The Freshman Named Alice

"You see my mom and dad drank a lot, and would always end up fighting," Santi started. "Every now and then, I would end up getting hit too. My two older brothers would never get hit though. It was always just me and my older sister Kristen," Santi stopped to take a bite of his pizza. Then he continued, "So eventually my parents started to fight more, and more. But these times they wouldn't be drunk. They knew exactly what they were doing. One night I almost ran away." I gave him a confused look when he said 'almost'.

"I say almost because one of my best friends talked me out of it. I'm glad I didn't leave. I would've ended up doing things I know I would regret."

I cut him off quickly, "W-what do you think you would've done?", I asked curiously. "You don't cut yourself or some shit like that do you? To my surprise Santi laughed.

"Hell the FUCK no!"

"Oh. Well I was, I was just asking.

"Yeah, well what I do is kinda worse. Well I think it's worse," he said in a lowered voice. I raised an eyebrow, and Santi let out a sigh. "I probably would've gone to my boy Cory's house and would've gotten high and drunk. Then we would've gone to find a party, smash some girls, and leave." I was shocked when i heard that. To me, Santi never looked like the kind of person to do that. But by the look on his face, I could tell the story didn't end there.

"Not too long after that night, my second oldest brother died. He had cancer. Our own father didn't even shed a tear at his own son's funeral!" I could hear the anger in Santi's voice start to rise.

"I was so close to Michael," he continued. "But after that, I started to party a lot more, and soon enough, that's all I did. Eventually I stopped going to school all together. My days just consisted of surfing, getting high, and writing songs." I smirked faintly. "What?"

"You write songs?"

Santi laughed, "Yeah, I do. Why?"

"Oh nothing. I just think that's kinda cute," I giggled. "Do you play the guitar or something?"

"Mhmm. Maybe one of these days I'll play a song for you," we both smiled at each other. Almost as if we were sharing a moment.

"Maybe if I'm lucky enough-," before I could finish Santi cut me off.

"Slow down little girl, my story isn't over yet," as soon as his last words were said, the bell had rung signaling lunch was over. I looked down at my tray, which was still full of food, then looked up at the beautiful boy in front of me, and shrugged.

"I feel bad now." Without letting me ask why, he continued, "I talked my ass off, and you never got to finish your lunch."

"It's fine," I said smiling. "I wasn't that hungry anyways," then I had a light-bulb moment. "Hey Santi, what class do you have next?" He took out his schedule, and responded, "English, with Mrs.Mendes." I smiled a great big smile, "I'm guessing you have her too?", Santi asked laughing, I nodded yes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As we started walking to class I asked Santi if he would want to finish his story as we walked. "Sure I guess that could work.. So, um, where did I leave off?", he asked sheepishly.

"You were saying how you started to party more," I said.

"Oh yeah, right, So once my sister found out about my ways, she tried to stop me. But nothing worked. Even my mom tried to start an intervention, but I just ended up cursing her out." My eyes widened at Santi's words, but he just sighed and continued.

"I know, I know. I'm not really proud of all that I've done. But there was one thing that made me stop acting that way."

"And that was?", I asked,

"When my oldest brother Scott passed away," Santi closed his eyes, trying to hold back tears. I knew he wanted to cry, but I knew he wouldn't. "He had gone out to a party with some friends. They all ended up getting drunk and high," Santi let out a sigh. But he still continued.

"Coming back home, they crashed," Santi stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes. I could tell he was starting to get upset so I took his hand into mine and squeezed it gently. To my surprise Santi opened up his eyes, and looked down at his hand that was currently in mine. I quickly pulled my hand back, and looked down shyly. "Don't worry about it," Santi whispered in my ear, which made me smile to myself.

"But anyways, there were five of them in the car. Four survived the accident, not one of them being Scott," thinking he was finished, I cut him off.

"I'm so sorry Santi. Y-you know you didn't have to tell me any of this," I said looking up at him.

"But I needed to. I needed to tell somebody and get it all off my chest." We were only a few steps away from our classroom when Santi took his hands in mine, and spun me a little so that we were facing each other. "I really think that we could be great friends, Alice. Maybe even one day we could end up being best friends," I smiled sweetly at the thought of Santi and I being best friends. "And who knows," he continued. "Maybe we could even end up being something more than best friends."

I looked at the boy standing tall in front of me with a puzzled face, but there was no time to say anything. The late bell had rung, and it was time to get our asses into class.