Forever My Dear

I had never understood why people didn't like school. It had always been such an escape for me that I didn't know what I would have done without it. Most people my age seemed to be working so hard to get away from school when I would have done anything just to have the chance to stay there for a little while longer. At least I was practical enough to realize that I couldn't. There was no reason to complain about things that I couldn't change. That required more effort than I was honestly willing to give.

The lockers lined almost every inch of the walls when you first entered the school, only diminishing in number the further that you got into the twisted maze that was our school's layout. Most people complained about the mess of it accusing whoever had made the place of being on crack at the time. Even if they had, I thanked them for that. I liked the complicated mess that made up the school. There was something about the eccentric convoluted school layout that gave me a kind of comfort. I couldn't explain it really. Maybe it was because complicated and irregular and disillusioned was my life.

My locker was located, almost conviently, in one of the more deserted part of the school. Only six lockers decorated that particular corridor and though they were all issued out to other students, only two of those students ever bothered to drift back to use their lockers. Three of them didn't bother simply because they didn't know where the hell their lockers were and the other didn't because half the time she was ditching classes anyway. I knew that for a fact since that person happened to be one of my many little sisters. I suppose that I could have said that I loved her or that I even liked her, but I would have been lying. Rebecca was one of the few people that I felt something for and none of it was good.

Today, she sat curled up on the stretch of wall that ran between our lockers, a cigarette dangling from her short, yellowed fingers. Smoke curled more from her lips than from the lit butt. "You know that they won't actually kick you out of school if they catch you," I pointed out shifting past her so that I could get to my locker.

"Hey Jo, you're doing that thing again," Rebecca said with a soft chuckle. Smoke started to drift my way as I leaned down over the little dial to my locker and took it in hand to shift the numbers around, demanding that for a few moments in time, they bow to my will and allow me to get to the books inside it's monsterous depths. "You're doing that bitchy thing where you suck the fun out of everything."

If I would have been Jessica or Athena, I would have started to lecture her about what she was doing to our family. Because I was S.J., I simply ignored her. It was an odd fact that as much as we argued and as much as I didn't care for Rebecca, I felt something for her. That made her my favorite sibling in an odd kind of way. And becuase I didn't bother to tell her to get her shit together, Rebecca liked me in her own demented kind of way.

The smoke danced around me as I finally managed to get the lock open and yanked the door towards me. Rebecca chuckled softly as if she saw something that no one else could in that smoke. Considering who it was, I could actually believe that too. "I heard Sylvie talking about you having to pick up groceries later today? That true?"

Like most of the adopteds who simply couldn't call my parents mom and dad, Rebecca had chosen to use the nicknames that my parents had gotten sometime during their own high school years. I shrugged and pulled out the grocery list that I had in my pocket. "Just add whatever it is you want and consider it my birthday present to you."

I looked down at Rebecca as she took the list and a smile touched her lips. "So someone did remember?" she asked looking up at me even as she clutched the list in her hand as if that itself was some precious gift. At that moment, even as much as I sometimes hated Rebecca, I felt for her. I knew what it was like to be forgotten in that sea of humanity that was our house and a birthday mwas a lot for a whole bus load of people to forget.

"Well yeah. I know that I usually tell you to go fuck off Rebecca, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forget when your birthday is. I haven't forgotten once in ten years. I just sometimes choose to very pointedly ignore that it's your birthday."

A small, clear laugh filled the air. A smile tugged at my lips as I turned back to my locker, exchanging a few of the books from bag to locker and vice versa. A small hand wacked the back of my knee and I turned to see Rebecca holding the list out to me. "You know S.J., sometimes you're not such a boring bitch after all," she told me as I took the list and stuffed it into my pocket again.

"And sometimes you're not such a bad druggie whore, so I guess that makes us even," I granted with a shrug closing my locker and allowing my eyes to flick up and down the hall through the growing haze of smoke as the sound of the metal door slamming was muffled slightly. I now smelled like smoke or pot and I was going to my English class. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. The only thing that I could figure was that if I got detention, I'd likely be seeing at least three of my siblings there so it couldn't be that bad.

At least anyone else there would leave me the hell alone.