The coast was a couple miles from the school, but Mark didn’t bring Son to his car; they walked for almost an hour alongside the one road that led from the school to the coast. A small river occasionally came into view amidst the thick overgrowth of olive greenery. The brown mud beneath crumbled as she put her boots on them; they said a small drought had hit the area, it hadn’t rained for over a month. Mark’s dog, a teenage German Shepard, frolicked ahead of them unleashed. Sunlight shined through the foliages casting golden nuggets on the ground shifting with the wind. 

“There is this club, specifically for international students like you. You should join them. Give you some support in a foreign land like this.” Mark said. 

“Really? You got me out here to suggest I join up with a club?” 

“Well… don’t want to be seen as being too desperate.” Mark laughed. His smile felt sunny like the weather. “You are very different from the other girls. Foreign or not. You aren’t fake. And you are discerning, disconcertingly so.”

She must be blushing by then, so she tried covering it up by brushing her hair back over and over again, “Not good with faces, though.”

“Facial blindness. That was very interesting what you’ve told me, huh. So everyone just looks as though you have met them the first time to you. That must entail something special? That kinda explains that detached air of yours?” 

“Detached air?”

“Air of detachment… God, I’m bad with words. I mean you always have this air of aloof detachment with you. When all the other girls are worried about popularity and making themselves pretty, you just… didn't seem too concerned about it. You don’t even have a social media account… You are very different, Son, very.”

The reason she had no social media account had more to do with the fact that most social media were banned where she was from and she had only arrived in this country a little over a month ago, but Mark’s words still made her swell with pleasant feelings. 

There was a thin Goldilock strip of neighborhood where the sea was at the perfect distance to present an impressive vista at the window but also not too close as to irritate the houses’ structure integrity; a neighborhood belonged exclusively to the rich. Mansions sitting above hilltops overlooking both the schooling district and the coastline. 

“Big house.” Son commented. 

“Big house.” Mark replied, and they both giggled. 

Beyond the Goldilock, a wasteland of ghostly commerce. What used to be the boardwalk, the motels, the arcades, the street food stalls, and the festive streets, had all gone to dilapidation. Father time did not spare this place. 

“Don’t come here by yourself.” Mark said, “It’s a great view when we get down to the beach soon, but this is where all the dropouts congregate. Gangs. Most store owners had to either move or close down because of rampant teenage crimes.”

“Who are those people there, then?” Son pointed to a small crowd across the street, some of which seemed to be looking at them. 

“The Idahols.” Said Mark, quickening his pace and signaling Son to do so as well, “Started off okay. Made it out like some kind of unisex high school fraternity; when the schooling district was drawn it was one of the few community clubs that was left over. But something happened… some years ago. The community devolved into a snake pit of violent gangbangers and drug dealers.” 

“I don’t follow… this is a schooling district, right?” 

They walked past some abandoned warehouses and more carcasses of derelict infrastructures like bus stations and long-raided pharmacies. When they turned the corner, Son noticed a certain structure in the near distance that struck a strange feeling of familiarity in her, as though she had seen it somewhere before, but suddenly Mark grabbed onto her hands and led her away. The texture of his hand felt rough and manly, and Son was painfully aware of the fact that this might just be the first bodily contact they had made. 

“Wrong way.” Mark said as his gait hastened, “What happened to The Idahols happens to everyone. It happened to this town. This schooling district was drawn on top of an education desert. There isn’t another higher education school to be found in a thirty-mile radius. Your classmates most likely need to take an hour-long drive just to get to school every morning.” 

“That explained my rent,” Son murmured. 

“Hey, screw this downtrodden place. The coast is right there! You want to go take a look with me?”

Afar, the rocky cliff made a jagged coastline against the azure blue sea. White dots glided through the clear sky, if she focused her eyes she could see that they were sea birds. Mark’s hand squeezed hers lightly, and he smiled at her neath the sunlight. 

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“Ew!” One the girl screamed as the boy pulled off Son’s coat, “This bitch got pink shit all over her! EWWWW!”

“Calamine,” Son answered, gasping for air. 

“Calamari?” Another girl laughed mockingly, “The bitch can’t even speak English straight!” 

“These are not good blackmail materials.” The boy commented, scrolling through the freshly taken pictures on his phone, “This fucking girlfailure made for a horrible photo shoot.” 

“So, you said Mark told you something while he was inebriated.” The girl who had been slapping her face this whole time, wiped her crimson red palm clean with a wet towel, “Tell me so that I can stop smacking you.” 

“If you would just ask… I would have told you people before… cough, before I even get in the car,” Son said, taking successive audible deep breaths to breathe out the fire in her lungs, “He said… postcoitus, smoking a cigarette, he said… that house, that condo at the end of that coastal street, was a den. The one that looks exactly the same… as the one you have just burnt down… You people… stored shit in it, he didn’t say what, but I can take a wild guess…” 

“And your guess would be?” 

“Can’t be weed… too legal, easily accessible… can’t be meth, its effect on the population would be more apparent if it’s profitable for you to sell… Cocaine? Judging by the quantity I see people consuming… there must be a local supplier. You control the coke trade in school… don’t you…?”

The girl seemed a little stunned by that answer. Son snickered.

“You think you are cool shit, don’t you?” The girl asked, standing up so that her crotch was directly in front of Son’s face, “Sitting in that chair, hands tied to your back, calm as a cucumber. Damn, sister, I didn’t see you shed a tear! You must be some cool-ass shit, some sassy-ass bitch, aren’t you? You think you different! Not like the other girls! Tough shit!” 

“I don’t even understand half the words you said…” 

“Where is Mark?” 

“I don’t know…” 

“You think you’ve seen Yankees before? We are going to waterboard your ass the way the CIA did to those Arabs after 9-11! Where is Mark?”

The girl was screaming, and Son could see a boy carrying a plastic basin full of water into the room. “Please don’t…” She begged, holding in tears, “I don’t know… I really don’t know…” 

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