Violette, as it turned out, lived 3 blocks away and asked me to walk her home. I told her about my mother and her love of white wine, and Lance and his loveless affairs. And in return, she told me of her hippie stepmother and her strange hopes and peculiar dreams.

"I want to lie on stars and breathe out clouds," She said breathlessly as we looked up at the night sky.

"I want my open eyes to be the sun, and my tears to be the moon," I said in return. We were stargazing on the roof of her apartment building. She was wearing my suede coat and giggling. We were framed against the stars as she laid her head on my shoulder. She gave me 3 Polaroids of myself and 1 of her.

The atmosphere was ruined when Mom called for the 3rd time. It was 7:30, and it was dark out.

"When will I see you again?" She knelt in front of me, my face cupped in her cold hands. She still wore my jacket.

"Tomorrow, meet me on that doorstep," She nodded. And that's how I left her.

Mom, as it turned out, had a date with a man called Bradley Irving at 8.

"Make something for yourself and you can do your homework in the workshop," She decreed, setting my boundaries for the night. I hastily cooked myself a plate of mozzarella sticks and took my bookbag out back.

Some vintage movie was on, and my feet were on the coffee table as I agonized over my math. My mozzarella sticks are undercooked, but I begrudgingly swallow them anyway. I'm zoning out and thinking about butterflies landing on brown suede jackets when a tentative knock at the door. The Alex Murphy Exhibition had already been shown to Bradley Irving, so what did she want? I sigh as I put my binders on the couch next to me, then go to get the screen door.

Lance is standing there, and looks as though he's crying. His eyes are cast down in shame. His eye is bruised and his lip looks swollen.

"Lance, oh, my god!" I pull him inside from the night air. It had felt so sweet on Violette's rooftop, but now it felt cold and invasive.

"What happened to you?!" I move my binders down to the floor, making a space for him. He sniffles loudly before answering.

"My dad had too much to drink again. He did this to me," He pointed to his eye in strange calmness, "so then I locked myself in the bathroom and tried to call Gabe. But Ron Goldman told him how I sucked him off, so he yelled at me and said nobody could love a whore like me. I don't remember what happened, but my heart started beating faster and faster and I think I blacked out. Dad's been getting worse since Mom left," Lance finally shuddered and curled himself into the fetal position.

My dad had made a comfortable living in robotics, but down in East Tauton, there was no such thing. Divorces, single parents, and dead parents were a dime a dozen here. People led tumultuous lives and lived in a world of crime, often dying there. Violette had mentioned her mother had died, but it was ovarian cancer. She had said that she was the strongest woman she ever knew and had lasted longer than the doctors had given her.

"Why is it so easy to leave me?" Lance shuddered, his voice muffled by his position.

"It's not, though," I slumped down next to him, flicking off the movie.

"Mama left, Gabe left me, and you did," He melted into fresh tears at the last one.

"Lance, I'm right here," I touch his shoulder.

"You wouldn't understand," He wails softly, in complete misery. His words are muffled by a ruched cushion my mother was rather fond of.

"You left me earlier. You didn't even want to hear what I was going to say," He seemed to be crying because of this. Finding out why Lance was crying was often like sticking your hands in a dark flooded basement and finding the broken pipe where all the water leaked in.

"I..." Lance sat up, his face normal save for the tears streaming down it.

"I'm gonna go lie down," He mumbles, "God, this fucking sucks!"

"I'll bring you some water." I get no answer as I slip out the door. The night air is invasive, and I grab the water quickly and quietly. Mom and Brad are eating chocolate-covered strawberries in the living room and pay me no heed.

I climb up the ladder to the loft in the workshop and hand the glass to Lance. I'm about to go back down when Lance grabs my hand.

"Don't leave me," He whispers. I can hear his breathing slow, and his hand is like silk as he leads me to the bed up there.

Lance's body is soft and pale, as though all the color had bled out from some sort of wound. He was skilled in all he did, and when it was over, he gathered his clothes and I bandaged his cuts. I saw another Lance as he gathered his things and prepared to take flight. I felt a surge of melancholy because I knew I could never love him. He was one of those tumultuous people I spoke of, the ones who lived on the edge and died there. He was one of those people who live like a flame; he sears all he touches with tongues of flickering scarlet, and when he goes out, we all crumble to ashes with him. He kisses my cheek and leaves, his destination unclear, naively believing I loved him and all was well. For someone who slept around so much, he was only 16, and he still believed in true love and fate and that the stars were kind. I had known better from a young age.

The cushions were stained with tears, and the extra bed up in the loft smelled like Lance's rosewater and essential oils. I couldn't focus and gave up on my math homework. I could do it in homeroom, but I knew I wouldn't. I lie on the couch, my neck still dripping from his touch, his Carmex still smeared on my face. The evidence of our night together was in the tangled sheets on the bed. I lie on the couch and think too much about everything. Lance's bruised eye. His cool fingers running up and down my back. Violette's smile and the orange plaid skirt she was wearing. Polaroid pictures and the stars. She still had my jacket, I realized with a twinge. Lance's jean jacket. I had felt his cool, bare arms as he was leaving, and I realized it was still upstairs. I would bring it to him tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I would see Violette again, the gays would be reeling from the breakup of Lance and Gabe, their power couple, and Lance would think we were going strong. I knew that in my heart Lance wanted me with all of him, but I had only done it because I was guilty about abandoning him and I didn't want to leave him again. What would Violette say? I chide myself with a light heart. Violette went to West Tauton and lived there, so, hypothetically, she wouldn't come into any contact with anyone from the East side, except for me and maybe Lance. But tomorrow, I would calmly explain to Lance that it meant nothing and we were still friends, and I could continue to go away with Violette. After coming to this unsteady conclusion, my mind wandered again. Violette's hippie stepmom. Lance's bruised eye. Mom's bedroom, with white wine bottles under the bed. That was what this twisted trio had in common. We were all missing a parent. With a sudden jolt, I froze and remembered where I was. Dad's forbidden workshop. He had only let me in a handful of times. I took inventory of each time. Mom, Dad, and I holed out in here on a snowy night because the Christmas decorations were out here. Dad bringing me here to loan me a piece of wire I needed for a project. That hot, grubby afternoon when he had left me alone with her.