Bacon Burgers had become my family.

I had been working there for almost a year and I knew every position. I also knew everyone by name, something I'm ashamed to admit I couldn't say for most of my classes.

I was in the first half of junior year, and my seventeenth birthday had come and passed.

At work, I meet quite a few people who I consider to be my friends, Kyler and Lou being at the top of the list. We're an odd little unit: Kyler, Lou and I. 

Lou is a senior crew member of the store: she's been working at this same store for over ten years, ever since she turned 20. Her father reminds me of Santa: short with a bearded face, white hair and cherub cheeks which round when he smiles. He picks Lou up every night we close the store, but Lou likes the independence of walking to work. She doesn't have a license, due to her disability.

At Bacon Burgers, everyone knows Lou. She's the only one who doesn't get short with me my first day doing drive thru, and she's very understanding and helpful. She confides to me that she had been practically thrown on orders her first day and I was lucky to be trained; that I was doing very well, that all the menu items had pictures next to them, so it was really very easy to take orders.

She mostly talks about her gameboy with the Pokemon game she loves to play. She knows every position but she prefers to do dishes and trash. And she gives me a souvenir every time she and her family go on a trip. She gives everyone a souvenir.

Kyler is a first year college student and probably what you could call the store's favorite scapegoat. Everyone loves to talk about Kyler, but he works forty hours a week and he never complains when he's on grill. Personally, I don't see what the problem is. Sure, he likes to talk about watches a lot.

He wears a different watch to work every day. He loves the damn things. Sometimes, when he gets nervous, he forgets to do things. One time, ten minutes before close, Regina opened the oven and it was still on, uncleaned, with burned bacon inside. Like, one hour burned bacon. She was fairly upset. She had to help him clean it last minute. But who didn't forget things now and again?

Sometimes, when we close really late, I give him a ride home. He's always overly grateful. I like Kyler and Lou. We're part of a unit, whether everyone gets along all the time or not, we're all here for the hours. And we work well together.

The same can't be said for my friends at school.

"I'll never forget what Beth has done," Izzy confides in me during lunch period. I try to think of a neutral response and can't.

Finally, I say, "she was pretty insensitive, yeah."

"Insensitive?!" Izzy exclaims. "She was more than insensitive! After what she said to my dad..." she got quiet. "And at my niece's funeral..." She starts to tear up and I fear she might start crying and reach out for a hug, which I'm bad at. She doesn't. Instead, she just gets more mad at Beth.

Let me start from the beginning.

Beth, Anna and I get ready at Beth's house before going to the funeral. It's weird not seeing Izzy there: she practically lives at Beth's. They're like sisters.

I've never seen Izzy more devastated than at that funeral. She sits stoically between her father and her younger siblings, all dressed in black. Their niece had been practically a permanent fixture of their household and had been killed one evening on a school crosswalk after hours.

A vigil was held at the same crossing. Beth, Anna, Izzy and I had been there, too, walking with the hundred others across the street, holding candles and stopping traffic.

There's a crossing light there now. I don't think the stipulation could possibly replace the loss for Izzy's family.

Izzy's dad drinks a beer outside the church. This pisses Beth off, who's more protective over Izzy than anyone. It's not so much the beer, as the fact that he's drinking again.

We try to tell her to let it alone, but Beth just can't. She cares too much. In the hallway just outside the viewing room, Beth could be heard yelling at him in front of his wife and daughters. "Poor excuse for a father," I think were the words she used.

Izzy is beyond furious, which is why I'm sitting here trying to comfort Izzy when that's Beth's job.

Annabelle and I share AP U.S. History and she defends Beth in the crowded hallway after class.

"You know, Beth's cousin died of an overdose of all sorts of stuff, including booze."

"Yeah, but did she have to pick the funeral to say something?" I ask.

Anna pauses. "Beth doesn't think she and Izzy will ever be friends again. She says they're both too stubborn to apologize."

I study my feet. "You know, Anna, I think we might have to pick sides on this one."

Anna turns away. "I think you're right."

Which is why Izzy and I see little of Beth and Anna for the rest of that year.