....My father didn't drink as much then, so between the two of them they managed to get me to school and sports. Then my mother went totally off her meds and started getting into mind altering substances. Yeah, I'm the asshole who deals drugs after they wrecked his mother. But to be clear I don't sell anything except weed and painkillers. My mother would have been fine if she stayed away from the cocaine. For a while she came back every few months or so. Then once a year. The last time I saw her was when I was 14 and my dad started falling apart. She kept talking about this farm commune she moved to in Oregon and how great it was, that she'd take me and I could go to school there with all the hippy kids and how organic berries or whatever the hell they did. She bought me a giant ice cream sundae at Glenn's Diner, like I was 8 years old, and told me all about it. you'll love it, Nathaniel. Everyone is so accepting. Nobody labels you the way they do here. it sounded like bullshit even then, but better than Bayview. So I packed a bag, put Stan in his carrier, and waited for her on our front steps. I must have sat there half the night, like a complete fucking loser, before it finally dawned on me she wasn't going to show. Turned out that trip to Glenn's Diner was the last time I ever saw her.

Nate sits at the small desk in his bedroom, eating the rest of his leftover Chinese as he continued to sort through painkillers and weed that had gotten messed up. He froze when he felt two cold hands cover his eyes. Looking back he noticed you, his childhood best friend and his now girlfriend. You smiled and placed a gentle kiss to his forehead before sitting down on his bed, fixing your hair in the small pocket mirror you always kept with you.

"What are you doing here?"

Nate asked, leaning back and raising an eyebrow. You were always too busy to hangout after school. Either with your friends or your family or whatever bullshit you had to do.