(Part Two, can be read as a stand-alone but you may want to read "Leggin' It" first).

There is a rule that people should live by. Something that I learnt only to soon. No matter how hard you try to tell yourself otherwise, you can never fully trust a person with your life. If you have another person’s life to protect, it would soon be, that it is just too much power for one person to handle, they go insane. They turn mad, turn to drugs, alcohol, and are soon found dead, lying in a gutter. You have to learn this rule as soon as possible. Or else you might find yourself going insane and finally fall off the edge of everything.
I could not sleep that night so I found myself listening to music. The usual stuff, I find myself hating every CD I have ever bought and find myself listening to my sister’s music. That night I lay through both Makabe and a hint of Keara Marsh. After that I find myself lingering around my room, I feel trapped like a prisoner and my head begins to hurt so I would rather not think of it. Especially when I see his face staring at me from the picture frame. Therefore, I just put it down on the desk and I no longer have to fear his eyes.
I sit down at my desk and look at myself in the mirror. I am going to have bags under my eyes for tomorrow, the one day I have to stand up in front of the class and give a speech on a fake business we had to make up. I cannot stand my business class, not just the people in it, but also the teacher to. I mean, he is a great guy and all but I find it so boring that often drift off into my own world where business does not even exist. It is just easier that way.
I hear my friends talking in my head when I think of business. That’s all they ever do and I find myself excluded as I write from the textbook for them to copy when the conversation dies down. I would be waiting, and daydreaming that I would see him again. The love of my life. That was then. Before he went and topped himself on drugs. I hated him for it, but missed him every day because of it.
I had got home rather late last night, I was out with some of my friend before they decided to ditch me and hook up with guys they met that night. So I called my brother, and waited. It took him forever but finally he arrived and I knew I’d get an earful.
- Don’t you ever think of anyone besides yourself? He yelled at me as he drove through the rain. He scared me more than usual but I knew he had a bad temper. I tried to settle him down and explain what happened but he would not have a bar of it.
- Ashley and the others just left without me, I try and explain but he continues to cut me off.
-I do not really care what Ashley and the other do, he tells me, Dad told me to look after you while he is away. I cannot let anything happen to you or otherwise he would have my head. You know that.
I nodded and looked away. I understood what he meant; ever since our mother died when we were younger, it had just been us three. Our father was always away on business, and would occasionally leave us with our aunt, but ever since we started high school, he gave us more responsibility and we found ourselves living on our own.
Jake was born a year before me, and so he always took the initiative of being the overprotective older brother. I mean, I loved him, yeah, but sometimes he overdid it with the whole, “I’m your big brother, you should listen to me every once in a while” speech that he got off on every time I came home late or failed an assignment. Ellie was born three years after, two years before the death of my mother. She resembled her so much that it scared my father. She had beautiful reddish blonde hair and deep blue eyes, her complexion was unique, for a red head at least because it was not pale, it was dark and sun tanned, almost looking unnatural on her.
In the morning, after several restless hours, I found myself on the bus to school. I always caught the early bus while Ellie and Jake caught the late bus, which left approximately forty-five minutes later. I sit near the back, out of the way of the nerds who corralled at the front, the emos, which found there way in the middle and then the jocks who sat up the back. I was neither one, I found myself torn between the two, sort of like a loner. I found an empty seat and I just sat in it. I pulled out my book and began to read. The words of Steinbeck filled my head and for that instance I felt myself fully immersed, I did not even notice the boy who sat beside me. His name was Mark; he was one of Jake’s friends and captain of the basketball team. Most people thought he was perfect in every way, yet I thought differently. There was something about Mark that was dark, something that he put up a masquerade for, so nobody could see his true self. We talked a lot, I found his conversations riveting and we soon found ourselves talking about philosophy and the world, where we wanted to travel, what we wanted to do. What music we were into, what movies and TV shows we liked to watch. I could tell him anything.
- Hey, I murmured to him as he sat beside me. He had a gloomy face, blonde hair and blue eyes, but today the once sky blue now were dark, with red rings around them.
- Hey, he mumbled back as he shut his eyes and placed his finger on his nose, the baby will not sleep. When baby doesn’t sleep, I do not sleep.
Mark’s sister had just had a baby girl only about a month ago. The guy ran off when he found out she was pregnant and now Mark and his family helped raise the kid.
- Oh I’m sorry, must be kinda bad huh? I offered some sort of support, putting my bookmark, an old train ticket, into the book and placing it on my lap. Mark seemed to take notice and asked what it was.
- East of Eden, I waved the book in his face before putting it back down in my lap.
- Oo, Steinbeck aye, he said coyly, “I must depend on hearsay, on old photographs, on stories told…”
He had quoted it perfectly; I was amazed that a guy like him was into Steinbeck, I just had to ask him, how do you know that?
- My father loved Steinbeck; he had every one of his books in this huge bookcase. So when he left us, I said I’d read every single book he had, and make up for what my brothers were going to miss.
- Wow, I mean, I couldn’t shut myself up, my mouth just kept talking as it always did, what is your favourite one? Everyone says it is the Grapes of Wrath; personally, East of Eden is my all time favourite.
He laughed at me, as he played with his hair, The Pearl. I loved The Pearl.
- The Pearl? I raised my eyebrow and laughed at him. The Pearl was perhaps my least favourite of all of Steinbeck’s works. I enjoyed it, but not as much as his other’s. Mark just keeps looking forward, he never really looked me in the eye, and then again, maybe I was just paranoid. I looked forward as the bus stopped and let on a group of kids from the same school. At the back was one I recognized. His name was Tad, he was a loner, and nobody really talked him. I hated that nobody did and found myself pitying him. I often spoke to him in corridors but I never really got to know him. He was always shy, and would just be there. He had dark hair and glasses. His eyes were beady; people said he would make a great stalker just because of the way he looked. I hated how they could stereotype him like that but if I ever said anything then I would be the worst person in the world.
- He’s weird that one, Mark made a comment about him and I found myself taken aback, I asked him why.
- I don’t get him that’s all. Nobody does, he tells me with complete sophistication, he is not even sure himself what the real answer is, it just is, because everybody else thinks the same.
- So are you going to the Fakes? Mark asks me to shrug off the conversation about Tad. I shake my head, I wish I was going, I absolutely loved the Fakes. Its just I could not buy tickets and now all I had was their CD playing on my stereo and on my MP3 player. Mark tells me that he is not a big fan of them; he loves other music, like the Garage Motif and the Dark. He can quote any of his favourite song; I often end up listening to an earful of:

“Take it back, and never let go,
Fallen down, with no were to be,
Alone, again, taken away,
You follow me, you follow suit,
Another day, another reason,
Just leave it alone, and let me be,
In peace…”

It was a beautiful song, I’d give Mark that. I could not remember the title, I think he said it was “True” but I could not be sure. He had a beautiful voice, and I loved it when he sung it as he played his guitar whenever he slept over in Jake’s room. Jake hated anything Mark listened to; Mark probably hated all Jake’s music. Jake listened to heavy metal or stuff people would call emo. I said that to him but he just shrugged me off and told me to get lost.
- So are you playing a game this weekend? I ask him casually, at least trying to sound like I’m interested in basketball. It is probably at the bottom of my list of my favourite things to do, but that is not really the point.
- Nah, he tells me, I’ve been taken out of the lineup due to my knee. His knee was damaged in a car accident about three weeks earlier. It was not anything serious, but Mark came out with some serious swelling and some damage to his ligaments or something like that.
- That sucks, I tell him, you’ll be back on your feet in no time.
- How long is no time? He laughs.
- Depends on what you make of it. I reassure him, just remember to keep off it and rest up; it will be healed in no time.
- I wish it were that easy. He sounds disappointed.
- Just think, now you have more time to take me out to a movie or something, I smile at him.
- Is that an invitation? He smirks, I see the dimples in his cheeks and melt.
- It is what it is, I say to him without an answer, I know how to make him wait. I was killing him, and I loved it.
The bus pulls up outside our school and the kids start filing off as the fat bus driver sits impatiently. One day he even snapped at one of our teachers and I felt sorry for her. She had a blank look on her face and you could tell she was just about to cry. Yet as I walked off, watching Mark in front of me, I forget about everything that happened the night before. Especially that goofy guy I saw, he was drunk and talking about things I could not even recall.
I stepped of the bus, and into the school. The bell rang, and I sighed. It was just beginning.

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