“Hey Steve, are you coming to my party tonight?” Tara asked me. 

“Yeah. No doubt about it,” I said. 

“Great. See you there.”

The bell rang and she blew a kiss into the air. I reached my hand out, grabbed the kiss, and placed it onto my heart. She walked away to her chemistry class to conduct an experiment. Jeremey and I were about to conduct an experiment of our own in the bathroom. 

“Steve, is that you?” I heard a voice say from the stall.

“Yeah Jeremey, it is me. You got it?” I whispered. 

“Yeah for sure. Now help me disconnect the smoke detector.”

I fumbled my way into the large stall and locked the door behind me. Jeremey pulled a lunchbox out of his backpack, and I stood on the toilet seat to disarm the smoke detector. Jeremey opened up the window just to be on the safe side and blew a puff of vape out of it.

“Here you go my man, Blue Raspberry Cotton Candy.”

I grabbed the vape pen and moved my fingers along its cold metal exterior. I had vaped a couple of times before this outside of school, but this was my first time doing it in school. 

Jeremey was staring at me, so I placed the end of it into my mouth. I sucked on the cold metal stick until my mouth was full of vapor. I blew it out the window while making dragon noises. Jeremey laughed at the idiocy of what I was doing and took another hit from the vape. 

I took one more hit as well, fanned the smoke out the window, and reconnected the alarm. I turned around to get down from the toilet when I saw a student staring at me.

“Jeremey, someone is in here.”

Jeremey ran out of the stall and threw the freshman into the wall.

“If you rat on us freshman you're dead, got it?”

The freshman shook his head, and Jermey lowered him to the ground. I didn’t think Jeremey should have slammed the kid into the wall, so I gave him 5 bucks and a stick of gum for his trouble. I felt bad for the kid and wanted to apologize, but I knew Jeremey would be annoyed to wait. Once I was out of the bathroom, Jermey had already ditched me. I walked to my next class alone.

After school, I was swinging on the swingset in my backyard. My dog, Buster, waited for me to slow down. Once I stopped swinging, he ran over to lick my dirty shoes. I picked him up, and he licked my whole face. I laughed as he did this, and I got off the swing to lie in the grass. I stared at the sun while Buster curled into a ball within the shape of my bent arm. I wished Tara was there with Buster and me. 

Someone eventually came home, and the slider door opened.

“Hi honey, how was your day?” my mom asked me.

“It was good. How about you?”

“It was mostly good. Your father and I will be talking with you as soon as he gets home. So don’t get too comfortable.”

“Whatever.”

My mom went back into the house, and I continued to stare at the sun with Buster. This eventually ended when my Dad slammed open the window.

“Steven, get inside of this house NOW!” my Dad shouted.

“What is it! Gah.” 

“Hey, don’t give me an attitude. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now get inside. Your mother and I need to talk to you.”

I grabbed Buster and went into the house. I placed him on the ground and he ran away into the living room. When I stood back up, my mom was holding a thick packet of paper. She passed the packet into my hands, and I realized that it was my report card. There wasn’t a single A or B on the entire paper, and there was an F for one of my classes.  I had 27 unexcused tardies and 6 unexcused absences.

“Stevie, sweetie, what are you doing?” my mother asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.

‘ “How do you, ‘not know’?” my Dad chimed in. 

“Dad, I think that my teachers are out to get me.”

“Really? All of them wrote that they have been trying to speak with you outside of class, but you have never shown up. Why is that?”

“Because it is a waste of my f—ing time!”

The room fell silent. My mom held her hand close to her mouth, and her eyes widened while she looked back and forth between Dad and me. My Dad’s fist began to clench, and the redness in his face completely covered his normal complexion.

“Steven James Woods, you are grounded. You are losing your wifi privileges, your keys, and your phone. You are not going to that party tonight, and after today your new curfew will be 5. Now go up to your room!”

I shook the whole house while I stomped up the stairs. I walked into my room and slammed the door shut behind me. My parents yelled at each other, trying to determine what they would do with me. They eventually tired each other out.

I sat on my bed while the hours slowly passed on my alarm clock. I eventually got up and was trying to find my old crank radio to listen to some music. I pulled a dusty bin out from underneath my bed. Random junk was filled to the top of the bin, but I eventually found a picture frame. I took it out of the box, flipped it over, and blew all the dust off of it. In the frame, there was a picture of my parents and me. 

The picture was taken on my 8th birthday, and it was one of my favorite birthdays as a kid. Mom and Dad took me to the Museum of Science in Boston for the day. Inside the museum, I remember the rocket ships and other spacecraft hanging from the ceiling. The gigantic dinosaurs greeted all of the guests. There was also a gigantic soda baking volcano, which erupted every hour. After a while of exploring the east wing of the museum, my parents brought me to the Museum’s restaurant, ‘The out of this world cafe.’  I remembered that my Dad got the super Saturn turkey sandwich, my Mom got the Pluto pesto, and I got the astronaut shaped chicken-nuggets. After lunch, we spent the rest of our time exploring the west wing of the museum.  

I remember that when we were leaving, my parents allowed me to get anything I wanted from the gift shop. I was unsure what I wanted to get, but I eventually decided on the remote-controlled robot. The photo was taken shortly after because the main entrance was in the background and I was displaying the robot box while sitting on my Dad’s shoulders.

I pulled the photo out of the frame. On the back of the photo, my mom wrote, “Steven’s 8th Birthday. We love you Son!” I whipped my eyes, put the picture back into the frame, and placed it onto my bed. 

Maybe my parents are right. Why have I changed? Maybe I should apologize to them.

Thump.

Something hit my window. I grabbed my old bb-gun out of my closet, slowly opened the window, and pointed it outside.

“Hey man, don’t shoot! It’s me, Jeremey.”

“Sorry man. But keep it down.”

“Why didn't you pick me up?”

“I got grounded, my parents got my report card.”

“Damn it, Steve. So are you coming to the party or not.”

“Dude, I, I can’t just leave. My parents are already mad enough, I don’t want them to be more disappointed.”

“Steve, who gives a crap. It’s your life. You can either please your mom and dad for the rest of it or just enjoy it.  Now don’t be a chicken and just sneak out.”

“I’m not sure about it.”

“Steve, think about Tara. Think about how she would be like, ‘Oh my love, Steve. He’s not man enough to be with me tonight. I’m going to date one of the football players to make him jealous,’” he ends it but makes kiss noises with his mouth.

“Alright, fine. For Tara.”

“That’s my boy.”

I placed the BB Gun back inside of my closet and left my phone to make sure my parents weren't able to track me. I locked my bedroom door and put a chair behind it just to be on the safe side. I opened up my bedroom window and cut out the windscreen using the knife my Dad gave me. I placed the knife down on my desk and made my way on top of the landing. 

The drop was too high to jump, so I decided to lower myself off the side of it. I crouched onto my knees and shimmed my way down until my elbows and hands were in the gutters. I was hanging there with my legs kicking in the air and trying to find something to balance onto.

“Steve, hurry up before someone sees you.”

“I’m going as fast as I can Jeremey.”

Buster started to bark while I was hanging onto the gutters. 

“Steve, drop now.”

I closed my eyes and let go of the railing. I fell through the air and landed in the rose bush on my back. Little thorns entered through the back of my shirt and pricked their way into my skin. Jeremey was hiding by lying in the grass and by covering his face with his hoodie. Buster started to paw at the door, and someone in my house turned on the lights. After a couple of seconds whoever it was turned it off. 

“Ahhh!” I whispered. 

“Shut up, Steve. And get out of the stupid bush.”

I slowly crawled through the rose bush and more thorns found themselves attached to me. When I made it out of the bush, Jeremey helped pull all of the thorns out. Luckily, my shirt and jeans did not have any holes in them. When we were done, I ran to the shed and grabbed my bike. We crouched down and rolled our bikes across the lawn, and started to ride them with gravitas. 

At Tara’s house, the street was filled with kids' cars. Music was blaring from inside of the house, and people were dancing with red solo cups in their hands. Jeremey and I dropped our bikes next to the tree in front of the house and made our way inside. Inside the house, Tara was waiting for me in a blue dress. 

“Hey, sexy, you're late!” Tara said.

“Tara, are you ok?” I asked. 

“I’m completely fine. I was getting nervous that you would not make it. I have something really important to show you upstairs.”

“Steve, you should go see what Tara wants to show you,” Jeremey chimed in.

“Jeremey, I think she is drunk. Maybe it is not a good idea?”

“Well, Steve, if you're drunk it’s not. So here take this,” he grabbed a cup from a kid's hand and placed it in mine. I looked into the cup and saw a clear liquid. A strong odor rose out of the cup.

“Jeremey..”

“Just take the drink, Steve!”

I put the cup up to my mouth and sipped on it. The alcohol burned the side of my throat. I stopped drinking the cup and Jeremey walked over to me.

He whispered in my ear, “Be a MAN.”

I tipped the cup all the way and forced it down my throat. I barely finished swallowing it when Tara grabbed my hand and led me up to her bedroom. 

Inside her bedroom, she wrapped her hands around my head and started to make out with me. Her hands moved throughout my hair, and she laid me down on her bed. I thought that I would have been into it, but the taste of her alcohol was pungent. She stopped kissing me, sat on my lap, and started to take off the straps of her dress.

“Hey Tara, Ummm, why don’t we slow down a little bit?” I said crawling backwards on the bed. 

“Steve, I thought you would appreciate this,” she said with a teary look in her eyes.

“Tara, I do, but not like this. I don’t want to abuse this situation, ok?”

“But, Steve. I give you m-. I give you mu—”

Before she finished, she ran into the bathroom.  The noise of puke echoed off the walls and found its way through the space between the floor and the door. Tara flushed the toilet, and the doorknob moved back and forth until it opened. She came out of the bathroom with puke dripping from her mouth, and some of it permeated on the dress.

“Give me one sec, I will go grab some towels,” I calmly insisted.

“Don’t — oh no!” she stopped in the middle of her sentence, and ran into her bathroom again. 

I walked to her bedroom door, cracked it open, and then slowly closed it again. When I turned around, a familiar face was standing in front of me.

“So, did you do it?” Jeremey asked while making thrusting motions with his hips.

“No, man she’s drunk. I’m getting some towels real quick.”

“Steve, that’s the perfect time to do —”

“Jeremey, what the hell. You can’t say that.”

“Steve, I can say whatever I want. I say you should go back in there, and just do it.”

“No. Jeremey.”

“Steve, come on.”

“No, Jeremey. Get lost.”

“What the hell, Steve? Just for one suggestion?”

“I don’t care, now beat it before I make you.”

“Steve, if you weren’t even man enough to do it with your lady, you’re not man enough to hit me in the face. So come on Steve, prove yourself to me.”

My fist clenched to my side, but I just walked past him to the closet. I grabbed the towels, but he began to block my way back. As I stood there, I saw Tara beginning to open her bedroom door. Before anything else happened between Jeremey and me, someone downstairs yelled, “The police are here, RUN!”

Jeremey quickly shoulder-checked me and hopped down the staircase. Tara came over to me, and I started to wipe some of the puke off her face.

“Steve, you should leave,” she told me.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here with you.”

After a couple of minutes, the police finally made their way up the stairs.

“Drop on your knees, and keep your hands behind your heads,” an officer tells us. 

“Yes, Sir,” Tara and I both said. 

He comes behind me and places the cold metal handcuffs on my hands. Another officer just came up the stairs and did the same thing to Tara. They lifted us off of the ground and led us down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, Jeremey was being pinned down by an officer. As the officer stood up, he was pulling a bag of weed out of Jermey’s pocket. The officer led Tara and me to his car. 

Outside of the police car, they began to ask Tara and me some questions. They finished explaining everything to us and shoved us both into the backseat of a police cruiser. The blue lights continued to flash until no one was left in the house.

The officers made one final sweep of the house and gave the officers in our car the go-ahead. As the police car began to leave, Tara leaned over and placed her head against my right shoulder. I placed my head on top of hers, and our hands interlocked through the cuffs.