“What? Is this my son I see here?”

Ryan stared at him. The water still dripping from the mop.

“Is this what you want, son? To mop the floors of where we make our laws to keep the people safe?”

He looked quickly from side to side but no one else was walking in. He chuckled.

“You, shining the floor where our feet mar the ancient geometric tiles.”

His voice raised. 

“No, I will not have it. You will not shame me. You could have been so much more. I offered you an apprenticeship and you did not like sitting at the table with the elders.”

”I offered you to do the paperwork of calling in those that are requested to come into our state of the art clinic. You seemed to have some sort of issue with doing that.”

“What is it that you want?”

”I even offered you to just sit at our garden home and further your studies. But this. No, I will not have it. You will not do the cleaning. The mopping.”

”You try so hard to displease me, son.”

“Pack your things. You are going home now. I want you gone by the time my meeting is over.”

He glanced at his watch.

“I will see you back at home this afternoon. And Nina will cook you a good dinner. Then I have some details to discuss with you about your future.” Nina was Ryan’s father’s second wife.

But what Ryan did not know involved a scandal that his father had found himself involved in. Maybe this is really why he had wanted to get rid of Ryan.

* * * 

Leo Elion had never known. She had never told him. Heron wasn’t exactly born blessed like her brother had been. But she did have his intellect. 

That was for darn sure. 

And she had payed the price for it. Both her and her son Leo had paid the price. 

And as for Brooklyn, she only knew about her lies. 

* * *

Leo:

I know my weaknesses. I’ve never tried to hide them. 

But when I heard from my friends what you said, it cut straight to my gut. I thought we had something good. Like gold.

I thought that you actually liked my weaknesses. I’ve never tried to hide them. 

How could you become so cruel? 

I’ve never felt so hopeless.

I thought we had something to be cherished. You adored me.

I know that I have my weaknesses. And when my thoughts were up in the stars, you brought me back down again. 

I could just be myself with you.

How could you become so ruthless? 

* * * 

Brooklyn:

I know my affinity for wanting to date a bad boy. I am trying to improve this. This last time, he had to go to juvie.

And when he was arrested, they said this would be the last time. 

I am not sure how it is that we even meet, at my high school of high achievers. 

But like attracts like, as they say. And that is a strange thing, in my circumstance. Because I don’t feel like them. I just like them. And they really need someone sensible.

Well, this last one - Leo. He was so fine. I mean, he could have been a model. 

But they probably would have just used him for his looks, so I would never have suggested that he go into modeling. He needs to stay far away from someone that would use him. I could see that coming a mile away, even before he uttered his first words to me.

He needs some work, Leo, and I thought I could be the one to save him. 

Ha, ha, was that a lie. If I ever told myself a lie. Of which, I have told many to myself. I am trying to improve that, too. To be able to decipher when I am telling myself a convoluted full out lie. 

Leo got involved with the juvenile courts when he stole the car. And I knew it when he drove over to pick me up, at my house of all places, in the stolen red Porsche. 

I could hear the low choppy roar of the car as it crept up the street. I glanced out my bedroom window that overlooked the roses, and drew my breath in quickly. 

What the —?! does he think he is doing? I thought to myself as I rushed out.

Luckily my parents weren’t home or they might have had some questions. I’m sure the neighbors wondered, but that is the least of my concerns.

When I got into the Porsche, he just looked at me with his smug smile and nodded his head. It was not until we were out of the neighborhood that he turned to look at me again, his eyes wide open. 

Leo said nothing, accept “Nice car, huh.”

“And your source is?” I said, looking at his earring of a silver cross dangling from his right ear lobe.

There was a light pause. And Leo kept driving, a little faster than he should be, through the residential section by the park.

I laughed. It was fun to be riding in a Porsche with Leo.

But not so fun, that I could not see the future.

“Leo, where was this when you hot wired it?” I said.

He laughed his casual laugh while throwing his head back, which is what caused me to fall head over heels for him in the first place.

The snag.

The snag had grabbed me again, and I knew that this conversation would not be finished in the joyride, in the red Porsche.