Monday morning came too quickly. I spent the whole weekend sleeping, staying home from school Friday because I’d only gotten _home_ at two a.m. I was stressing out about school, having three weeks worth of work to complete before winter break. I’d grown a fear of having to repeat the tenth grade after a series of stressful conversations with my parents.

I got The Looks from almost _everyone_ as soon as I walked down the hall to my locker, as I raked my brain for the combination. The reason behind The Looks, I later found out, was because my picture was in the newspaper almost all October.

In every class, I had mountains of work, late assignments, homework… I needed to focus, but my brain was screaming with worry, with a storm cloud brewing over my head.

By noon, I was just about ready to drop out. I sat alone at lunch, whispers going around about me, fingers pointing. Until Erica, who I’d forgotten about until that moment, sat down across from me, her face smiling in that friendly way.

“Hey- Layne, right?” She took a bite out of her apple, causal, but her eyes watched me intently.

“Yup.” I wasn’t much in the mood for talking, head spinning chronically.

“Everyone’s been talking about you, you know. You’re, like, famous.”

I sighed. “Not really what I wanted to be famous for, but alright. Hey, Erica, listen, do you have a cell phone? I gotta call someone.” I hadn’t been able to call Wyatt over the weekend, and desperately wanted to talk to him.

“What? No, I don’t. Sorry.” She looked sympathetic for a moment before continuing, “Anyways, you know there are a lotta rumours going around about you?”

“Oh.” I stared vacantly at my plastic fork. _Not this again_, my mind pleaded, _please, not this again._ “What’re they saying about me, exactly?”

“Yeah, I thought you should know what they’re saying, exactly, yeah. Basically, well…” Erica pursed her lips, then went on, “Well, somebody thought you might be, like, one of those girls who… Who, like, was in one of those places, and stuff-”

“Erica,” I interrupted her, voice flat. “Just fucking tell me.”

“Someone was thinking you might be _crazy_. And someone else was saying that you were, like, a prostitute or something, but that got shut down.”

My jaw dropped, my stomach lurched. “_What_? _Who_?”

“No, uh, no one _really_ believes any of it, it’s just that in these newspapers, they got your school picture in there and all, and it’s all how you totally went missing-”

“Shut the fuck up! _Who_ is sayin’ this shit about me, Erica? Tell me!” I demanded, my eyebrows knit together. I’d lost my appetite with rage, lunch untouched.

“Oh, um, just… Everyone, pretty much. Most people have at least heard, I don’t really know who _started_ all this, but…” And with that, she picked up her lunch and scurried away, timid.

I dropped my head on the table, covering it with my arms. Burning tears were building behind my eyes, my heart mourning the last school I’d gone to- the similarity of the situations was burning a hole in my head.

Two-forty-five and the dismissal bell went off, I hurried to the nearest pay phone before heading home, slipping in my quarters to call Wyatt.

A slurred, weary voice answered the phone: “Hardcore Underground, who the _fuck_ are you and who the _fuck_ do you wanna talk to?”

“I’m Layne,” I replied, “I gotta talk to Wyatt. Is he there?”

“Yeah, gimme a sec.” After a long minute, Wyatt’s voice on the phone murmured, “Hey, Layne… Thought you forgot about me for a second, ya know?”

“Sorry, I just couldn’t find the time to call… Everything’s crazy. How’re you?”

“Eh. Fine. Everything is crazy here, too. Ana’s a fuckin’ mess and… Sky’s fuckin’ dead.” His tone went cold, grieving.

My voice caught in my throat and I began to trip over my words. “Wh-_what_? He’s- Sky’s- _what_?”

“He OD’d and died on Saturday. It was on purpose.” Wyatt had taken on a new, unfeeling way of speaking that unnerved me. Intellectual, emotionless, even bored.

“What, Wyatt? _What_? How… How do you know it was on purpose?” I’d felt like crying all day and the news of Sky’s death just about set me off. I sniffled, trying hard not to shed a tear.

“Because I know. I knew he was gonna do it sooner or later.”

“Are you alright…? You’re sounding a little… I dunno. I guess you aren’t really alright, but…” I exhaled shakily. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

“Oh.”

“Uh… How’s that record label thing going?” I asked, for lack of anything better.

“Oh, yeah!” Wyatt’s voice turned to normal, happier. “It’s all going great- a little crazy ‘cause Underground’s all fucked for a bit, but we got shows at some new places, some cool places, and… It’s all going well.”

I smiled and asked lightheartedly, “When you’re a big rockstar, are you gonna forget about me?”

“No, no, I could never.” Then, after a moment of silence, he added, “I wanna see you, Layne.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think I’ll be comin’ back anytime soon… I don’t think I _can_, that is. You can drive up to fucking Pleasant Grove… Plesant-fucking-Grove… If you want, but it’s, you know, it’s a long as hell drive.”

“Fuck that, honestly. Fuck that shit.” He sighed loudly, cleared his throat.

“Yeah…” My heartbeat was calmer already, my body relaxed and happy. Just talking to this guy on the phone was like the best high in the world. “It sucks, I know, but…”

“But what?”

“I dunno. I don’t even know what I was gonna say in the first place.”

“Oh… Hey, I’ll look up Pleasant Grove on a map, okay? Maybe I’ll…” His voice trailed off. “I gotta go in a sec, sorry, Layne…”

I gave him my house number and told him to call, then we said goodbye and hung up. I realized that I should probably get home quickly in case my mom was home, but, luckily, when I got home, she was still working.

The minute I got home, I kicked off my sneakers and put on this mixtape that someone had made me a while back, and, with Nirvana’s _Big Long Now_ playing, I laid down in bed with a book, _The Alchemist_. Relaxing serotonin flooded me like warm milk in the evening after a long, hard day’s work. Thank God for some peace and quiet.