“No—I don’t know anything stronger than love. Actually, I don’t know what love’s like. Hmm…they make it seem so wonderful on TV. It always defeats all. Like, it’s the ultimate weapon for life’s troubles. Like, every movie’s moral is that love conquers all. Right? Love is great, I wish I had it. I don’t know anything stronger than love; I’m telling you the damned truth.”

And he continues down the road of life—sorry, cliché line—making choices, choosing forks in his path, this way or that way? Or should he take that shortcut through those bushes? He’s saving up for a car so he doesn’t have to keep taking those shortcuts, you know, he’d be able to travel so much faster if he only had that car. Oh that one car. But car insurance for teenage boys is so expensive nowadays; statistics say we keep crashing into poles and stuff—not to mention gas. Ooh, gas is so expensive today too. He guesses it’s got something to do with that war in Iraq. He’s not totally oblivious of the world, though he’s pretty clueless. At least he knows the basics, like how boys are supposed to like cars and how girls who sleep around with more than one guy are sluts and how combustion is really just adding oxygen to an element to form carbon dioxide and water (at least he thinks so) I think he’s wrong about that part though because when he got a car he sat in the front seat all night one night hoping the oxygen in the air would fuse with the car’s metals and create a combustion. It never did. And all night long the tears streamed down his face—damn, now I’m making him sound emo or depressed or something. He’s pretty normal, seems happy actually. He’s always smiling. Like, always.

“Nobody understands me, no, too trite… How about, my life is a bottomless pit, too cliché. Damn those emos, they’ve taken up every good line.”

So Saturday, Bridget calls him up and they go out shopping. I know, he’s kinda’ girly. I’m starting to think he’s a fag. Everyone else does too. My God, what am I saying, he’s not, I swear, he said it himself that he’s not, while smiling that smile he always smiles. He’s so cute when he smiles; at least that’s what everyone else says. I have no comment about his smile.  So anyway they go out shopping and he drives there himself because he has a car now and thank goodness it did not combust else how else would he have gotten to the mall right? Bridget wants him to dress a certain way, she takes him to like those really preppy shops, like Hollister and stuff. Too high-class for me, you know? I stick to JCPenny, they always have a sale there. I guess now he’s prep, popping his collar down the halls at school, showing off his wealth. That rich kid, I hate him now, I swear he’s a fag.

“Sometimes, I don’t even know why I dress up so nice. Is it worth it? Is anyone looking? What’s the point of spending 70 bucks on a shirt that says Hollister? I mean, it’s got a good fit, I actually like that shirt actually. Everyone’s doing it—haha, there I go off again with my trite sayings; they always use that line on those weird peer pressure videos we watch in health class. 70 bucks on a shirt… I’m not even that rich, everyone thinks so though. What they don’t know is that it’s all bought on credit. Credit is bad. Its like money you don’t really have, and its addictive, like cocaine, I don’t do drugs though. I don’t really know what its like to be addicted. I think you can only get addictions to like drugs and cigarettes. I think addictions are things that you WANT (not need) so badly that you start shaking and getting sick. A guy addicted to cigarettes in a movie once started shaking because he couldn’t find his cigarettes. My family’s not addicted to credit, else we’d all just drop dead shaking one day if we didn’t get our daily swipe of the card. That hasn’t happened yet before by the way.”