Neither Trevor nor Chelsea looked at the name of the restaurant they found after wandering the area for at least an hour and a half. They briefly looked in and saw an open table amongst people happily dining. It was near capacity and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves with plenty of food and drink. A perfect place for their first meal together.

Trevor pulled the door open and placed his right hand at the small of her back as he guided her in then followed Chelsea through. She paused just beyond the door to make the moment last just a few seconds longer. As he moved in beside her, his hand slid into place on her opposite hip. She felt like they were a couple, like they were on a date. She smiled effortlessly.

The waiter on the far side of the room gestured towards the open table and waited for them to take their seats. Trevor pulled one of the two chairs out from the table and offered it to Chelsea then ordered a beer before he had even seated himself.

"You seem to know your way around. Do you come to Barcelona a lot?" Chelsea asked.

"Only been here once," Trevor said as he opened a menu. "I was thirteen. I came here with my dad. Do you want to share an appetizer? That looks good."

Chelsea looked to her left, to where Trevor's eyes had indicated. The waiter arrived with their drinks and blocked her view before she could see the pan of garlic sautéed shrimp on the table beside her.

"I'd like that," Trevor said to the waiter as he pointed to the dish on the neighboring table.

"That does look good," Chelsea said once the waiter had walked away.

She looked back towards Trevor and noticed a good portion of his beer was already gone in the short time she took to assess the contents of the proposed starter plate. She smiled and took a sip of her Coke.

They silently browsed the menus and ordered when the waiter returned a few minutes later. Trevor ordered a second beer.

"You know, I don't even know your full name," Trevor said to break the silence. "Chelsea—"

"Bales..." She replied.

"You're in, what, tenth grade?"

"Yes," She said as she glanced down at the cutlery in front of her.

Trevor nodded silently, "So then... fifteen? Sixteen?"

"I just turned sixteen"—she fidgeted with her napkin—"a couple weeks ago."

"Oh! Happy belated birthday. I'm Trevor Leland, as you probably already know, turned eighteen a month and a half ago."

"I know... I saw the cake your friends brought in for you. I signed the card too, when it got passed around the cafeteria," Chelsea replied.

"So, what do you do when you're not jetting off to Europe for vacation?" he asked.

A blank look took over Chelsea's face, "Not much, really."

"I always see Stacy at the parties, but I never see you, except that one. You don't have off campus permission?"

"No, it's not that... I went to the Halloween and New Years dances! Well, sort of... I usually leave early."

"I saw you at Halloween; some sort of goth ballerina. I thought it was a zombie thing, but someone said goth."

"You were right. Zombie ballerina."

"See, I told them. Where'd you get the idea?"

"Shelly, Stacy's roommate, showed me a picture from a dance competition. She was wearing black, she had injured her ankle but still won some sort of award, so she was crying. She said she had been there for something like four days straight, twelve hours each day or something crazy like that. Anyway, her makeup was running, and she looked dead. She had a cup of coffee in her hand and all I could think of was her walking like a zombie, limping and dragging her foot, 'cause of her ankle, and saying, coffee... coffee," Chelsea said, switching into her best zombie voice.

"Brilliant!"

"She lent me the grey leotard and skirt and some old tights with holes... She had her mother courier them to the school. Anyway, we were in the commons and Mrs. Robertson kept trying to fix my bun... she was like, 'that's not a proper ballet bun, dear'. She couldn't understand why I wanted it falling out and messy. I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get it the way I wanted it and she was trying to make it all proper. Then my Tim Horton's coffee cup fell on the floor and someone stepped on it, so..."

"Tim's, I loved that place. Too bad they closed them all. Mmmmm, Boston Cream was my fav."

"Yeah, mine too. I think it was just the ones in Maine that closed," Chelsea replied. "Anyway, it was kind of a lame costume, I know. Everyone else was a sexy this or slutty that and there I was, just a zombie without a coffee."

"No, it was wicked awesome!" Trevor said. "Stacy was a zombie too, right? Like a zombie prostitute or something."

Chelsea laughed and, while Trevor lifted his beer glass to his lips, replied, "Well, funny you should say that. She was just going for a sexy zombie look. But, well, she didn't talk to me most of the night after I— accidentally —told her she looked like the streetwalking dead."

Trevor's snorted and scrambled for his napkin. When he finally brought his laughter under control and looked across the table at Chelsea, she could see she had brought him to tears with her description of Stacy's costume. She smiled and sank into a comfortable and confident feeling that was foreign to her.

"I'm sorry, I just... I got beer coming out my nose. I never expected you to say something like that," Trevor said as stretched and distorted his face while sniffling and wiping his eyes. "Who ever says street walker these days?"

"Mrs. Peterson used to say it when she was complaining about girls in short skirts and things..."

"What about off campus... house party type things?" he asked after he had regained his composure.

"No. I went to a couple but I don't get invited. Not that I would go, if I was... I just don't... I end up babysitting Stacy."

"Seriously? Half the people at any party aren't invited," Trevor replied. "And why do you have to be Stacy's guardian?"

"You've seen her. She get's drunk and does stuff. She get's crazy," Chelsea replied.

"She does all that stuff even if you're not there," he replied. "I can't tell you how many time's I've seen her... bra. But I get it. It can be hard to relax and just let it go."

After the garlic shrimp plate and Trevor's second beer arrived at the table, a brief pause to inspect the appetizer allowed Chelsea to divert the conversation away from her non-existent social life, "I've never had shrimp like this before."

"Well, here's to new experiences!" Trevor said as he raised one of the shrimps from the plate.

"To new experiences," Chelsea replied as she lifted a shrimp and tapped it against the one in Trevor's hand.

They savoured the appetizers for a moment before the conversation resumed.

"Did you spend a lot of time here with your dad?" Chelsea asked after she wiped her lips with her napkin.

Trevor downed a quarter of the beer with one tip of the glass then replied, "No. One day. My stepmother went into early labor with my brother, like, a month and a half early or something. So, the trip was cut short. Very short."

"Oh. Sorry. You just seem to know— Like, the train, you knew which one and where to get off, and right to the hotel without a map. I'm sorry, I just thought, or well, it seems like you know the city really well."

"I'll confess, I tend to do a bunch of research on places. Like, when I was thirteen, I spend two weeks or whatever, reading up on all the places we were supposed to go. I didn't do any of my school assignments, I stayed up late looking at maps and reading tourist guidebooks. Like, when I thought I was going to Australia, I spent days researching things and. But, obviously that didn't happen. So, even though I don't plan to do much touristy stuff on this trip, I still did a bunch of reading. As for the trains, when I go back home to Boston, I take the T whenever I go anywhere."

"Really? That was the first time I ever took a train."

"Serious? That's messed up! I'll have you navigating the Metro in no time."

When the waiter returned to clear the appetizer pan and plates from the table, Trevor ordered another beer then excused himself to find the restroom. He stood beside his chair after returning from the lavatory and tipped back the remaining bit of his beer then handed the empty glass to the waiter as the full replacement was set on the table. He remained standing for a moment and surveyed the restaurant patrons.

"There are some fine-looking ladies in this city, present company included," Trevor said as he returned to his seat.

Chelsea blushed and looked down at her napkin on her lap. She had noticed a number of beautiful women on their walk and around her in the restaurant. A pleasant feeling made her giddy. He had included her in his comment about these beautiful women.

"Okay, so the rule is; if I hook up with someone, you're hanging out on the sofa in the lobby, just for a little while," he said, his word slurring slightly.

Chelsea nodded. Her eyes looked around, darting left and right, not fixating on anything but avoiding him completely. The little bit of a high she was on since he took her hand in the street and touched her back as they entered the restaurant, was gone. Even the reinforcement she gained from being included in the group of beautiful women he saw around him was whisked away by the clarification of 'the rule'. She was reminded she was just tagging along. She was with him, but not by his choosing, and not in the way she had hoped. Despite altering her kilt and how she wore her blouse and hair, he was apparently not interested in her enough to ignore the possibility of hooking up with someone else.

After finishing his meal, Trevor switched to drinking sangria, which flowed at a faster rate than the beer. Chelsea continued to sip on Coke or water and had never regained any of the earlier feeling of being on a date with him.

"Okay, so... You want to know about me. You want to know why I'm here? Why I'm not in Australia," Trevor said. "It's 'cause my family can't stand me. My stepmother, she hates me. My dad, he's got a new son and new daughter, so he doesn't need me. Never needed me. Th— That's why I been in boarding schools since seven— I was seven. Mom left, she didn't want me, either."

Chelsea looked at Trevor, held his gaze for a moment and saw the broken person she had seen in the commons almost two weeks earlier. His eyes sank towards the table while his hand fumbled towards his drink. The free-flowing alcohol had washed away most of the new and pleasant Trevor that guided her through the streets to this place.

"That vacation. When my dad brought me here before. Not a vacation, at... all... Stupid me, I thought he actually wanted t' bring me. —business trip. He... He told me, right after he told me I wasn't goin' Australia with 'm. Oh, and then Facebook, she puts a picture, Family Vacation. I'm not family."

Half a glass of sangria emptied into Trevor in a single pull. His speech sank to low mumbles then sprang up to clear highs. Chelsea wanted to ask him to stop drinking but didn't dare interfere.

"Fuck him! I don't need him. You know how I know she hates me?"

Chelsea figured he was now talking about his stepmother and waited for him to continue with his explanation. She held his gaze again until he scanned the restaurant for the waiter.

"Another, my good sir," he said as he pointed to the empty glass. "I get it... I don't live there, much, but I'd like a fuck'n room. You know? First, my stuff got moved to a different room. They turned my bedroom into the nursery, for Pete. That's my little brother. I get it, need the big room for all that baby sh— stuff. Then my sister born; now my stuff's in the basement. My room, the small one, turned into a play area. Fuck'n house got four bedrooms upstairs an' I'm dumped in the basement."

"In the basement?"

"Yup! Like a big fam— family room down there, now that's where my shit lives. In the basement. Oh, now this is really shitty. I go and brush my teeth, leave my stuff in the bathroom, right. Next day, she cleans up and puts my toothbrush on my dresser. Next day, same thing. Like, what the f—? Like, what, 'you're a guest, keep your crap out of my place?' Some way to make me feel welcome... at home. It was my home before was hers."

Chelsea shook her head and looked at the center of the table.

Trevor looked towards Chelsea and twisted his lips into a smirk, then asked, "How 'bout your parents? Brothers? Sisters? Why you here, not with them? Your family as shitty as mine? Or, am I the only one that got screwed, here?"

"I don't... have any."

"No brothers or sisters? That's cool. Don't get me wrong, I love'm, but..."

"No," Chelsea paused. "My parents died when I was five. I... I don't have a family. I've lived at Well Stone ever since."

The look of anger that had dominated Trevor's face as he ranted about his family drained away. She watched his eyes slowly sink towards the table as he hesitated to speak, "Shit! Sorry dude... ahhh, sorry. Shit, you must think I'm an asshole, 'cause I am. You don't have... and here I'm complaining about my family, and you don't even..."

"That's okay. I get it. I understand what it's like, not feeling like you're a part of something; not really part of the family."

"Yeah... Wait, what do you mean you live at Well Stone? Like the rest of us live there or you mean, like, live there, like all year?" Trevor rambled.

"I live there, full time, all year. Ever since my parents died. Ten and a half years, now."

"That's your home? Shit! I'm just gonna to shut up now... Hey, let's get out of here. Oh, wait, here comes my drink. I finish this one, then we get out of here. What do ya say? Find some other place and get you shit faced too."

The last glass of sangria disappeared without the glass ever touching the table. Trevor paid the full bill with a generous tip and refused Chelsea's offer to cover her portion. She offered a second time then insisted on paying for breakfast in the morning.