City life is strange. Nothing changes, days go by, and time seems all but irrelevant. The small businesses around town get the same customers around the same time of day. People hurry through the streets without paying any attention to who's around them. You see faces in the crowd, but what are the chances that you'll ever actually speak a word to them? Traffic gets awful around the same time of day, and when that happens it seems that even more people crowd the sidewalks.
If you've lived in a city your whole life like me, then you never really notice these things. All those faces you see during the day don't really mean anything. You know that you won't see them again, and you just forget about ever knowing the person existed. It seems like an awful thing to do, but it's just what happens.
I live in a small apartment with my little brother and sometimes my dad. He's never really home, and when he is, he is most likely drunk. I know my neighbors pretty well.
There's the Milligans in room 224. My friend Adam and his mom live there, but it's mostly just Adam. His father disappeared before he was born, and his mother works a lot I guess. I've never really asked him. He spends a lot of time at our apartment and he's kind of like another brother to Sam and I.
There's the Masters family in 219. Meg, her sister Ruby, their brother Crowley, and their parents live there. Meg is okay sometimes, but the other two are just not people you want to hang out with. Unless you're my brother, who hangs out with that Ruby chick a lot.
There's Bobby Singer, his wife Ellen, and Ellen's children: Jo and Ash. They're pretty much family, and they really take care of us. They're right across the hall from us in 222.
All in all, everything's pretty great. All the kids around here are pretty much the same age. Crowley and I are 17, Ash and Meg are 16, Ruby and Jo are 15, Adam is 14, and Sam is 13.
We all walk to school together. Crowley, Ash, Meg, Ruby, Jo, and I all go to the city's public high school and Adam and Sam go to the middle school. I'm pretty sure Adam will be joining us next year, and Sam is smart enough to get into the private school in two years.
High school is rough. Whether your a student that always gets high grades, or one that struggles to get a C. It doesn't matter if you play sports or are in book club. It's hard. People are cruel, stress is high, and for most it is an all around bad experience. For others, high school is the time of their lives. I have no idea how that's even possible.
