartment again until David was gone. I don't know why but I just really don't like him.

"Come sit," He invites me to the couch, patting the cushion beside him. I can almost see my reflection in his balding head.

"I'm good, thanks," I assure him, staying standing and I look down to make sure that my coat is completely zipped up to hide my chest from his view. Just to be safe.

"Alright. Well, look. The thing is that I get the sense from you that you aren't thrilled about me staying here," He tells me and he sounds like he's some sort of psychiatrist or something, ready to talk about my feelings and past bad memories and crap like that.

"Really? You do?" I wonder, trying to hide my sarcasm but it's hard to do, so I'm not sure if he can sense it or not. If he can, he doesn't let it show.

"I do," He confirms. "And I just want to let you know that I'm not going to hurt your mother. I really like her."

"I'm not worried about my mom," I tell him, shaking my head. "Is she home?"

"Nope, she went out for a couple of hours but she'll be back soon," He tells me.

"What about Nathan?" I wonder, hoping that at least one of them is home so that I don't feel so secluded with this stranger in my house.

"He's out too," David assures me with another wide grin and it sends an awful shiver down my spine. "It's just you and me, kiddo."

"Awesome," I sigh, knowing that he has to have heard the sarcasm in that comment because I didn't even try to hide it. "Well, I'll talk to you later then, David. It was nice chatting with you."

"Wait, Luna, I still don't think we resolved our issue," He speaks up abruptly before I can get to the stairs, and then he stands up and starts stepping closer to me.

"What issue?" I ask him with raised eyebrows, looking around the room for potential weapons to use against him if he's about to attack me or something. Some say paranoid, others say safe.

"I don't think that you like me very much," He says, reaching out and putting a hand on my shoulder. I look down at his hand in distaste but he doesn't get the hint and his hand just stays there.

"Well, don't take it personally. I don't like anybody," I refute.

He laughs a smoky, quiet laugh. "I don't think that's true, Luna. You seem like a sweet girl."

"How would you know?" I ask him, cocking my head to the side and I step back so that his hand falls off of my shoulder and so that I can go upstairs to lock myself in my room until somebody else gets home. Not that my mom or Nathan would come to my rescue if David tried something, but it's less likely that he'll try something if somebody else is here. "I don't even know you."

"True," He agrees with me, stepping toward me again and I step back to keep a distance between us. "You're just so beautiful that I doubt that you can be anything but sweet."

"I can be a lot of things, David. And sweet isn't one of them," I assure him before I run up the stairs, taking them two at a time to get away from him as fast as I can and once I get in my room, I lock the door behind me and listen for his movements but I don't hear him come up the stairs after me, so I count my blessings and sit down on my bed to do my homework and to try and pretend that David doesn't even exist, because that'd make my life just a tad bit easier.