Briar woke up Monday morning not really reminiscing her uneventful Sunday. She had sat on her couch catching up on whatever show she had recently started. Her dad as usual was gone to work.

After fixing that mess on her head and putting on her traditional vintage concert t-shirt and ripped jeans, she quickly grabbed a slice of toast heavily covered with strawberry jam as she was on her way out. Holding her breakfast with her teeth, she pulled out her house key attached to at least five keychains. It made it easier to find in her school bag which was on it's last legs. She locked her front door, then turned around to find Chris waiting for her at the end of the steps.

"Took you long enough." He told her.

"I woke up twenty minutes ago."

"Well you need to wake up earlier."

"Chris I would rather sleep in then wake up early."

"At least tell me you finished that essay that's due this morning."

Briar was confused, "What essay?"

"You know the one for math class."

"Since when do we write essays in math class? Whatever, might as well go sit in detention already."

Chris shrugged it off and they walked hand in hand to their bus stop. The bus was not far behind. Once inside, all the seats were full as usual except for the one seat in the back. No one really liked to sit there since it was the only seat that was smaller than the other ones, but Briar and Chris crammed in there anyways.

Sitting down she heard something crack. "Shit! I sat on my bag." She looked furiously to see what she had broken. Pulling out the object, her face turned to a frown. "My Walkman..."

Taking the shattered pieces from the Walkman in his hands, Chris turned to her. "You really aren't having a good day aren't you."

"My baby..."

"Bri we'll find you another one... You know it could be worse."

"My new CD was in there."

"Oh."

Briar looked sadly at her deceased CD Walkman and honestly tried to hold back tears. It may not have been the end of the world for her, but maybe it was more like a sink hole. It seemed to be a while that she found herself staring at it before the bus driver yelled at them to get off the bus.

"Ugh, school." She turned and looked at Chris. "Have fun Chris." She then walked off.

Chris ran after her. "Bri you can't just keep skipping school."

"What's the point?! I know I'm not going to college or university. I can't afford it and I know my dad can't afford it. I don't plan on being in dept. Might as well just have fun now." She was serious. "So have fun in math." She smiled again and walked away.

Briar knew that she may have been a little to stern towards Chris, but it was her reality. There was no way she was ever going to go anywhere. She would rather make the most of what she has already.

She looked up to see Asa walking towards her. He had a sort of worried look on his face and his steps were getting faster. Briar started walking faster. She hoped he wasn't going to talk to her. Of course that was exactly what he was doing.

"Go away Jesus boy!" She told him.

"Please, I need to talk to you! I'm sorry about--"

Briar turned to him. "I don't want to talk to you." She turned again and continued.

Asa still followed her. "I need your help!"

She stopped and looked at him. "Wow you're really desperate! So what? You can't get the other choir boys to help you out."

"Briar please, it's a life or death situation."

"Okay. Spit it out."

He looked at her surprised, he couldn't believe she had given in so easily.

"Well are you going to tell me?" She asked.

Asa snapped himself out of this trance. "I can't tell if I'm sinning or not."

"Is that it?" Briar was confused as to what he was trying to ask.

"No!... Umm, I need your help with... some..."

"Holy shit spit it out!" She yelled at him.

"Will you teach me how to kiss?!" He blurted out.

"Whaaaattt?" Briar was in the middle of grossed out and confused.

Asa went in to a whisper. "Please?"

"Uh... Okay." She still had that weird look on her face.

"Oh my goodness Thank you!" He pulled her in to a tight awkward hug.

"Asa?"

"Yes?"

"Let me go." The hug had gotten too weird for her at that point.

"Sorry. And I'm sorry about the spaghetti."

"It's okay, don't worry about the spaghetti." She still didn't know what to think about that question. "So are you coming?"

"Right now? I can't miss class."He told her.

She rolled her eyes, "Well when do you want to do this? You can come over to my place tonight."

"My parents would never let me go over."

"Well tell them you're... I don't know, at one of your friends houses."

"I can't lie to my parents."

"Well it's tonight or never." She turned and started walking away.

Briar was walking farther away. Asa couldn't make his mind up, but he had to make a choice.

"Okay! Tonight!" He projected to her.

"See you at 3." She yelled back.

Asa turned the other way and headed inside the school. He couldn't believe he had the courage to go and do that. He always thought that Briar disliked him, but I guess not as much as he thought. Unfortunetly that's all he could think about the whole day, this feeling and conversation. How would he explain this to his parents, probably wondering where he would be after school. Eventually he would tell them the truth, he always did, even as a kid he couldn't keep the guilt of lying inside of him. He would pray for forgivness and would always confess what he had done, no matter how small his indiscretion was.

All through out his last class of the day, Asa felt nervous and couldn't keep his eyes off the clock. He was lucky that his teacher never asked him a question. It was killing him inside, all this waiting. He watched the minute hand hit 59 minutes. One last minute. He felt like he could almost hear the ticking, counting down the seconds. Finally the bell rang and he was up and out of his seat as fast as he had sat down in it when the class first started. He turned the corner after the door.

Briar was waiting for him, "Let's go."