It had been a week since I last saw Tina. She had never skipped a day in school which made it all the more strange. It's not like I was looking for her. The whole campus thought we're still a thing and so everyone started asking me about her. Her friends presumed we broke up and blamed me. Girls are like swarm of bees. You hurt one and you had the wrath of the whole beehive coming at your ass. I had to come check on her before everyone starts thinking I am some kind of a girl-friend murdering maniac on the loose.

I ended up at Tina's house pressing the doorbell impatiently. It was thirty-minutes pass 9:00 on a Friday evening. I had just visited Nana in the hospital.

The neighborhood dogs were agitated by the sharp chiming of the door-bell echoing deep in the night. I kept ringing the goddamn doorbell anyway. It was a cute bunch of barks from Shih Tzu at first which sounded more like rapid infant sneezes until others chimed in and then there was a whole band of angry neighborhood dogs that won't shut the fuck up. I was about to turn around and went home when I saw the front door swung open and Tina padded barefoot through the evenly trimmed fescues. Hairs were sticking out like knotted wires all over her head. Dark circles surrounded her eyes like that of a raccoon.

"What are you doing here?" She asked.

"You look awful." I said.

"So, you came here all the way just to mock me, huh?"

"Are you gonna open this goddamn gate or what?"

"Come in, your highness." She bowed.

The gate made a harsh cry as she closed it behind us. We walked inside her house that had been legendary in the campus for all the wrong reasons. It had only been my second time being here. A half-empty bottle of whiskey stood in the middle of the table where we played truth or dare many nights ago. Ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts hang precariously on the edge. Clothes littered all over the floor. The whole house looked like a post-apocalyptic scene.

Tina lighted a cigarette and blew an unbroken line of smoke into the air.

"So, what brought you here?" She asked, flicking the ashes of her cigarette on the floor, completely ignoring the ashtray.

"You've been missed at school." I told her. She tossed a pack of cancer on my way and I caught it with one hand. She poured a dark brown liquor on a glass and drunk it in one gulp.

"Here, drink." She offered.

"No, thanks." I declined.

"Drink!" She insisted.

"That looked awful!"

"You're such a girl."

Truth be told: I'm a beer guy. I drunk it anyway.

"Fuuck, that's hard!"

"Johnnie fuucking Walker." She grimaced and helped herself to another glass of Johnnie fuucking Walker.

I lighted my cigarette and blow the smoke through my nose to wash the awful taste of Johnnie fuucking Walker.

"You should better be back to school soon; people won't get off my back. They goddamn think I'm a heartless serial killer and dumped your lifeless body somewhere."

"You play the part well anyway with all this antisocial, dissociative borderline psychopath personality vibe you exude, I'm not even surprised." She had a good hysterical laugh.

"That's it? I was hoping you missed me, after all, we never officially broke up." Her lips curled.

"Think whatever the hell you want to think but you should be back to school or you're gonna piss off the nuns."

"Who cares about those cocksuckers anyway."

"You almost flunk last year."

"Almost."

"We have an upcoming exam."

"I don't give a fuck about exams."

"You can't go to the fucking prom if you won't graduate."

"Is that a proper invitation?"

"Fat chance!"

"We had a deal you know."

"The deal was over."

"Then I'm not coming back."

"Grow up!"

"Are we done here? You sure know your way out."

I knew she did not want me to leave. She was a mess and what better way to be a mess than being with someone who was also good at being a mess. We understood each other better than we cared to admit.

"Where's your mom and dad?" I inquired.

"The hell I care."

I poured a whiskey on the glass and drunk it in one gulp.

"Talk!" I said.

She looked at me with her raccoon eyes which was strangely comical.

"They broke up. Dad cheated."

"Sorry to hear about that."

"You should see how my mom begged. Pathetic." She laughed.

That explained the hurricane in the house. The clothes all over the living room. The dark circles in her eyes. The parties. The pompous and careless image she showed everyone, everywhere she went were all but facade. Like me, she wanted to drown something too. She had hurricanes. I had black holes. Hers was a wreckage, mine was a void. We were one and the same. I sat beside her and hugged her. I told her the lies I kept telling myself to feel better. "Everything will be alright." Lies could be comforting.