Chapter 2: New Slang

"So?" Her eyes glowed with excitement.

"So what?"

"Are you gonna do something?"

"No. I think that's a really bad idea."

"What? Why?"

"Do you not see him?"

"How can you not?"

"That's a pretty good reason not to do anything."

"Fine. He's not going to leave you alone though." 

"Why?"

"I can just see it. You're like the perfect beta."

"What?"

She leaned in closer to me. Jesus. She gave me this mischievous grin. 

"He's into guys though."

"Great? What? Is he into me now? Wait. Why do you even care?"

"I don't know. You saw the group that I was in."

"That's like the cool group though."

"Not cool enough for me. Anyway I don't think they liked me either."

"Whatever. I'm not going to start anything."

"Fine."

The guy who pushed down my laptop never actually did what Naomi said he was going to do. A few days later he had to move to some military school cause his parents caught him holding hands with some other guy. It turned out he really was a closeted homosexual. I guess that was his way of hitting on me. But whether he was hitting on me or not, it didn't matter. I didn't have to do anything about it. And so that's how that whole thing ended. Naomi tried to make me start a fight and I said no. Pretty anti-climatic huh? But she did do something that day, she made the whole year a bit more tolerable. It wasn't the best way to start a friendship, but it was better than nothing. She stopped me from blending into the walls by giving me a new name. It was nice and simple. Miki. I never got around to asking her why she picked the name Miki. Out of all the names, Mike was probably the easiest to derive from Michael. But whatever. We kept each other company after that. Whatever happened to her party "friends"? Well, one of them got pregnant. That was another thing I wanted to ask her. Why did she leave them and just hang out with me? 

I'll probably never know.

I didn't realize it since I was off somewhere else but Naomi was tugging on my arm.

"Holy s**t dude. Stop staring into space. Oh my God."

"What?"

"The bell rang like a few seconds ago."

"It did?"

"Yes. Let's go to class. Where do you even go whenever you crawl inside your head?"

I paused and thought about it. 

"Do you really want to know?"

"Not really. But sure, why not?"

"Cats."

"Cats? Like cats cats?" She eyed me like I managed to get high this morning without her knowing. 

"Yes. Like cats cats."

"Wow, Miki. Are you okay? The nurse is on the way to Economics."

"No. I wasn't really thinking of cats." 

We got to the stairs, along with a few people, so I kept my voice a bit low.

"So. What were you really thinking about?"

"I don't know. I don't want to sound cheesy and weird about it."

"F*****g spit it out." She nudged me in the elbow since we were nearing economics.

"Alright. Alright. Jesus. How the hell did you go through High school without any teachers hearing? Do you seriously want to know that bad?"

"Well. You were being a little f*g about it, so now I want to know."

I took a deep breath and slowed down.

"You're not going to be weird about it right?"

"Me? You were like thinking about cats and now you're trying to play it off. How am I being weird?"

"Fine. Fine. I wasn't thinking about cats. I was, more or less," and at this point I was kinda softening my voice, "thinking about the first time we met."

She spun around and looked at me. Those brown eyes of hers. Suddenly a sly grin took her face. I paused and look back. Well? Say something. We stood there for a bit until we realized the econ teacher was watching us from her door. She told us that if we didn't hurry up, she'd close the door on us and we'd have to go to the office to get a pass. She shook her head a little and glared.

"I honestly have no idea how the other teachers deal with you two. If it was up to me, you two would be in suspension. Then you can spend the whole day together."

Naomi laughed. "We're already spending the day together tomorrow."

"That's cute Naomi. I'll make sure to draw a cat right next to it on your discipline notice."

"What? Come on. It's Friday. It's not like I cursed or anything." Which was actually a first.

We stood there outside the door for God knows how long. Richards was probably thinking about it. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know I'm there, since she looked at Naomi most of the time. I looked over inside and saw that everyone was watching the whole thing. All those eyes made me feel a bit squeamish.

"Fine. I'm going to let this one slide Naomi. Only because I don't want to waste anymore time."

"Awesome." 

After that whole debacle, nothing much happened in Econ. We learned the definition of scarcity and supply and demand. All that economic jargon which really wasn't enough to grab a hold of my attention. I was actually looking out the window most of the time. Richards didn't have much of an interesting voice so I didn't feel like torturing myself by trying to look interested. I didn't think anybody else did too. Maybe I'll just borrow Naomi's notes later. I looked over to see what she was doing and saw that she had her head in her notebook again. You know. And I've pretty sure I've noticed it numerous times before, but it's weird. There's some sort of juxtaposition with how she acted towards teachers and how she treated her class. That. And including the fact she can really  tear you a new a*****e if you piss her off. First of all, she wasn't the best person towards teachers she didn't like. But yet she took almost all her classes seriously. Except gym. Seriously. Who took that class seriously? But I'm surprised she was able to hold top spot since 9th grade with the way she acted towards the teachers. I guess there really wasn't a correlation between attitude and academic ability, in Naomi's case I guess. 

It didn't take me long to realize, but Kennedy was watching me the whole time. S**t. I forgot she was in this class. Honestly, I didn't feel like dealing with her since it was the beginning of the day. So I looked somewhere else. Did she really want to join us this Saturday? I mean. Don't get me wrong. She was kind of attractive. And as much as Naomi meant to me, I wouldn't mind getting high with another girl. But her parents though. Kennedy had the reputation of having a bible-thumping hell and brimstone preacher type of Dad. I'm surprised she even had a Facebook. I should tell Naomi to decline her offer. If she got caught, one, she'll probably get me and Naomi in trouble, and two, if singing "Amazing Grace" out of tune can piss off her Dad, then I wonder what would happen if she got caught with weed. I've seen her Dad before. Honestly I wouldn't drink cough syrup in front of him. For medicinal purposes of course. 

The class ended with a prayer. 

Just kidding. Richards assigned us our first project. She said since it was the beginning of the year and that we were seniors. Which was probably her way of saying that we went through a lot of s**t to get here. She was going to go easy on us. It wasn't much. Make a diagram about supply and demand. Which was just as interesting as her voice. But, it wasn't hard. So I didn't worry about it much. When class ended, I walked outside to wait for Naomi. For a few minutes she didn't come out, so I looked inside and saw that she was talking to Richards. Richards saw me and nodded in my direction. This made Naomi turn around and smile. She knew I was waiting so she said something to Richards and walked to the door.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Richards wanted to be friends."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"I thought you guys hated each other."

"Well. I mean yeah. We do. But she wanted to establish some of mutual respect. Honestly I couldn't care less, but I didn't want to deal with it. She said she wanted to start over. 'I was in the top of the class and I had a lot of potential' all that s**t. It was dumb."

"I'm a close second."

"Seriously? You're barely scraping in top 5."

We started walking towards our next class. Teachers nodded in our direction, but really, who didn't they nod at? Which reminded me, did Naomi ever notice that I never answered her question earlier this morning?

"Miki?"

"Yo."

"You know what I wanna do after school?"

"After school? You wanna do something? Don't you have after school stuff?"

"Yeah. I mean, I can just cancel and reschedule."

"Alright. Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's too boring for me there so I don't even know why I go. But I wanna buy food for tomorrow."

"Uh, yeah sure? I don't know if I can help with the money though. I'm kinda broke."

"It's cool." She slowed her walk down so I can catch up. "I'll treat you." 

"Really? You don't have to. I have a piggy bank at home. We can just," I paused, and realized no one owned piggybanks anymore. "Crack it open or something."

"A piggybank? People still have those?" At this point we were nearing English class.

"Yeah? It's pretty efficient."

"Yeah. Till someone breaks in your house and takes it. Why not just put it in a bank or something?"

"Yeah? And people can't break into banks?" It really wasn't a good reason. She wasn't looking at me but I knew she was waiting for an answer.

"Yeah but the difference between your room and a bank is that while a bank has security guards, your room has a 5'6'' 18-year old with no prerequisite self-defense training."

"Alright fine. I'll put it in a bank or something."

The day went on without much happening. And before I knew it, it was already lunch. On the way to the commons,  I saw Kennedy outside the bathroom. She saw me too and I'm pretty sure she wanted to talk to us. Naomi kept going but turned around when she saw that Kennedy was looking at us. She nudged me and said that we should go and talk to her about tomorrow. I'm going to be frank with it. I really wasn't crazy about the idea of Kennedy coming with us tomorrow, but Naomi felt some sort of obligation to have some closure in the issue so we ended up walking to Kennedy.

"Alright Kennedy. No need to be weird and watch us all day."

Kennedy looked up at Naomi and kinda shuffled her feet. You could tell she was a bit intimidated. Honestly I'd be intimidated too. I didn't say anything so I just stood back and watched. She then turned towards me.

"Hey Michael."

"Uh. Hey."

I looked at Kennedy and smiled weakly. Naomi turned around and I shrugged. She then turned around and faced Kennedy.

"Look. I don't know what your deal is, but if you wanna come tomorrow you can just ask."

When Naomi said that, Kennedy's eyes lighted up. Great. I was looking forward to actually spending the whole day with Naomi tomorrow but I guess that wasn't going to happen. 

"But." Naomi held up two fingers. "One. You shut the f**k up about this whole thing right? I don't wanna deal with s**t from anyone. Two. If you get caught, you fucked up. Not us."

Kennedy nodded. I don't know much about Kennedy other than what I've already mentioned before. If you ignored the fact that she attended church at least 5 times a week, she was just your typical school girl. So I had no idea why she wanted to come with us Saturday, but whatever. Me and Naomi kept walking after that while we kinda left Kennedy to herself, but the more I got closer to the commons, the more I imagined Kennedy just standing there by herself. Deja vu? It probably was. So I stopped and looked back down the hall.

"You think she wants to eat with us?"

Naomi paused. I could tell she was thinking about it. She glanced up at me and looked back down the hall again. I heard her sigh which lead to a sympathetic smile growing on her face.

"Yeah I think we should."

We walked back to the bathroom and saw that Kennedy was still there fixing her hair. When she saw us, she quickly patted down it down and finished.

"Yes?"

"Are you hungry Kennedy?"

"Kind of."

"Do you wanna eat with us?"

"Really? Is it okay?"

Naomi's smile got a bit larger.

"Yeah. I mean. You're coming with us Saturday, you might as well just hang out with us for a bit."

It was strange to see a bunch of emotions come by so quickly in one person's face. I didn't realize it but thinking about it now. Kennedy seemed to be a bit of a loner too. I've never seen her hang out with anyone else. Being the daughter of a massive bible-thumper really wouldn't garner you much friends, even within the Bible belt. 

So that was that. Kennedy ended up walking with us and down to the commons area. She wasn't a big talker and walked a bit slowly compared to me and Naomi. She watched us the whole time, but it wasn't creepy in anyway, it was more of a curious type of watching. Curious at the fact that how a guy like me and a girl like Naomi were able to become friends. Honestly, I don't know either. I'd watch us walking down the hall questioning the whole time too, thinking the whole time, how? 

We had to get a new spot since Kennedy was going to to join us for today. And then something came to mind. What is she going to do after Saturday? Is she still going to hang out with us? Or is she just going to start standing around by herself again? It took us a while to find a spot where we can sit and eat, since we got to the commons area pretty late. But when we did, I saw Kennedy take something out of her bag. It was a bento box. Wow. Who would've thought?

I nodded in her direction. "Wow a bento box. I didn't think you were the type."

"Oh. It was a gift actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah. My Dad doesn't know about it, but I'm actually a pretty big fan of Japanese things."

It surprised me at most and it seemed to surprise Naomi even more but she wanted to ask something that's been both on our minds.

"Alright, whatever, that's cute. Now why do you want to come with us Saturday?"

"Because, I want to try it."

"Weed?"

"Yes." She opened her bento and began eating. She offered some for us but I refused, I wasn't that hungry. Naomi did take some though.

"Really? Aren't you scared you'd go to Hell or something?"

Kennedy stopped eating for a few seconds and gave Naomi a look.

"I don't know. My Dad hasn't said anything about not smoking weed. But that's not the reason though."

"Maybe its because he's too busy telling people they'll go to Hell or something. Anyway that's your reason? You just want to try it?" Naomi sat back and looked at me "Miki Are you cool with this?"

I wasn't. Kennedy was a nice person, but it made me feel a bit uncomfortable letting her do this.

"Because if you say no,  I'll tell her to leave."

Kennedy kept eating but she kept her eyes on me.

"Are you sure about this Kennedy?" I asked. She nodded. "Well. I mean she seems like she really wants to do it. And besides, don't worry, it's my first time too, so why not."

Kennedy smiled. But there was one more thing I wanted to ask her.

"How about your Dad? What if he finds out? I'm going to be honest. I'm kinda uncomfortable about the whole thing."

Kennedy kept smiling and her eyes gleamed a bit. 

"Well. I guess I won't get caught then?"

"Whatever." Naomi interjected. "If you get caught, don't drag us into it."

"I won't." Kennedy blushed and paused for a second. "So, are you guys together?"

The question took Naomi off guard because she glanced up and looked at me.

"Hm. I don't know. Are we?" 

I didn't know what to say. I really didn't. When Naomi asked me, I ended up just sitting there with my eyes locked at the bento box. F**k. What do I say? I ended up slowly pointing towards the lunch line.

"So, what do you wanna eat Naomi?"

"No. Are we Miki?"

"Are we what?"

"You know what she said." I looked at Kennedy and then at Naomi who was eyeing me. F**k. The air started to get a bit tense and my eyes ended up locking down on the bento box again. What do I say? If I say no, what's Naomi going to say? If I say yes, f**k, what's going to even happen if I say yes? Will it start getting weird? I know. I know. It's been three years since we've been friends, so why not just go for it? That's the problem. Three years is a long time and I don't want to make it awkward. Isn't that usually what happened between long time friends? I thought about the chat I had with Kennedy last night about how I "liked" Naomi and how confident I was. And now that I'm actually about to answer the question, I was on the edge of shutting down. It's weird how Naomi can just ask it nonchalantly without worrying about what would happen if I said yes. But she eyed me with those brown eyes of her expecting some sort of answer. 

I managed to mumble something that I felt I would regret later.

"Not really"

"Well there you go Kennedy. We're not together."

What?

Was that it? She turned back to Kennedy and took a rice cake out of her bento box. All that psycholigical build up only for her to push it off? Were my feelings really that small to her? 

"There you have it. Wanna come with us to buy some food for tomorrow?" she said while chewed on her food. She seemed so okay with it. It was the opposite for me. What I mumbled felt empty and forced and it left my stomach feeling empty. But to the best of my ability, I put on a mask for the two of them to show that the answer didn't affect me either. But I think Naomi noticed because I saw her watching me. I looked back and smiled this fake smile at her.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. You're doing it again."

"The staring off into space thing?"

"Yeah."

Kennedy kept eating, not paying attention to the both of us. I don't think she noticed that me and Naomi were talking about what she just asked us. Or maybe she was ignoring us. It got a bit awkward between me and Naomi after that, because we stopped talking for the rest of the lunch period. Kennedy still didn't seem to notice that we stopped talking. For the rest of the lunch, it was like that. I'd open my mouth to say something to Naomi. Something to keep the awkward silence from taking us. But I ended up closing it because she'd look me with those brown eyes of hers, I'm sure what I said seemed to bother her too. The rest of the lunch ended without much of us talking. We got up and picked up our things to get ready for the next class, with Kennedy heading to a different class."

"We'll see you after school then Kennedy?"

"Yeah. Hey Michael. Can I call you Miki?"

"Uh. Yeah sure."

"Why do people call you that?

"Well you can ask Na-" I turned around and realized that she wasn't there anymore. F**k, where did she go? Kennedy noticed that Naomi was gone too.

"I don't think I should've asked that question."

"No. No. It's okay. It had to come out sooner or later." I smiled at her but then I remembered what she told me on Facebook. But when I turned around to face her, she was gone too. I slicked my hair back and said to myself. Well. I was right, right? It was going to happen sooner or later. There was going to be that time where someone was finally going to ask us, why we weren't going out. And I would f**k up an answer and screw up with Naomi. Whatever. Right now, I'm alone and I needed to get to class. It's weird actually. All this already happened, two days into the f*****g school year. 

Anyway, my next class is near all the other classes so I ended up taking the same route that I took on the way to English, History, and Bio. And in the middle of the hallway, I stopped and closed my eyes. To be honest, I felt like a complete retard just standing there in the middle of the hallway but I was hoping that I was going to hear Naomi's voice.  I felt like a pebble in the middle of a river, and it didn't take long until I ended up moving along with the current. It didn't take me that long to get to ITGS, it would've, but Naomi's not here, so I ended up walking without any distractions. I got to the stairs that led up to the classroom and walked against the wall. Along with Naomi, Kennedy didn't seem to be around either. When I got to the top of the stairs, I heard a voice.

"F*****g took you long enough."

I looked up and lo and behold, she was there holding the door for me. She smiled at me. I stood there for a while and looked at her. 

"You're doing it again Miki."

"What?"

"You're staring. Like I said, if you wanted to see me naked, you could just ask."

"I don't want to actually."

"Really? I can take offense to that." She walked up to me and wrapped her arms around my body. She looked up at me with those brown eyes of hers and then softly dug her face into my shirt and quietly she said.

"You know. If you don't want Kennedy coming with us, I can just tell her to 'f**k off'."

"No. Don't do that."

"Why? I saw what she put you through and wants you to stay away from me. What possible reason could you want her to come with us Saturday?"

"I don't know. I kinda wanna see where this is going."

"Alright. But if she ends up getting arrested and I end up hating you by the end of Saturday. It's your fault."

"Yolo right?"

"Yolo." She echoed. "I'm sorry she made you go through that."

"Hm?"

"When she asked you the question, I knew it was going to be a problem."

"Really? What? Then why'd you press the topic?"

"Well. I wanted to put up an act. And besides, it was kinda cute watching you. You were like cornered puppy."

"That's not cool. I practically shut down."

"I'm sorry." she gave me a small smile. "I went to the bathroom and decided to meet you in ITGS." She let go and we started walking again. She's been going to the bathroom after lunch for the past 3 years. I think she did it in middle school too, but I wouldn't know since I didn't know her back then. I didn't want to ask her what she did there, because, well, that'd be rude. As close as we were to each other, I don't think any amount of years of friendship can ever make asking a girl what she did in the bathroom, alright. But its cool, whatever she did in the bathroom though, it did make me wonder. We were usually open to each other about most of the things with our lives, but if she didn't outright tell me what she did in the bathroom, it must be something she didn't want me to know. I got really close to asking her yesterday, but she didn't get as far as telling that "she wanted to look good for me in the library." I knew it wasn't that. For one thing, she never went to the library and she wasn't the type to fix herself up. She didn't need to. She was just naturally pretty. I didn't think too much of it but I kept it in the back of my head.

ITGS was our last class of the day. ITGS being short for Information technology in a global society. It was basically just a computer class and how you apply it in real life, blah blah. I didn't put too much effort into the class since it was basic computer terminology, and since I spent half my life in front of a computer screen, there wasn't much in the class that I didn't know already. Ironically enough, this was the only class Naomi seemed to have a hard time in. I had a higher grade in the class than her, which kinda pissed her off, since she was highly competitive in grades. So whenever I would do better on a test than her, I would find ways to make her see it. Whether it be tripping on purpose in front of her while holding my test or slipping it under her seat for her to find it, which she usually threw in the trash and I had to have the pleasure of taking it out. This made ITGS a bit fun but it still wasn't that exciting and before I knew it, the bell that told us school was finally over rang.

I walked outside first and of course I had to wait for Naomi. When she came out of the classroom, I asked if she wanted to go find Kennedy so we can finally get some food for tomorrow.

"So, are you going to ask her about Facebook?"

"I'm thinking about it." I replied. I actually wasn't. I was too excited for tomorrow. This was my first time. There was a certain degree of excitement at doing something illegal for the first time. I can't think of a clever analogy right now since Kennedy joined us. It got a bit awkward because of what she asked us earlier at lunch. I wanted to move past it honestly. I know Kennedy didn't really mean any harm. Why would she? She just made her possibly first two friends and in senior year at that. Why f**k it up? So I kept the Facebook conversation at the back of my head, maybe she had some misunderstood reason as to why she wanted me away from Naomi. This led me to look over to Naomi and saw that she was eyeing Kennedy a bit. 

"So Kennedy, why'd you wanna know?"

"What? At lunch earlier?"

"Yeah."

"Did I make it that awkward? Geez. I shouldn't have asked that question."

"Yeah. You shouldn't have. You made Miki piss himself." Naomi glanced at me.

"No she didn't."

"Well. He still pissed himself."

"No I didn't."

"So why did you though?"

"Asked? Well. I was really curious. You can't blame me right? You two eat together, go to class together, and you wore the same shirt today. What else was I suppose to think?"

"Maybe Miki's my b***h?"

"No I'm not."

"Since we're hanging out, I'm kind of jealous really." She stopped at this. So we ended up stopping as well and looking at her.

"What? You want a b***h like Miki?"

"Stop." I shooked my head. Did I really looked like a push over?

"No. I wanted to have friends like you guys."

"Why? We're just gonna get high tomorrow."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Naomi assured. Kennedy stopped talking after that. I hope Naomi wasn't too blunt with her because she stayed silent until we got to the main door of the school when Naomi asked her.

"Are you coming with us to pick up food?"

"Sure. I have money. I can chip in."

"Great. Because Miki's homeless."

"I'm broke not homeless. I'll pay you back for chipping in. I'll feel guilty if I don't." I wasn't actually that broke. I had a 5 dollar bill to give to the hobo after school on the way home. I'm sure Kennedy and Naomi wouldn't mind.

"You don't have to. Don't you have job?"

"I do. Miki doesn't." Naomi worked at the book store at the mall. Suprising isn't? Remember when I told you that from the way she talked, you would've thought she's sucked a few dicks before? I mean she hasn't. I want to make sure we're clear on that. Well she's an avid reader. She scored the highest out of the whole class in AR points by the end of 8th grade. I'm pretty sure she's read the Bible just to see if she can take a test on it. She couldn't. I remember how pissed off she was when the librarian told her she couldn't take the test. I think she cried. Anyway, I didn't realize it, but Naomi was tugging my shirt.

"Dude. Seriously. You gotta stop doing that s**t." 

"Yes. I work at the mall." Kennedy assured.

"Wow. How come I've never see you around?" She looked at me. "Don't you need a job?"

"I do actually." At this point they were both looking at me. "I don't even have a car yet. So I don't know if I'll be able to keep up." Naomi smiled.

"It's cool. I'll drive you to work."

I wasn't too crazy about the idea of Naomi driving me to work. I mean. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with Naomi driving , but the whole thing just felt so emasculating that I ended up shaking my head.

"Are you sure?" She prodded. 

"Yeah. I mean I can just walk to work, so I'll be fine." 

"Alright. You're getting chubby around the tits anyway."

"F**k. What? Seriously?" I felt my stomach.

"No," she smiled, "I was kidding." Kennedy was watching us the whole time with a weird look on her face. At that point, I guess I can understand what she meant when she said she was a bit jealous. I looked at her and asked.

"Well? Where do you wanna go? Wanna just head to a Walgreens?" Kennedy nodded and a bit of her hair fell in front of her face.

"Yeah sure. There's a Walgreens near my house so we might as well." She agreed. The three of us started walking after that. We walked side by side with Kennedy leading the way since she knew a Walgreens nearest to her place. With school usually ending at a around 4:30-5:00, it was already getting a bit dark with the street lights lighting up. It was Friday and it was that time of day where everyone was just getting off of work or just coming home from school. Yep. It was the time of day where everyone was letting loose. So there were a lot of cars driving past us and we weren't alone when we walked down the sidewalk. There were some kids from our school that were walking in the same direction as us, none of them I knew. They did say hi to Naomi though and some said hi to Kennedy. It didn't take us long to get to the Walgreens. I could actually still see the school  when we arrived. When we got to the sliding doors, my Mom called me. So I told them to go in without me and that I'll join them in a bit.

"Where the hell are you? It's 5:30."

"Relax." I paused. "Me and Naomi are just buying some things for tomorrow."

"Okay. Good. Just next time, tell me when you're going to do something after school. Because I already called the Morgue."

"Did you really?"

"No, just get home so you can help me with your sisters." She hung up after that. I almost walked into the Walgreens but I saw hobo guy watching me from across the street, so I was thought to my self,f**k it, might as well give him the 5 dollars now. I looked inside to check if Naomi and Kennedy were already inside but they were already out of sight, so I went over to hobo guy and said hi. He looked up at me with those gray eyes of his and patted the spot beside him, motioning me to sit down with him. To be honest, I was hesitant at first, since he was homeless. It wasn't because I was risking getting mugged. One, the only thing he was going to get out from me was my 5 dollar bill that I was already planning on giving him. And two, I had this weird thing where I could get an inkling of what a peron was like by the look of them. I know. I know. It sounds a bit "judging the book by its cover" but I could tell he was a genuinely nice person. He had so many chances to mug me, but he didn't. So that's a good sign, right?

The reason as to why I was a bit hesitant about sitting beside him was because I was a bit of a germaphobe, so if you are one, you can understand why I was a bit hesistant with sitting beside a homeless guy. But to my surprise, for someone who belonged to a demographic known to pick food out of the trash and sleep outside, he didn't even smell that bad. Was this guy even homeless? We sat there for what almost seemed like an hour. I didn't care. Naomi's good at picking out food to eat so I can let her handle the food for tomorrow.

"That girl." He grunted softly and nodded at the Walgreens. 

"Which one?"

"With the black hair."

"Naomi?"

"Yes."

"What about her?"

"Do you know her?"

"Yep." I looked over to him and saw that his gray eyes were twinkling. It took me a while to realize it, but he was crying. I stared at him completely surprised. He didn't shake. He didn't even move. All he did was keep his eyes at the Walgreens like a prison that kept Naomi. The only things that seemed to be moving were his trembling beard and those tears. No one even seemed to notice that this old man with the saddest look in his eyes was crying. Even within all the noises of that cold September dusk, it was silent. Who would've thought, that this old man, who always kept a smile whenever I would visit him, would have a connection to Naomi. Yet here he is, broken and decrepit, with a longing look in his eyes, and with a voice that contained all the sadness within the world. 

"Thank you so much. Thank you for being with my Nao-Nao-chan." And with that he got up and walked away. A mysteriously broken soul that shadowed himself into the crowd and no one even noticed.

I didn't know how long I sat there or how long I stared down the side walk. But by the time Kennedy called out to me, the old man was already gone. I didn't even get to ask his name. But I just sat there and before I knew it, Naomi stood in front of me.

"What are you doing?" She asked with this strange tone in her voice.

"Well. I'm not really good with picking out food."

"No. Why were you talking to him?"

"Why? Who is he?"

"He's my grandpa. Now why the f**k were you talking to him?" I gulped because her voice got bit darker. Her grandpa? What? I took her hand and stood up. I looked at her and she glared back. I was too speechless to say anything and she noticed.

"Whatever." She turned around and I knew she didn't want to continue it. But I wanted an answer.

"No. What the f**k is your grandpa doing sitting outside like that?"

"Just drop it Miki."

"Why? Who is he? Why is he out here like that?"

"Just f*****g drop it." She replied with a tired voice. "Not here Miki. Not in the middle of the street." 

I stood looking at her. She was facing away from me, hugging herself with her arms. I couldn't see her face but she was trembling. I wanted to keep going but at the same time, I didn't want to. I could tell it was dealing a lot on her. So I dropped the topic. Still I was too surprised to realize that we were standing in the middle of the sidewalk and people were walking around us. Kennedy came up to me and gave me a bag.

"Here. You should help us take this to your place." 

"Yeah. We should get out of here." I was too in shock to protest about the fact that the snacks were going to stay in my house. No one said anything on the way there. Nobody spoke on the way to my place. The aftermath of what happened earlier was enough to last us on the whole trip. And when we got there, Naomi and Kennedy both handed me their bags. Naomi kept her eyes on the ground the whole time. This was the first time I've ever seen her look so defeated. Kennedy looked at Naomi and smiled.

"You'll be alright." She squeezed Naomi's hand and hugged her. Naomi smiled weakly and said.

"You know. Florence isn't exactly the safest at night."

"It's okay. God has my back." Kennedy replied. But then she turned around and smiled.  "Not really. The only thing I have to worry about now is my Dad." And with that, she turned around and walked the opposite direction. This left me and Naomi standing in the sidewalk. Just the two of us. With a wall of questions keeping us from saying good bye. Even the weight of the three bags of sodas, candy, and chips didn't even bother me, nothing compared to the weight of what I wanted to know. We stood there for God knows how long. And while she kept her eyes on the ground, Naomi told me.

"I know. You have a lot of questions right now. I want to answer them. " She paused and took a breath and then continued "I really do. But I just can't. Not right now. It's too much."

As much as I wanted to continue where we left off at Walgreens, I knew it was dealing a lot on her, so I understood and nodded.

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything right now. If you don't want to, you don't have to." But I felt the opposite, I wanted my questions to be answered. Who was that old man? Why was he out there? What'd he do to be kicked out of Naomi's house? What did he do to Naomi? It was all screaming in my head, but I kept my expression as calm as possible. 

"Really?" 

"Yeah." 

"Thank you."

And for the first time, she looked up at me. What I saw was an empty face, with no substance whatsoever. It borderlined scared me since I've never seen her look like that before. She was always so lively and had a sort of energy that nobody seemed to have, but to see her face with no expression whatsoever, seemed so outlandish. I wanted to walk up and embrace her. But I felt like I had to cross a whole bridge just to get to her. 

"I'll see you tomorrow." she kept her eyes to me but I knew she wasn't looking.

"Yeah." She turned around after that and walked in the same direction that Kennedy was walking. I wanted to run up and embrace her. Inside my head, I was screaming at my feet to move, but I was rooted there. The weight of my questions was just too much and it kept me stuck on the sidewalk. And all the while, her silhouette, lighted periodically by streetlights, became farther and farther away. And soon enough, she became a shadow. At that moment, on that street, I realized how related the old man and Naomi was.