Coffee and Cigarettes

The next morning, I woke to the sounds of someone pounding hysterically at my bedroom door. I groggily got to my feet and hobbled over to the door. I swung it open and there stood Blair, her hands trembling, eyes glazed over.

"What did you do?" she cried.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, yawning.

"The pills!" she shrieked. "Where did you put them? What did you do with them?"

I was now pretty much fully awake. "I-I threw them away. Why does it matter?"

Blair threw her fist against the wall as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Why would you, Morgan? Why?"

"Why are they so important to you?" I demanded.

She fell silent and focused her eyes on the floor, her blond hair falling in front of her face. She was trembling.

"If they're so important to you, you can grab them out of the trash can," I said quietly.

Blair's head rose and her eyes had become red and puffy. "Mom emptied the trash last night while we were asleep," she replied hysterically.

"Well...what kind of pills were they?" I asked curiously. "I couldn't read the label."

Blair glared at me. "That's none of your business," she growled before stomping away to her room and slamming her door shut.

Confused by that strange turn of events, I decided to get ready for school. I threw on whatever was clean, which turned out to just be a pair of old jeans, a blue t-shirt and a simple grey hoodie, and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.

As I brushed my teeth, I looked down at the trash can. It was indeed empty. What did I throw away that made Blair so angry? Was she really that addicted to the drugs? Does she need to go to rehab? Do Mom and Dad know?

I rinsed out my mouth and proceeded to wash my face. As I was doing so, Bob passed the bathroom door, which I left open. He leaned against the door frame and said, "What did you do to Blair now?"

I ignored him.

"Morgan, talk to me. What did you do to make Blair so upset? She won't come out of her room."

"I didn't do anything," I replied testily as I dried my face and put on a small amount of makeup. "Get out of my way. I'm going to school."

I grabbed my heavy winter coat, seeing as it was now December and the snow was starting to fall, and walked out the door. I could tell that Bob wanted desperately to talk to me, but I refused to speak to him.

I met up with Libby and we made our way to the school. Along the way, the two of us spotted Frank and Mikey standing by a stop sign, seemingly waiting for us.

"Hey," Frank said, casually smoking a cigarette. Mikey shivered from the cold.

"What are you doing here?" Libby asked, looking over at Frank while simultaneously attempting not to inhale the fumes from the cigarette. "Did you finally transfer?"

He nodded. "Yep. I have to go to the main office to grab my schedule and then I can get started. Took a bit longer than I had expected, but what are you gonna do?"

Mikey and Libby linked hands. "Let's go then," he said. "Or we're going to be late. Besides, it's freezing out here."

"I'll say," Frank said, teeth chattering. He tossed the finished cigarette butt onto the sidewalk and stomped it out with the toe of his shoe.

We walked along the slushy sidewalk. Mikey was talking to Frank and I was talking to Libby. What were we talking about? Take a wild guess.

"I'm really worried about her," I muttered so that the boys couldn't hear us. "I found pills in the bathroom. And she scratched out the label, so I couldn't tell what they were. Do you think that she could have some sort of drug addiction?"

"I don't know," Libby said quietly. "I'm assuming you talked to her already?"

"Yeah. She got mad."

"I'd assume so," Libby shrugged. "Well, she has been having problems lately. I really think you should tell your parents so that you can all confront her and ask her what's wrong."

"Yeah," I said absentmindedly. We finally made it to the school and the three of us led Frank to the main office so he could get his schedule. Once the secretary had printed it off, Frank compared schedules with the rest of us.

"You have one class with Libby and two with me," I said, trying not to sound too excited. He looked up at me and grinned.

"Great."

The classes that Frank and I had together were Math and American History. Relatively boring classes, but who cares? At least we have classes together. Frank and Mikey obviously had no classes together, specifically because Mikey was a senior who didn't fail any classes and Frank was a junior who didn't have any advanced classes. Simple, yes?

Frank and I went to History together and I think he might've actually dozed off. Nice to know that the kid's got some very, er...dedicated work ethics. But you know, I probably would have liked the subject more had our teacher not looked like he had actually participated in the Civil War. He frightened me. I think he was missing and eye tooth.

Next was Math, AKA Hell. "Mrs Wilhelm is scary," I warned Frank. "So be careful as to what you say and do in her class. She's secretly a Nazi in my opinion, and she'll explode on you if you do even one thing wrong."

"No sweat," he winked at me before entering the classroom nonchalantly. Not going to lie, I was kind of worried. I doubted that he had dealt with teachers as strict as her. But then again, it [i[was Jersey, so you never really know.

"And who are you?" Mrs. Wilhelm demanded, her jaw clenched. The last thing I think that she ever needed was another student with facial piercings and arms covered in tattoos. Things like those killed her.

"Frank Iero," he replied casually. "I'm new here."

"Evidently," she sighed. "Well, have a seat. I just home you're somewhat competent."

"No worries, ma'am," he said with a toothy grin. She looked like she was going to slap him. He waltzed over to me and plopped down in the seat next to mine. Mrs. Wilhelm continued on with her class and gave us some problems to do on the board.

Instead of doing them, I starting scribbling down more ideas for my soon-to-be novel. Frank noticed what I was doing and placed his chin in his hands.

"Whatcha doin'?" he asked in a toddler's voice.

"Writing," I replied quietly.

"Whatcha writin'?" he asked again.

"Stuff."

"What kinda stuff?"

"Fictional stuff."

"What kinda fictional stuff?"

"Why do you care?"

He was silent. "Good question. Because you're my friend and I'm bored?" he offered. I laughed and then quieted down when Mrs. Wilhelm gave me the 'speak-one-more-time-and-I-will-eat-your-pets' look.

"Good enough answer," I chuckled. He smiled and my heart melted.

"You like to write?"

I nodded. "It's the only thing I'm good at."

"You're a smart girl," Frank stated. "I'm sure there are hundreds of things you're good at."

I blushed and hid my face behind my hair. I had almost forgotten about all my troubles when I was with that boy. When I was around him, it was like no one else in the world existed. Being with him, even as just a friend, was like a natural high. He made me feel...I don't know...special.

Unfortunately, all of my problems came back to slap me in the face as soon as I walked through my front door. Go figure.

On the walk home with Libby, I was relatively silent. I started thinking about Blair and the drugs again. I analyzed the situation.

She was vomiting a lot. She was covering up her body in large, baggy clothes. She locked herself in her room all the time. She was always depressed. She was not only depressed, but extremely moody. And to top it all off, she was taking drugs.

Then it hit me like a hummer on a squirrel.

She was pregnant.