Not everything? I'm offended.

Wellllll…not everything. But close to everything.

Not a problem.

So, who cares? Find a new girl. Chase her. Do something about it.

Your concern is overwhelming, thanks.

There’s a girl. She left. Not much more to say.

She took the small, silver case from him and looked over its contents. He had enough drugs for them both to overdose if they wanted to. She shrugged. "Whatever," she said, handing the case back. She wasn't sure she wanted him to fuck her, if that's what he was getting at, but she knew she'd feel a lot better about it if she was alert enough to kick him in the balls if she needed to. 

She rose her middle finger to him. "It's the only white thing I own," she informed him, bringing her hand back down to her side. "And besides, I used to be a little girl," she said, trying to defend herself as she twisted her hair around her finger.

She jumped a little at the flash of his camera. She hadn't realized how tense she really was. She knew it was partly the outfit. It felt unnatural, like she was covered in someone else's skin. But also, it was the atmosphere Kris had created. She didn't scare easily, but he gave her chills. It seemed like he didn't want to kill her, at least not yet anyway, but she wasn't sure exactly what he was planning to do with her, and the feeling of being out of control scared the shit out of her. She crossed her arms, glaring at the camera. 

Ugly || Kris & Angela

Awesome, let me grab my knife.

Lucky for me that’s the exact kink I’ve been suppressing all these years. 

God, get a grip. I didn't break into your house. But someone did. Unless your door just magically unlocks itself.

What? What for?

The most valuable thing we have here is the broken typewriter. 

It's so cute that you think I'd need someone to let me in.

Yeah, like anyone would let you into my house.

"The afterlife?" Angela grinned. "What makes you so sure that there is an afterlife? For all you know, death could be just nothingness… just a corpse lying in a hole in the dirt." She often fantasized about this sort of death, a death where she would just cease to exist, but no, she was stuck in Bentley… probably for eternity.

"Ahh," she breathed, nodding, "you've caught the flaw in my logic. You're the quiet library freak who also happens to not be hideous. You defy everything I thought to be true about the way hot people function in the world." She rolled her eyes. This kid was making her roll her eyes a lot.

When Drew asked her about her hobbies, she furrowed her eyebrows. It wasn't a question she was asked a lot, mostly because people in Bentley just knew not to ask. There seemed to be an unspoken consensus among everyone in town that whatever Angela did in her spare time, they didn't want to know about it. "Oh, you know, the usual. Anal, killing girls in the woods, gouging my eyes out…" she said casually, as if it were all a big joke. Her eyes rested on the book in her hand. "And poetry. Until my summer homework is done, my biggest hobby is reading poetry," she groaned.

Drew snorted at her joking question. At least, he hoped she was joking. She’d be sorely disappointed if she wasn’t. He had no interest whatsoever in girls that weren’t her. “That would be pretty cool, actually,” he said, nodding a little, a small smirk on his lips. “I could learn how to ride a horse in the afterlife and be the headless horseman.”

He cocked his head slightly at her next remark. Was her sarcasm meant to insinuate that she didn’t think of herself as hot? Because even though he wasn’t necessarily attracted to any other girls than her, Drew still noticed when a woman was attractive. And he couldn’t deny that she was a fairly pretty woman. “But then you have me, who’s hot and knows how to avoid attention,” he said with a pointed wink.

"I don’t say this often, either, but it’s nice to meet you, Angela." He noticed she hadn’t removed her hand yet, so he took the liberty of unattaching them, letting his hand return to its former position resting on the windowsill. At this point, he had been speaking to someone other than himself for more than ten minutes, which was so unnatural for his loner personality, and every instinct was telling him to end the conversation now. But he found himself wanting to know more about this Angela, so he switched tactics. "So, you know my hobbies, it’s only fair that I get to know some of yours," he said, leaning back in his chair with an expression of mild interest.

Angela tucked her hair behind her ear. "What, do I have to suck your dick or some shit?" she asked, laughing dryly. She wasn't sure whether it was his dry wit or just because he looked older and mysterious, but she liked this boy. She twisted her stud earring around as she looked him over, trying to find a crack in his too-cool-to-care facade. There were no cracks. "That's what everyone says before I saw their heads off," she shrugged, deadpan. Part of her was hoping that he'd think she was badass enough to be a violent murderess. 

A lively laugh escaped her lips at his suicide joke. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so earnestly. And really, it shouldn't have been funny to her, considering that she'd killed herself so many years before, but that was the precise reason that she found the joke so charming. The nonchalance with which he spoke was absurd. She was finding this stranger more endearing with every word.

"Well, when you're as hot as I am, it's really hard to be a wallflower," she breathed sarcastically with a roll of her eyes. She stared at his hand as he held it out to her. The first words he'd spoken to her had been snarky and he hadn't exactly started being polite afterwards, but now he was holding his hand out to her like he was concerned with his manners.This kid was full of surprises. Without a moment's more reluctance, she shook it, smirking at him. "I don't say this a lot, but you aren't so bad, Drew. I'm Angela," she said, her hand still in his.

Drew let out a chuckle and shook his head slightly. “You’ll have to try much harder than that to get me to warm up to you,” he remarked. Her intense gaze didn’t faze him in the slightest, a trick he figured was meant to scare him. Or at least rattle him a little bit. But he wasn’t rattled in the slightest. “Is that so?” he asked, an underlying challenge in his words. “I’m pretty sure I can handle myself.”

He shrugged at her question and responded simply, “Actually, usually I jump in front of them for sport. I figured I’d take a break and watch them today.” It was meant to be a joke, but he kept a deadpan expression, so not many people would’ve caught it. This girl, though, seemed like she was the type to appreciate that kind of humor.

"Yes, I can tell you’d be the kind of person to always grab the spotlight," Drew remarked. It wasn’t an insult, really, or even a compliment. Just a simple observation. This is when he realized that he still didn’t know her name, even though this was the first person he’d spoken more than a passing ‘Hello’ to since…well, since he’d arrived in Bentley. "Although, I think this is the point in the conversation when strangers exchange names, if I’m not mistaken. I’m Drew." And he held out a hand, the manners his grandmother had always taught him reminding him that it was courtesy to shake someone’s hand upon just meeting them. He could already tell they could be good friends, sharing the same dry humor and fuck the world attitude.

Call me mom one more time and I'll castrate you and eat your dick for breakfast.

Are you going to lecture me on how vinyl will always sound better than cds next, Mom?

Angela was about to thank him for bagging the lavender when he started spilling his life story to her. She blinked. This wasn't the way she normally functioned, but still, she listened carefully to his words, and even though she didn't mind the guy, she subconsciously tried to find something in his monologue that she could hold against him later. Spotting people's weaknesses was instinct for her.

"Are you happy?" she asked. It must've been a huge jump from planning to be a doctor to helping out at a hotel, but Angela had been around long enough to realize that status didn't matter at all compared to contentedness. 

"You live here long?" he asked. "You could say that," she mumbled, brushing her hair back away from her face. "Pretty much my whole life," she said, her mind wandering back to her parents, who'd ditched her during a pit stop in Bentley on their way to become party kids in Manhattan. She almost told him that she was a high school drop out, and a few months ago that would've been true, but now, she went to high school again. She was getting decent grades and trying to be someone. "High school," she nodded, choosing not to elaborate like this... Jack guy had. She much preferred being mysterious. "Anyway, it's nice to meet you, Jack. I'm Angela," she mumbled, her eyes focused up at his.

Botanica:

Jack bagged a few sprigs for…the girl. He didn’t even know her name. And she was pretty.

"I’m Jack," he said. "Abbott. My family’s originally from Massachusetts. I moved here to go to college. Now I help my parents with their hotel. I feel new all over again. When I was in school, I stuck pretty close to campus because I was doing a pre-med track. There’s a lot of biology, chemistry, anatomy and physiology, organic chemistry, neuroscience, and physics. So a lot of studying and coffee and sleepless nights. Had to get ready for the MCATs. But now I’m here doing hospitality work. Not the life I thought I’d be living. So I feel like I’m seeing this town for the first time. It’s really weird. You live here long? You go to high school or college here?"

I wouldn't jog even if you paid me.

Yeah, point Claudia. {smirks and takes out a cigarette and lights it}

What physical activity not amazing enough for you?

I peed in your shampoo. I can't believe you didn't smell it.

Wait, you did what? 

"Is that all it takes to get in your good graces?" Angela quipped a short laugh with a roll of her eyes. "One compliment?" She studied his bemused expression, continuing to chew on her pen. "You ought to be careful of girls like me, kid," she uttered quietly, eyes intense.

She smirked to herself as she realized that they hadn't been yelled at yet. Usually, the Bentley librarians had no trouble at all telling Angela to shut up, but maybe because she was playing nice, or maybe because they were afraid of the volatile boy, the pair was getting away with their bickering. She peered out the window beside them and raised an eyebrow at the boy. "Is this what you do for fun?" she asked, a tad more judgmentally than she'd wanted to. "Watch cars go by?"

The more the stranger spoke, the more he sounded to Angela like her boyfriend. They were two cynical, snarky young men who didn't like to step out from the shadows. The difference was that James had always been very interested in Angela, but this boy didn't seem to care much about her. She started to wonder if he was gay. "And here I was thinking we were so much alike," she grinned. "But you try your best to stay under the radar, and I try my best to be the center of attention."

Drew couldn’t help but smirk at the girl’s words, the first thing resembling a smile that had graced his lips in weeks. First taunting him, now making remarks about his good looks? If that’s what it was, at least, he could never tell. This girl was obviously…different was the only word that sprang to his mind. In the best sense of the term, of course.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment," he asked, raising an eyebrow at her in amusement. The banter between them was definitely more intriguing than staring out of a window. He had been wrong when he assumed that no interesting characters ever graced the halls of the library.

"I keep to myself," he responded, unfazed by the girl’s forwardness. He appreciated when people spoke their mind instead of beating around the bush, getting straight to the point of what they really wanted to know. It was a good question, nevertheless, he’d lived in Bentley for a few years now and had only just now begun to get interested in the place, explore what he was missing. "I like staying in the shadows, per se, I try my best to stay under the radar."

Semantics. What happened to the Walkman days when things were simpler?

Please don't hurt my feelings. All I ever did was love you.

Ah, one doesn’t fucking exist. 

Don’t get used to it, I’m sure I can drum up some insults to counteract the niceness.

Angela grinned at his obvious agitation. She thrived on irritated feedback from others. She crossed her legs and tossed her hair over her shoulder, watching, eyes aglow, as the boy seemed to be taken by surprise by the flash of her camera app.

"Oh please," she murmured. "It isn't as if you really even have a bad side," she said, chewing absentmindedly on her pen as she tried to size the stranger up.

"Why don't I know you?" she asked, rather bluntly, but it was a fair question. Angela had been living in Bentley for over forty years, and she was surprised that she had never crossed paths with this boy, who certainly seemed like an unforgettable character.

Drew’s lips curled into a slight snarl as the small, blonde girl decided to sit next to him. That’s not what he wanted at all. Why couldn’t people learn to leave him alone? 

He was actually surprised when the flash of a camera went off, not expecting her to take his words literally, even if she was trying to be clever about it. Drew didn’t like when people caught him off guard. Now he had no choice but to interact with the girl.

"I hope you got my good side," he drawled, his tone bored and not a little on the smart-ass side. If she was going to act like a bitch, then he was going to act like a dick.

I think that's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me. iPod, uPod, what's the difference anyway?

You’re like a vile little fawn trying to walk for the first time. It’s ipod.

Oh. I thought I had to get ready to fight with you again.

Apology accepted.

I know- I mean I know that now. 

And I want to say that I’m sorry.