Yeah I was in Juvie. Get over it.

Chapter 29

CARMEN

I had stopped at a convenience store.

For some reason, they were selling flowers.

And for some other really fucked up reason, I wanted to put flowers at Rex's grave.

Something was really fucked up with me.

I'd always been the one who never got sentimental, I wasn't supposed to get attached to someone. I wasn't supposed to trust someone.

But Rex wasn't supposed to die.

So I could do that one thing.

I picked up a sunflower that had newspaper as wrapping, and grabbed it. I didn't have a lot of money, but the twenty bucks I had swiped off a guy walking out of the store should have been enough.

Besides, the sunflower was on the edge of dying.

Though, Rex had told me once that he really liked sunflowers. To which at the time I had laughed saying he was weird. Besides, sunflowers totally ruined his image.

I walked to the counter in the front where the cigarettes and alcohol were.

I put the flower down and looked at the guy.

"Can I get a pack of Marlboro, original, and a bottle of Jack Daniels."

"ID?"

I nodded nonchalantly pulling out the fake ID that I had been carrying around.

What? You never know when you're gonna need a fake ID to get shit.

The guy looked between me and the ID and nodded, "Yup, you're all good."

Funny how a 16 year old could pass for a 21 year old.

Our system is fucked.

He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the shelf and went under the counter for the whiskey, and grabbed the flower as well.

$19.80.

I gave the guy the twenty I had as he passed me the plastic bag with everything in it.

"You need a lighter?"

"I got one already."

There had been a lighter in the back pocket of Rex's jeans, and I had been carrying it around in my pocket. Made me feel like there was still some part of him there.

He handed me my change before I turned around and looked at Jay, who was standing close to the doorway.

I wasn't gonna deny, he was growing on me.

I mean, besides being a self righteous asshole who didn't understand situations other than his own, the dude was pretty great.

I mean, he threw his principals out the window to skip school so that he could return a favor.

Better than any person in juvie.

Where saying you owe someone basically means you won't try to beat them up for a day.

Or two hours.

Maybe two minutes.

It depended on who they were.

I locked eyes with him, damn those eyes.

Get the fuck out of your head.

I was just saying that his eyes were ridiculously deep.

And what were Rex's eyes?

Steely, sharp as a knife, grey.

Okay, we're good.