Written by user ghostwritethewhip

I could picture it perfectly.

Los Angeles, California. Camera pans over the city's greatest sites: hikers laughing as they make their way to the Hollywood sign; bikini-clad girls on roller blades skating alongside Santa Monica's pier; tourists posing in front of shops as they make their way up and down Rodeo Drive.

Cut to an irresistibly suave, dark-haired young man seated on the patio of LA's self-proclaimed trendiest new café. It's a hot day and the sun beats down on him; you'd never guess it's the middle of October by the amount of sweat pooling around his brow and each droplet that gathers marks another minute that he's been waiting. Dark sunglasses cover his eyes as he lazily watches the crowds go by, wondering where each person is headed...

"Hey, douchebag," a joking voice rang out, jerking me from my daydream. I turned towards my offender with a smile.

"What happened to meeting at noon, man?" I teased, as I greeted my best friend with a series of brisk claps to his upper back that only two guys would ever instinctively recognize as a hug.

Stepping back, Scott shrugged as he pulled out one of the chairs at the table that I'd claimed. "Traffic," he sighed dramatically as he sat down, and I nodded. No further explanation was necessary.

Everyone's heard the jokes about LA's traffic but the truth is that it isn't as bad as they make it out to seem—it's infinitely worse. Yet, as awful as being stuck at a standstill, staring out over a sea of never ending red brake lights is, the constant and real threat of traffic does have its perks. Namely, it's a citywide excuse for being anywhere from fifteen minutes to two hours behind schedule. Late to dinner with grandma? No big deal, just blame it on traffic. Unlike other excuses, no one will bother to check if it's true or not. Sure, they might be skeptical, but that just gives them a pass to be late the next time around. It's a vicious cycle, really, but I can't help but make a mental note to take my time in meeting up with him the next time we hang out.

"I see you ate without me," Scott said, as he greedily eyed the few fries on my plate that survived my lunchtime ravaging.

"I had to do something to kill the time." I pushed my leftovers towards him.

"Thanks." He leaned forward to grab a fry and drag it through the last drops of ketchup. "Got anymore of that?" he asked, gesturing towards the pale red sheen that coated my plate. I shook my head as he bit into the cold bit of potato. "Damn."

"There's more inside," I suggested. Scott looked wistfully towards the door of the café, clearly debating if it was worth it to get up again.

"Nah, too lazy," he said after a moment, and I watched silently as he inhaled the rest of my scraps.

When Scott had finished, he sat back with a contented grunt and put his hands behind his head. "So, how've you been, Parker?" he asked casually, his hazel eyes trained on my face as he waited for my answer. Although I was wearing sunglasses, I purposefully averted my gaze from his in case he could somehow see past the reflective lenses to the tired shadows that had taken up residence on my face.

"Fine," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.

Scott's eyebrows shot so far up his face that they grazed his hairline. "Really?"

I raised one shoulder noncommittally. "People have it worse," I replied, trying to keep my tone even.

"I guess." Scott paused before continuing, "How's your dad doing?"

"Better. My mom said he's started tinkering with stuff around the house again, which means she's probably only a few weeks away from having a heart attack of her own," I chuckled mirthlessly.

"Don't even joke," Scott warned and then shook his head. "To be honest, I still can't believe that your dad had a heart attack at all. He put our entire frat to shame on the bench press last year,"

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you live like you're twenty at forty-five," I said. "Doesn't help that he spent the last ten years of his life working 60-hour weeks. You'd think that in a firm full of engineers and math majors, someone would have noticed the money being embezzled before the company went bankrupt."

"Sucks," Scott mumbled, his All-American good looks distorted as his face crumpled into a frown.

"Tell me about it," I replied, wishing this part of our conversation would somehow go by faster.

As much as I would've liked to avoid the topic entirely, I didn't blame Scott for wanting to talk about my dad. In fact, seeing as my dad spent about as much time raising Scott as his own father had, I probably would've been pissed if he hadn't asked.

I stretched in my seat and thought back to the first Friday of pre-school when I'd punched him in his then rather chubby gut for stealing my graham crackers during snack time. Obviously that didn't win me any gold stars from our chronically hysterical teacher, who immediately ordered me to time-out and threatened to call my mom. As my four-year-old self began shuffling towards the Corner of Shame, Scott wrapped a protective arm around my shoulders and said matter-of-factly to the frizzy-haired Ms. Magillian, "It's okay, we're brothers."

In hindsight, there's no way that she actually believed his lie. At the time we'd giggled to ourselves as if we'd gotten away with some big feat after she'd given us an amused smirk and dismissed my punishment by telling us to go play—nicely. Frankly, even if she hadn't taken attendance by reading off our first and last names every day that week, just based off appearance, it was probably pretty clear to her that it would've taken more than one genetic miracle for us to have been from the same family.

Whereas Scott's wavy blond hair and wide eyes contributed to his persona of perpetual cheerfulness, by age twelve I'd grown accustomed to people constantly telling me to 'smile!' and that my pale grey eyes that I inherited from my (in my opinion, rather pleasant looking) mother made me look angry. In high school, I once overheard a girl that I'd spent a semester crushing on say that she thought I always looked like I was about to go on a murderous rampage. That bummed me out for a while, so when we graduated, I sarcastically signed her yearbook, "Dear Kelsey, You were right all along. Don't tell, but I hid the bodies under the gym." I don't think she believed me when I told her that I was joking, though, because she nearly burst into tears when she found out I'd be standing behind her in the graduation procession.

Regardless, by the time our parents picked us up from pre-school on that day seventeen years ago, Scott and I had solidified a best-friendship that's lasted ever since. We ran track throughout school together, got grounded for sneaking booze from his dad's liquor cabinet together, moved out to L.A. to go to the same college together—hell, we even joined the same frat and joked that we could start telling people that we're brothers again.

Which is why it's weird that this is the first time that I've seen him since the day my dad was hospitalized.

I'd just finished moving everything into my room in the fraternity house when I got the tearful call from Mom. I flew home that night and spent what should have been my first week of junior year praying to any god that I thought might listen for my dad to get better. I guess it must've worked because that Saturday the doctor discharged him and my mom and I began the impossible task of keeping a workaholic away from his briefcase. It baffled me that a guy who'd just had an emergency double-bypass would be so eager to start applying to jobs, but I suppose that's why they say it often takes more than one near-death experience for addicts to admit that they have a problem.

By the end of my second week at home, Mom seemed to have a solid grasp on everything that she needed to do to help Dad while he recovered. More importantly, for my peace of mind at least, is that she'd stopped crying every fifteen minutes. Maybe I'm selfish, but that was the sign I'd been waiting for and needed to know it was all right for me to go back to school. All of my professors had been really chill about the situation and after thirteen days of force-feeding my dad what he referred to as "cardboard garbage" and playing hide-and-seek with his laptop, I was honestly ready to have life return to normal.

Except it didn't.

As if reading my thoughts, Scott said solemnly, "This year's ridiculously lame without you around, dude,"

"Really? You miss me? Do you mean it?" I joked half-heartedly in response.

"Shut up, Park." Scott scowled at me and then continued glumly, "You not being president really screwed up the house, you know."

"How so?" I asked, genuinely surprised. Kappa Omicron had always been a strong, if not massive, Greek organization at our school. It was the kind of frat that girls enjoyed spending their nights at and its members were proud to wear the letters of. Winning the presidency in last spring's election is still among the best moments in my life. I had so many plans...

"Sixty day party probation. The genius that took over your position 'forgot' that all the presidents and VPs were required to attend a mandatory alcohol awareness program. The Council's director came by that night to personally ask why we hadn't sent a rep and we got absolutely annihilated when he found the entire exec board three games deep in a beer pong tournament," Scott shook his head as if he still couldn't believe it. I could. Everyone knew the only thing that the Interfraternity Council enjoyed more than hosting mandatory meetings was doling out punishments to the poor saps that missed them.

I let out a low, disapproving whistle. "Mutiny," I suggested.

"We've tried." Scott assured me. "But it's not that easy. The day we got the official word on our probation, Phil's dad donated fifteen grand to next semester's rush fund. It's kind of hard to be actively pissed at the guy when you realize that he's the reason we're going to be holding one of the recruitment events court side at a Lakers game. We're even chartering a yacht for bid night."

"Money talks," I muttered bitterly and Scott nodded.

Fifteen grand.

Last year I probably would've felt sorry for the guy; it must suck for him to know that people only put up with him for his money. Between his unfortunate habit of destroying everything in his path while drunk and his even less pleasant personality when sober, I can't think of anyone in our house that actually likes the kid. Rumor has it that even Phil's status as a triple legacy wasn't enough to earn him a bid without additional incentive from Daddy Thorne-bucks. Personally, I know I wouldn't want to be that person who only gets invited out when I'm picking up the tab.

This year, however, instead of sympathy, I can't help but feel unbridled envy as I think of Mr. Thorne—possibly the only person on earth more pompous than Phil himself—whipping out his checkbook in exchange for another one of his son's screw ups being swept under the rug.

Fifteen thousand dollars.

That would've only covered one-fourth of my total tuition, not including the frat or you know, like, eating and stuff, but at least I would've had a chance to go back to school for part of the year instead of working odd jobs around L.A. like some sort of bum.

Just the thought of having to find a way to cover my rent in two weeks made me queasy and I regretted having spent ten bucks on my all-organic lunch. I thought back to all the times that I'd heard girls joke about stripping to put themselves through college and I hated myself for wondering what the going rate for a guy my age would be. I shuddered and leaned towards Scott so abruptly that he jerked back, startled.

This lunch was never supposed to be a friendly catch up between two frat bros—no, I was way too broke and stressed out for that. This was business. I'd called Scott a week ago to finally cash in on the favor that he owed me from freshman year. I think he'd hoped that I'd forgotten, but get real. There isn't a saint in the world that would've written an eight-page paper on Hobbes for his hungover ass and not expected something in return.

"Did you talk to your brother?" I demanded, trying to ignore how desperate I sounded. Scott hesitated. "Well?"

"Er, yeah, I did," Scott ran a hand through his unruly hair nervously. "I don't know if you're going to like what he said, though..." He trailed off and I fought the urge to shake him until he spit it out. I hadn't slept for the seven days that I'd been waiting for Michael Donahue to either be the answer to my prayers or the crusher of my dreams. One way or the other, I needed to know.

"What the hell, man," I exclaimed as my voice rose with agitation. "Just tell me what he said."

"He said... He said he couldn't find you a job in production," Scott blurted so quickly that the words jumbled together almost unintelligibly. "He said—" I slumped back in my chair, my mind unable to process another word.

Death.

Michael Donahue had sentenced me to death. Except unlike those prisoners who get to appeal their convictions, my fate was set in stone.

The night before I'd been set to fly back to L.A., Mom had sat me down in the kitchen to have a talk. A box of tissues had been placed where our table's centerpiece usually stood and I knew immediately that nothing good would come of our conversation. I'd automatically assumed that what she wanted to tell me had something to do with Dad. It would've been just like her to hide some major fact, like he was having serious complications or something, to keep me from being upset.

"Mom?" I'd asked anxiously. "What's up?"

With tears streaming down her face, Mom had opened her little green expense notebook to the most recent entry. I remember sitting shell-shocked as she told me between hiccupped sobs that there wasn't enough money to cover Dad's medical expenses and rehab on top of my tuition this year. I asked how that was possible; money had never been a problem thanks to the salary that my dad pulled as an engineer. We weren't rich like Phil Thorne, by any means, but we were comfortable and my parents were far from spendthrifts. Wasn't there anything set aside for emergencies?

That's when I found out that the project Dad had been working on since I left for college had lost most of its funding after the first year. Apparently Dad's firm had felt his team's vision sounded too much like a bad episode of 'Star Trek' to warrant risking the amount of money that it needed to become a reality. After cursing, calling their wives, and finding themselves unable to think of another solution, Dad and his teammates had gone to their boss and agreed to take significant cuts to their pay until the project was completed. At that point of the story, I'd stopped my mom to ask her what 'significant' meant. Her answer had been a fresh wave of wails.

Eventually, Mom had been able to continue. She'd made sure to tell me at least four times that she and Dad were so proud of me for deciding to major in engineering and that in no way should I feel like I'd caused our money problems by choosing to go to one of the most expensive private schools in America—which would have been nice, except we both knew that it was a lie. They may have been proud of me, but not even my dad's alma mater, MIT, cost as much as what they'd been shelling out for me to go to college.

My high school grades had killed my shot at the Ivies, so when I told my parents that, at the very least, I could go to a top 25 school, they'd been satisfied. Does it have a good engineering program? Is it in a safe area? Yes and yes. With those two questions answered, all that had been left was for me to get my acceptance letter from Los Angeles University, which came in the mail a few weeks later. If I'd known then that my parents would have to take over $125,000 out of their savings funds for me...

"Parker, are you even listening to me?"

"Huh?"

Scott sighed exasperatedly. "How long ago did you tune me out?"

"Around the same time you savagely murdered the little bit of hope I had left in life. Don't mind me."

My best friend rolled his eyes impatiently. "You take bad news worse than anyone I know,"

"Sorry, but I'm already way over my bad news quota for the year. Try again in January," I replied, offering a thin-lipped grin. Scott furrowed his eyebrows apologetically in return.

"No, my bad, man. I just meant you started freaking out before I could finish telling you what Mike said."

I sat up slightly, intrigued. I didn't want to jinx myself but from his tone, I felt a tiny glimmer of hope reviving itself from the ashes. "Okay," I said expectantly, gesturing with my hand for him to continue.

"Michael said he can't get you a job in production but the talent agency he works for is hiring," Scott paused to study my expression before adding, "He said if you let him know by tonight, he can pull some strings and you'll be able to start on Monday. That is, if you're interested. I know you'd rather be in the studio but I figured—"

"Is it full-time?" I interrupted as I thought about the past month and all the times that I'd helped people move and washed old ladies' cars in exchange for a wrinkled twenty.

"Full-time internship with a letter of rec and the potential to come back after graduation."

The speck of hope inside me swelled.

"Paid?"

"Fourteen an hour to start, but Michael said that because of your situation, he'll put in a good word for you once you hit the six month mark."

I felt my face break out into a genuine smile for the first time in weeks. So what if it wasn't exactly what I'd wanted? This was the best thing that had happened to me in so long.

"Call your brother," I laughed, not bothering to contain my excitement. "Tell him I'll see him on Monday."