Ordinary Lives

one.

"So how'd it go with your mom then? Getting a job?" Gemma asks me.

She just barely grabs my attention. "Yeah," I say absentmindedly. "Yeah, I am."

Leo raises an eyebrow. "You lost Gray?"

"What? No," I say. "I'm good. Perfectly good."

"You're sure about that?"

I narrow my eyes. "Of course I'm sure. What're you insinuating?"

"Just wondering if you're in good health, s'all. Mentally, anyways," Gemma says, with a pointed look.

I ignore her.

"She's right. You've been acting spacey all week," Leo says. He's likely the least attentive person his age in a 60 mile radius. It's not that he isn't smart. He's quite bright when he wants to be, but the problem is that he usually never wants to be, and so when he's picked up something off about my behavior, I realize I might not be as good at hiding my emotions as I thought I was.

"Charlie!" Gemma whines. She affectionately tugs on my ear. "It's like you can barely hear us."

"I'm alright asshole," I lie. "Stop being such a mother. You're going to induce vomit in even the most maternal of us. Even my mom would tell you to cool it."

"Not true," Gemma argues. "Your mother is the most motherly mother in the entirety of Hell's Kitchen. Besides the point. Tell us what's wrong with you Charlie."

If Gemma was famous for anything, she'd wish for it to be her voice, but it is completely her stubborn nature. Her doe-like features and white-blonde hair makes her resemble something divine but her persistence stems from an aggression that is more satanic than godly, and anyone that has the pleasure, or misfortune depending on how you look at it, of knowing her has faced her wrath at one point or the other. She has never taken wishy-washy for an answer. Sometimes that's alright, like when you and the rest of your underaged friends are confronted by a bull-headed bouncer to your favorite club in the East Village. Other times it's just annoying. Like when you're trying to keep a secret from her.

Okay. So it's not really a secret.

A lot of people actually know. New York is a large city and easy to feel small in, but most people don't seem to know how easily that can lend itself to a lack of privacy. It's like when you go to a huge party- you'd think no one gives a shit what you're doing, that you could quietly go off on your own, get away with murder if you pleased. But huge bouts of people force everyone to group off, formulate clumps and communities, and those can grow to become just as suffocating and invasive as any podunk small town out there. When the news hit, it spread like a wildfire, completely uncontainable. Nobody can stop talking about it. It's been peppered into every conversation I seem to catch, whether that's the ladies club that I pass by every morning on my way to grab food from the corner shop, or the loud gossip of my classmates who like to collectively meet on the steps of the library and discuss the personal lives of others with the same ferocity I'm sure Socrates and Plato possessed during their discourse.

Gemma hates just about everyone we know and tries not to associate with them outside of hitting them up when she'd like to get painfully drunk and doesn't want to pay for her own booze. Leo tunes out when he hears gossip, saying it makes him feel 'scummy', leaving him completely unaware too.

I try for a relaxed tone. "You'd know if you two tolerated other people our age for once."

They stare at me.

Leo squints. "Did someone die?"

I roll my eyes.

"New virus? You sick? Is it the plague?" Gemma enquires.