Loyalty Lies (Volume One)

Chapter 7

"How many of us have them? Friends. One's we can depend on. Friends"

Friends, Whodini

With each girl anxious for the weekend, the days slowly ticked by. By Thursday they were restless. The friends decided that after school they would head to the Tyler Galleria in Riverside for their shopping, allowing them to be fresh for the weekend.

Seated in second period Economics, Deja was stressin'. Hard. Looking at the graphs of her stocks that had been on the steady decline for the past three months, all she could do was shake her head in dismay. She hated the fact that the bi-weekly tracking of the stocks would continue for another three months. The assignment was kicking her ass.

"Justin..." Deja half-whined, turning in her seat.

"'Sup..." He drawled out, facing her with a stoned expression on his face. Not surprising, Justin was the typical stoner/skater kid, with piercings and tattoos scattered across his lanky frame.

Look at my graphs." Deja thrust a few sheets of paper to him. "I need to get some better stocks."

Justin chuckled at her pathetic charts. "Ya think?"

"C'mon, Justin." Deja was serious, and despite the fact that Justin was always blowed, he was the go-to guy. His graphs were always on point, like his spiked hair.

"Yo, D, I told you from the gate that your stocks were whack. Remember?"

"Yeah, but...there's no time for the I told you so's. What am I gonna do? Look, this week Mobil Gas is down by a grip, Duracell, just as bad, and Mac Donald's." Deja shook her head in disgust at the supposedly number one fast food chain. "Man, with MacDonald's, it's just a wrap. A straight fuckin' wrap."

"Well, you gonna have to trade."

"Yeah, but for what? And, I spent my whole ten thousand on these."

"Just these? Who does that?" Justin looked over her graphs, his face displaying how silly he thought her decision was. "You need to diversify your portfolio." Justin's tone was so matter-of-fact. Deja found it hard not to crack at how much he sounded like a Wall Street stockbroker.

"Well, I wanted to, but I didn't know with what."

"No shit, dude. You just picked three out of the air like that was the thing to do."

"Why you gotta put me out there like that?" Deja joked before turning serious. "But, look, I need help right now. For real. I got a C right now, Jus, and you know how heavy this assignment is on our final grades. I can't have it fuckin' up my G.P.A. To maintain my 3.5, I need to bust a B in this class. Even if it's a low one."

"I totally hear you. So, check it out, the first thing you need to do is drop this Mickey D's crap. You won't get much for it, but hey, what choice do you have, right? Then, with whatever you come out with, grab a high risk, high yield one."

"High risk! What if it fails?"

"I know D, but that's a risk you gotta take. Or else you're fucked, dude. Like, even if you don't use all on it, and go with just fifty percent, it's something that you should do. And then, with the extra, snatch up something safe, like a cool pharmaceutical company. Then, in a few weeks, we'll check out some other stuff, cool?"