Rocky opened her mouth to answer, but her voice came out deeper than expected. It took me a moment to realize the voice didn’t belong to her.

“Hey, you kids! What are you doing up there?” Heavy footsteps bounded toward us. Having had multiple brushes with the law, I knew exactly who those footsteps belonged to.

“Crap!” I jumped to my feet, underestimating the height of the concrete ceiling and bashing my head into it. “Ow!”

“Are you okay?” Rocky gasped, carefully making her way down the ramp.

“Don’t worry about me! Just run!”

Now, if I were alone I would have been up and gone already. There would have been no way the pig would have caught me. Unfortunately, Rocky wasn’t as stealthy as I could be. I watched in a panic as her foot caught into a tiny hole right where the sidewalk met the grass. She toppled to the ground, skinning her knees and hands in the process.

“Shit! Rocky, get up and run!” I yelped.

There was no running, however. The cop, who looked not much more than five years older than the both of us, appeared at her side, grabbing onto her arm. His cap was turned to the side, exposing his disheveled hair and sweat-stained face. Yup, if I were alone I so would have been able to outrun him. Jesse Tyler and the law did not have a good rap sheet.

He carefully pulled Rocky up and helped her to her feet. Glancing toward the ramp, he shot me a look of warning. “You better freeze, kiddo. You’re in big trouble.”

“Jesse, you can still run away,” Rocky hissed.

There was no way I was leaving her, and perhaps the cop could sense it too. He quietly eyed Rocky’s blood-stained jeans and shook his head solemnly.

“Are we going to jail?” Rocky whimpered.

Oh! How my heart broke at the look of fear on her face. Immediately I regretted every decision I made that morning—going to the bypass, letting Rocky tag along, skipping school…waking up.

The cop’s stone cold face crumbled instantly. His eyebrows furrowed at the sight of Rocky’s look of horror. In a calm tone, he clucked, “Come on, let’s get you two back to school. We’ll call your parents there and get you cleaned up.”

My eyebrows furrowed together. “We’re really getting off that easily?”

“Jesse!” Rocky snapped warningly.

My frown deepened. There had to be a catch. “With all due respect, I’m not used to being treated like this by…”

“By a cop?” He finished for me.

I nodded. “Why are you being so nice?”

His laugh was strained. “Believe me, kid, in my experience, dealing with parents is way worse than jail.”

***

“Rocky, how could you do this?” Mr. Rossi’s voice boomed loudly, rattling the glass windows that separated Mr. Elliott’s office from the main lobby. Rocky and her parents had been inside for almost twenty minutes, and let’s just say it was far from a peaceful meeting.

I clenched my fists together and shut my eyes, trying desperately to keep myself from barging through the closed door. Rocky shouldn’t be in this mess. She didn’t deserve any of it. My mother was right. I did nothing but drag her with me in my downward spiral.

When the door finally opened, I immediately jumped to my feet. Though all three adults stared at me with daggers of disdain, I didn’t notice any of them. My attention was solely on Rocky and her puffy, tear-stained face.

I did that to her.

“You!” Mr. Rossi stomped over to me, beer belly jiggling. Despite being almost a foot shorter, somehow he towered over me. “You better be ashamed of yourself! My daughter has never gotten into this much trouble until you showed up in her life.”

I didn’t reply. What could I say? It was the truth.

“Dad, stop it!” Rocky gasped between sobs.

“Be quiet, Raquel,” her father snapped. “You’re lucky Mr. Elliott is kind enough to allow you to make up the time in detention.”

Though he glared at her with as much ferocity as I’d imagine a rampant bull would give a red blanket, I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious. At least Rocky had parents who cared. What did I have?

As if just remembering my presence, Mr. Elliott stepped around father and daughter and pointed a finger at me. “Mr. Tyler. We’ve tried your mother a few times and unfortunately could not reach her.”

“You mean she didn’t care?” My tone oozed with sarcastic charm.

“Stop making it worse,” Rocky muttered under her breath.

Mr. Elliott frowned. “No matter. Her attendance is not necessary for your punishment. We spoke about this before, remember?”

Crap. I knew what was coming. I nodded silently as Rocky looked on in confusion.

“This is another strike to a long list of strikes.”

“Permanent records are fake,” I mumbled.

Rocky shut her eyes and shook her head. “Idiot.”

Mr. Elliott let out an exasperated sigh. “It is with utter disappointment that I’ll have to suspend you.”

Wow. Thought expulsion was coming.

“Suspension?” Rocky gasped. “But suspension means—”

“Automatic banishment from every dance for the year, yes.” Mr. Elliott never took his eyes off of me. That’s why he didn’t expel me! He knew how much this dance meant to me and just ripped it out from under me. This was far, far worse than being kicked out of school.

“Rocky and I already made plans to go to homecoming together,” I replied solemnly.

“Over my dead body!” Mr. Rossi interjected. “You are never going near my daughter again.”

I remained frozen, watching as Mr. Rossi herded Rocky out of the office. I internally groaned and shut my eyes. I really fucked this one up.

“Just let her go, son.”

My eyes snapped open. “What?”

Mr. Elliott shook his head slightly. “Let her go.”

Chapter 7

Me: How was school?

Rocky: Boring without you.

One week. It’s been one week of me stuck in the hell hole I called my house, and one week away from my friends. I cringed hearing my mother hawk up a loogie in the room next door, wishing that I was just in the middle of a bad dream. Desperate to lose myself, I picked up the phone once more.

Me: Has anybody been bothering you?

Rocky: If you’re talking about Dwight, yes.

Okay, maybe that was a bad way of losing myself. My blood boiled as my fingers took on a mind of its own.

Me: Tell me exactly what he did and don’t lie.

A few seconds ticked by with no answer. “Come on, Rocky. Stop thinking of a lie.”

Finally, after a few minutes my phone buzzed, and to my disappointment it was definitely not the answer I wanted to see.

Rocky: He asked me to homecoming.

Me: Did you tell him you had a date already?

Rocky: You mean the date that ditched me?

I couldn’t tell if the pain in my stomach was caused by irritation, guilt, or the leftover pork chop I found in the back of the fridge that night. I stared at my screen, typing, retyping, and erasing over and over again. Racking my brain for a response that wouldn’t piss my best friend off, I was relieved to hear the PING of her response.

Rocky: I said no of course.

I let out a sigh of relief and deleted my string of gibberish. Deciding I didn’t want to talk about the meathead anymore, I abruptly changed the subject to happier thoughts.

Me: Seeing as we BOTH don’t have dates, you wanna continue our cheesy movie night tradition? I’ll supply the popcorn ;)

Damn, a winky face emoticon? What’s happening to you, Jesse? I frowned as I watched three dots bounce across my screen. She was definitely typing something and hesitating. Hmm…