"So, you read it?"
"Shut up."
"Did you?"
"Marty, shut up."
"I bet you did."
"Can you not?"
"Isn't it poetic?"
I frown and sit up. We were in my room, with Marty sitting cross-legged on my bean bag and I laying on my bed. I had been tossing a baseball up into the air and catching it. "Is what poetic?"
Marty pushes his glasses higher up on his nose. When Mum first saw him, she thought he was around ten. It didn't seem to bother him, though, and he smiled and said it was a common mistake.
"You know, how she almost committed suicide." He shrugs.
"How the fuck is that poetic? It's depressing and sad!" I lean back against the headboard. "To think that a human being is that miserable to end their life..."
"No, I mean how she acts. She acts all tough and prickly, ready to smash her fist into your face, but then..." Marty gestures to the paper on my bedspread. "Turns around and tries to hang herself. I mean, how can she do that?"
"It's like a shell," I murmur. "An egg shell. You look at it and it's flawless, clean white and stuff, a hard covering, but then when you crack it open, all this gooey stuff comes out and-"
"Yes! Yes!" Marty claps his hands in my face. "Although no one even tries to crack open her shell! I've seen people take longer routes to their classes just to avoid walking past her!"
"What? You're serious?"
"Damn right I'm serious!"
I frown. "Is she that bad?"
Marty snorts. "I forgot, you're new." He points to the paper. "I think this was made before the Incident."
"The what?"
"The Incident, dude! The Incident!"
"I don't-"
"Long, long ago," Marty says creepily, "in a galaxy far, far away..."
I sigh and roll my eyes. "Marty, I don't have time for this."
"Fiiiiiiiiine." Marty grabs Vivian's paper and stuffs it into his bag. "Well, about two months before you waltzed it, something happened that us teens know as the Incident. It started with this kid running past Vivian and accidentally knocking her books out of her arms. Sounds somewhat innocent, right? Wrong."
Despite acting annoyed, I find myself leaning forward.
Marty grins evilly. "He tried apologizing, but Vivian turned to him, looked him straight in the eye, and killed him."
Well, that escalated quickly. "Tell the truth."
"Fine, fine," Marty sighs. "You're no fun."
"I know."
"Anyways," Marty begins again, "it was a teacher, not a student. She was checking people's homework to see if they had done it, when she stopped at Vivian's desk. Vivian didn't have her homework out. The teacher asked 'Where's your homework, Ms. Rose?' and Vivian replied 'At Mars'. This kinda pissed the teacher off a little bit, and she asked Vivian again, 'Where is your homework really?' and suddenly Vivian's face goes all red and her eyes narrow and she leans forward and grabs the teacher's shirt collar." Marty rubs his arms as if cold. "She looked like she was gonna kill somebody. She had this look of murder in her eyes. She said, 'Want the truth? My mother found it in my bag and, since she was drunk, thought it was my driver's license. She ripped it up and screamed at me and locked me out of the house.' Then she pushed the teacher back, who looked like she was gonna faint. Then Vivian said, 'Would you rather me had lie and say my dog ate it?'" Marty rubbed the back of his neck. "It was so tense in there... No one could look at her afterwards."
