When No One is Watching

"Don't ask me 'what's up'. Don't act like your inquiry on the perpetual irrelevance of everything is anything more than polite. Don't ask me how my day was or tell me I looked pretty with my hair tied back. Ask me why my eyes are red. Ask me about why I always bite my lip when someone drops their books too loudly. Ask me why I don't smile. I don't waste my time with conversational bullshit. I want to know why you choke down lies, or why they don't make you choke at all. I want to know what makes you human. What makes you dead. I want to know everything you're too scared to tell yourself. If you can't handle that, then do me a favor; don't waste my time."

Stacy wasn't someone Beck would describe as 'pleasant'. Crude, vain and borderline psychotic, sure. But not pleasant. They've grown up in the same class, in the same neighborhood, in the same town their whole lives and in all that time, Beck never felt any burning desire to get to know Stacy. But one night, Beck finds himself out of his scene. First in line for valedictorian, captain of the lacrosse team and A-1 mama's boy does not belong on 34th Hinder street, but perhaps the inevitable crisis that is 'what next' took too hard a grasp, and with a beer in one hand and some guys collar in the other, Beck decides that not everything he strived so hard for was all that really mattered. And maybe, the girl with the doe-eyes and army jacket had all the answers.