Why?

Why could a douche like Dwight expect that he’d get somebody as perfect as Rocky?

Why?

Why couldn’t I allow myself one moment of selfishness?

Before I could figure out the secret to life, the door to my bedroom burst open and a red-eyed, almost unrecognizable woman stumbled in. “Where’s your cash?”

Rocky stiffened at the sight of my mom and lifted her drawing board higher, as if trying to shield herself. I rolled my chair in front of her protectively despite knowing my mom would never lay a hand on her. I would never let her get that far.

“I don’t have any cash, Mom. Now please leave my room,” I said in a calm voice.

“Bullshit. I saw some cash lying inside your underwear drawer the other day!”

The fact that she was nosing around in my boxer drawer overshadowed the embarrassment I felt with Rocky watching this whole exchange. I lifted my chin and tried to keep a stone cold face. “Then you’d know that it was only three bucks and I spent that on lunch at school.”

“Bullshit,” she repeated, glaring at me.

I expected her to leave, but when she didn’t, I knew I had no choice. I fished inside my pocket looking for my last five dollar bill.

Rocky gasped. “No, don’t.”

Now that got my mother’s attention. “Who do you think you are, hussy? Do you really think you have a right to tell my son what to do? I am his muth-dddeerrrr.”

I felt as if smoke was about to escape my ears. I jumped to my feet and stomped my way over to the door. “She has more right than you do. Here.” I shoved the bill into Mom’s hands. “Now go.”

As if a light switch was flipped off, Mom’s face went from murderous to ecstatic. She quickly exited the room, but even her absence didn’t alleviate my mood. I slammed the door loudly and threw myself back onto my chair in time to spot Rocky discreetly shoving her stuff back into her bag.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

She smiled sheepishly. “Um, I think I should go. Let’s finish this up another time.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t have to tell you why.”

My jaw clenched as I worked my teeth around inside my mouth. Everything in my life was so fucked up. Just when I thought I had a moment of pure normalcy, my mother had to ruin things again. Without thinking, I reached over to grab a half-empty bottle of whiskey from my desk.

Rocky stopped what she was doing and threw me a disappointed look.

“What?” I muttered, unscrewing the black cap. The familiar scent both calmed me and made me want to hurl.

“I think you need to take care of yourself for once…none of this reckless stuff anymore.” She pointed to an empty beer can in my waste basket and sighed. “Don’t turn into her.”

Of course I’d never turn into her. The thought was not only ridiculous, but damn near impossible! Regardless, I found myself screwing the lid back on to appease my best friend. “For the record, I do take care of myself. I eat. I brush my teeth.”

She bowed her head and sighed. “We both know that’s not what I mean. Be happy, Jesse. I know you’re not. That’s why you’re always running around getting into trouble all the time.”

“Happy? How do you expect me to do that? Have you seen my life?” I gestured around and smirked. “Not that easy, Rocky.”

She took a deep breath. “You can at least try to act normal. I mean, what do kids our age usually do?”

“I don’t know…get all hyped up about homecoming, I guess.” I glanced up and noticed a hopeful look in Rocky’s eyes. I frowned. “But we’re not like everybody else. We don’t do stuff like that.”

“And why not?”

“Because…”

“That’s not an answer. We’re seniors, Jesse. Now’s the time to take part in all that dumb high school stuff and stop trying so hard to be different.” Her shoulders bounced. “Besides, what girl wouldn’t want to go to a dance?”

Dumbfounded, I stared at Rocky curiously. “You don’t really want to go to homecoming, do you?”

Her eyes widened. “Yes! I’d love to go!”

My mouth dropped open. “Wait, what?”

“I totally wanted to ask you, but I thought you’d think it was stupid.” She paused and cleared her throat. “I mean, to go as friends of course.”

“Friends,” I repeated.

“Yeah…” Rocky’s face fell for a moment before brightening. “We’ll have a lot of fun. We’ll be normal kids.”

I let a puff of air out of my nostrils. “How would I know what normal is?”

Chapter 4

“So you want to go to the dance?” Mr. Elliott folded his hands together, creating a steeple with his index fingers. Resting his nose on the makeshift tower, he exhaled lengthily. “I thought Jesse Tyler didn’t do dances.”

Crap. He really was going to drag this out.

“He doesn’t, but his best friend does.”

“Raquel Rossi?” The vice principal’s eyebrows rose in surprise. His interest seemingly piqued, he leaned over like a star-crazed paparazzi photographer. I wondered if my affection for her was more obvious than I assumed.

I nodded. “Yes, Rocky.”

He pursed his lips. “I spoke to Miss McMillan today. She speaks quite highly of you.”

“As she should,” I replied smugly.

Mr. Elliott pursed his lips. “I’m glad to see you’re listening to my advice.”

“It wasn’t advice, it was a punishment, right?” I crossed my arms over my chest, then, thinking better of it, relaxed them to my sides. I was asking a favor—something I hated to do—and I needed to play nice.

“Nevertheless…she seems quite smitten by you…I mean smitten in the most respectable term, of course.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Just what BFHS needed—a sex scandal. I smirked. “Yeah, the class is definitely fun.”

Let’s throw an innuendo there to make him squirm.

He nodded his head slowly. “Seeing as you are taking your punishment seriously, I’ll lift my ban on the dance if you promise to stick to the club for at least a semester.”

My heart jumped in jubilation. “Thank you.”

“Suffice it to say, you don’t get into any more trouble before then, hmm?”

I nodded, though deep inside I knew it was a promise I couldn’t—wouldn’t—be able to keep.

***

“We’re going to homecoming!” Rocky practically shrieked at Stephanie, who stared at us in bewilderment.

“What? Since when?” She eyed us suspiciously. “This has got to be a joke, right?”

Rocky bounced from one foot to the other, a ball of nervous and excited energy ready to burst. “No, not a joke. We decided just last night. Isn’t this exciting? I get to buy a dress and get my hair done.”

As Rocky continued to ramble on, Stephanie lifted an eyebrow in confusion. “Wait, last night? What were you two doing last night?”

“We—”

“Ran off to the courthouse and eloped,” I interjected with a wink.

Stephanie was not amused. “So you guys ditched me. Again.”

“We didn’t get married, Steph,” Rocky said quietly.

“Duh, I’m not an idiot,” she replied with a laugh. “Anyway, what am I going to do now?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning into my locker. I purposely allowed my shoulder to rub against Rocky’s and reveled in the way the contact made her quiver.

Stephanie groaned in exasperation. “We never go to dances. I was kinda looking forward to stuffing my face with pizza and watching Weekend at Bernie’s like we always do! You know, so we don’t have to worry about stupid high school dances?”

Crap. In all the excitement, I had forgotten about our stupid tradition of pizza and a bad eighties flick on dance night. It was an unspoken pact between the three of us to spend time away from the student body we all hated so much. Then again, it was mostly an excuse for three outcasts—the quiet bad boy, geeky art student, and unpopular brainiac—to avoid the unwanted pressure of attending. Well, every tradition had to be broken sooner or later, right?