My thoughts are everywhere tonight….

Oh, high school made me sick. What a pulpy mess: heaps of broken hearts, dashed dreams, and fields of sorrow all caked the halls before the first bell.

On the girls room wall I read, he didn't tell me he had another girl to take to a movie or take for a ride. Don't go out with him. He's a slut...

Their asses squeezed in tight jeans, girls leaned toward the mirrors and watched themselves pout and smoke.

He promised he loved me, she said.

Yeah, right.

Why? Do you think he lied?

I remember facing the breeze at dusk on a Friday night in Long Island. I was alone. I didn't want to be alone. I had a boyfriend, but he moved in with Danielle when our rent was up. Now what.

A slim $40 bucks and I went to a bar that night, and for the next few months we stayed that way. I worked in the day and drank up my lunch money at night. So what.

I went home one day and cancelled my apartment's phone. God, I wanted to call him. He showed up one day and I hid in the bathroom until I heard the gravel swish under his tires on the way out. I could have been anywhere. I could have been out for a walk or with another guy or on my way toward something that looked a little better than pale pink soap stains in the sink. I could have been anywhere, but I was there.

Late from work on a Friday I missed a chance to cash my check. I had to beg another $40 bucks from the neighbor next-door. I tried every beer at every bar until I decided to go home and read before my liver fell out.

With a few worn out bills in my pocket one weekend I stood in a book isle somewhere and realized, I could pick anything I wanted. I looked at the romances and spy novels. I saw vampire books and humor books and all the investigative crime things, and then I went home and dug around in a box I packed last semester. Ayn Rand. Took me a long time to push through some of her thicker stuff, but with a beer and a table lamp I read every night until I was a little better.

You haven't been over lately, my neighbor said.

Nope. Been reading.

Got a new boyfriend yet?

No. I got a book.

It takes a long time, he said.

Fucker was right.