He recovered her in blankets, and got dressed. Steven was only truly dating her because she had asked first, and, at the time, he was afraid of sleeping alone. He definitely wasn’t a lonely child growing up, and didn’t want to be a lonely adult as he aged.

Going through the motions, he almost slipped as he was exiting the shower. In the distance, his phone rang. He covered himself in a towel and tapped the bathroom mirror that was just recently rigged up as a tablet screen. He tapped the ‘Video’ button and was prepared to talk.

“Hello? It’s early-”

“Steven! It is 7:25! I’ve known you to be late but what the hell is this?”

Shit. Steven forgot about daylight savings time. He tried to think quickly, but he just decided to say something short and end the call.

“I’d be there 48 seconds sooner had you not stopped and called!”

Click.

Mr. Potter just put his nametag on over his semi-formal attire. He ran out of the house and forgot his wallet. There goes lunch, he realized as he was about two blocks away.

Should he call him back? No. Now wasn’t the best time to talk. He wouldn’t be able to fit a word in the conversation with the panting he caught from running and almost slipping a second time. He focused on his breathing and ran again.

Amidst his skipping, which he considered “running”, he was sure that the person on the phone was David. He could tell by the tone of voice. It almost sounded more worried than angered.

No. No. Now is not the time.

He wanted to leave his introspective bullshit at the house and have his wallet. Instead, he’ll now have to starve while contemplating the meaning of life in the middle of the lunch period. He rolled his eyes, pretending that someone was watching his life like it was in a movie.

Steven’s wrist buzzed. He got a text from Lorraine. On his wrist, it read “Oh, and don’t forget to fix your clock for DST!”

She was always two hours late to the party, but he found that cute to a degree.

He turned another corner, and was stopped by two doubles. One looked like a fourteen-year-old attempting to be twenty-one. The other looked is if he was an adult, but in a man-child sort of way.

“Look, we don’t want any trouble. We just need a few dollars for bus fare.”

Bus fare? Yeah, right. He scoffed at the idea. The last double that he gave money to had spent it on a small collection of candies. The drugs, not the confectionaries. He wasn’t judgmental by a long shot, just merely suspicious. He wanted to say he didn’t have any money, but he felt something in his jacket pocket. It was a five-dollar bill left in there from the last time he washed the outer jacket. It was damp and wrinkled. He tossed it on the floor and they went grabbing for it like the money-hungry degenerates he was suspicious of them being.

He saw them run into a candy store, but come out with actual gummy bears and knick-knacks instead of something like ‘strawberry quick’ or ‘crack’. Well, that could’ve been worse.

He made it to the school and unlocked the doors. Steven and two other people were given keys to the learning center, awarded to them for their punctuality over six months ago.

David was shaking his head.