Leo:

It was after Ryan had told me that I would never basically do anything worthwhile, that I began to consider what really would be worthy of my precious time. 

And that meant something that would make me some money. Racks on racks.

Which would mean freedom.

Ultimate and total freedom.

All these high achievers thinking and dreaming of their Yales and Harvards made no sense to me. 

Why would you knowingly subject yourself to four more years in a classroom? When you could be doing anything but that?

I wanted to go nowhere near a school, once I was done with high school. And it wasn’t like it wasn’t predicted that I would do just that, anyway. 

So why not, really? I could fulfill my dream. And what they thought of me anyway, would come true before their eyes. It would be a win win.

My father had not been a real big college goer. He had went to one year of college, and then he had started his “career,” if you could call it that. 

My mom was what you might call very smart. She probably could do anything if she put her mind to it. 

And that is probably where I got my smarts from. I guess I was naturally smart, even though I avoided most school work, so it was kind of hard to tell.

I am not really sure how the idea of stealing a car came to me, accept for the fact that I had a knack for understanding how cars operated. 

It was like I just knew.

So when the idea popped in my head, I decided to act on it because I knew that I could. 

And I was kind of desperate to prove Ryan wrong, that I would do something worthwhile. 

Because I sure as heck was not going to go the college route to do something worthwhile. 

That was out of the question.

And maybe if I had some money, I could move out of that house with Ryan and mom when I graduated. 

Maybe even have a house of my own. 

Like in Mexico or something. 

Somewhere warm, and near the beach. Or maybe on the beach. 

With the ocean to soothe my fractured mind.

Maybe Cabo, that would be about right.

So by the summer before my senior year, I had hot wired my first car, and it was on it’s way to Mexico to be sold.

The problem came after I hot wired the Porsche, at the start of my senior year. 

* * * 

Brooklyn:

He was not mysterious. He was just plain strange. 

He was not brooding. There was something wrong with him. 

He was not good looking, because it did not matter anyway, with all the things that were wrong. 

He did not make me laugh. I just wanted to laugh anyway. But why did I laugh? He was not at all funny, or fun.

I did not love him. I only thought I did. 

These are the thoughts that I made myself have about my Leo. 

And these are the thoughts that I conveyed to Leo’s friend. 

I just did not know he would go and tell Leo. But I think maybe I did know that, and that maybe it would be for the best. 

Because maybe it would help sabotage what now needed to be sabotaged.

Because Leo was now behind bars. And for how long I did not know. 

And then I would say to myself, he will probably never change and I need to move on.

Criminals have tendencies, right?