A few days after Brianna's birthday, life resumed back to normal. (Cuz it was so not-normal, right?!) Her and Kaylei rode the bus to school on no particular Tuesday, and followed 'tradition', as everyone began calling it, to meet in their usual morning spot. For the past few days, both Benji and Joel had been acting strange; very quiet and distant from everyone. On this morning, Benji was sitting on the side of the planter when Kaylei approached him. Since he was sitting down and she was standing up, she went and stood between his legs and put her arms around his neck. He didn't look at her.

"I know I asked you this yesterday, and the day before that, but what's wrong?" Benji didn't say anything and continued to stare at the ground, showing no emotion. He shrugged and Kaylei gently lifted his head so that he was looking at her. "C'mon. Please tell me." she said softly. Benji shook his head. "Okay. Did I do anything to make you mad?"

"No." Benji replied quickly.

Kaylei sighed, not knowing what his problem was or how, or if, she could help him. "Whatever. You can't say I didn't try."

"Do you wanna ditch?" Benji asked out of nowhere after a moment of silence.

"What?" Kaylei asked.

"Ditch. You know, leave campus for the day."

"Me and you?"

"And Joel and Anna and whoever else wants to come. I don't care, I just don't feel like being here."

"Okay. Let me go ask Anna."

"Fine." Benji said, unenthused.

Kaylei went and discussed it with Brianna and everyone else and it was decided that Benji, Joel, Brianna, Kaylei and Billy would ditch. Everyone else declined the offer.

They all piled into the twins' slightly beat-up, older car and went to an alley behind some apartments that were a little ways from the school. They got out and hung out there for about an hour or two.

They had all say down on the hard cement in the alley and began talking. Benji had been the quietest of them all, just laying there with his head rested in Kaylei's lap, listening to his friends talk. The girls somehow got in a playful 'your mom' fight, and Benji eventually got sick of hearing then throw 'your mom' insults back and forth, so he got up and walked away. As he did so, Kaylei saw him pull something small from his back pocket. She wondered what it was, so she stood up to follow him. Benji turned a corner and leaned against the brick wall that separated the apartments from the main street and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one up and took a drag from it.

No more than thirty seconds later, Kaylei turned that same corner and saw Benji. "Benji." she said. Startled, Benji put the hand that was holding the cigarette behind his back in an attempt to hide it. Kaylei shook her head in a disappointed manner. "I already saw it, Benj. You don't have to hide it."

Benji looked back towards the houses that were across the street and took another puff from the cigarette.

"Since when did you smoke?" Kaylei asked, walking up and standing next to Benji.

He didn't look over at her, but answered her question. "I don't on a regular basis. Just when things start to suck for me, I have Josh go buy me some."

"What's starting to suck for you?" she asked, hoping that it wasn't something she had said or did.

"Everything." Benji shrugged. He looked over and saw Kaylei's worried expression. "Nothing that has to do with you though. My parents are arguing, school is bing dumb; my teachers all hate me and are trying to make me fail on purpose, I swear. And that pisses my dad off, and then he drinks and ... I don't know. Everything just sucks."

"Oh." Kaylei didn't know what to say. "Is there anything I can do?" she offered.

"Nah," Benji said, sticking his cigarette in his mouth and wrapping his arms around Kaylei's waist, "just don't leave me. You're the only thing keeping me sane right now. I feel like ... if it weren't for you, then there would be no point in me being here." he paused. "So yeah ... just, please don't leave."

Kaylei pulled the cigarette from Benji's mouth. "No need to worry. I'm not planning on going anywhere." Benji smiled and leaned down to kiss her. As they were kissing, Kaylei subtly dropped the cigarette she was still holding onto the ground and stepped on it.

As if he knew, Benji pulled away and looked at Kaylei, half grinning. "Where's my cigarette?" he asked.

Kaylei put on her best innocent face ad Benji laughed, pulling her into a hug.

Joel, Billy and Brianna then walked up to the couple. "Hey, we're going to Billy's 'cause we're bored here and there's no one at his house. You guys coming?" Brianna asked.

"Psh! Why Billy's?! No one is home at my house!" Kaylei jokingly whined.

"Because. You weren't there when we discussed where to go next. So are you coming or no?"

"Well of course we're coming!" Kaylei exclaimed. "What do you think we'd do? Stay here?!"

Brianna pretended to think about that. "Yeah!" she concluded.

Kaylei shook her head. "No. We're coming!"

And with that, everyone piled back into the car and headed to Billy's house.