During lunch, torrential downpours swept over our town, flooding all the fields. Coach said that practice was canceled because of how well we performed during Sunday's game. I was relieved at the day off, looking forward to spending an evening relaxing. I didn't know what I would do exactly, but I did know it would involve only me - nobody else.

Aspen quitely twisted her lock around until it sprung open, grabbing some books from her locker to take home. I leaned against the lockers but faced the hallway crowded with people, trying to avoid Aspen's sour looking face and attitude. My finger tapped against a metal locker while I waited for her to finish grabbing books. My mind was wandering and I kind of hoped that the boy from Physics would come down the hallway and somehow bless me with his awesome math abilities, but that was too good to be true.

"Let's go," Aspen said while she slammed her locker closed. The noise of metal clanging wasn't even that loud, considering everyone around us seemed to be using their outdoor voices. Anxious to get out of school, probably. I tagged along behind Aspen because I wasn't worthy of walking next to her. Some of my teammates passed me, but they didn't acknowledge me.

It was kind of funny, my high school career, being the best damn baseball player in the school yet receiving no greetings from my teammates or anyone else, really. The day they announced four out of five baseball scholarships were going to me, everyone congratulated Frankie Moore, who got the last one. Two people smacked my back on the way out of the auditorium, but what does that even mean? I've done something good?

I tried to focus on Aspens shoes while we walked out of the building. They were tattered and dirty, the logo falling halfway off the side, yet she didn't seem to mind. The pavement was wet but I didn't feel any rain falling. Her shoes suddenly stopped for a brief moment, causing me to quickly jolt to a stop behind her, nearly crashing into her back. "What?" I said, my eyes still focused on her shoes. I saw her turn around to look at me, mumbling in a quiet and shaky voice, "Look."

Approaching the school was Devian and his big drug dealing friend simply named "Correyander."  Aspen covered her face with her hands and turned around so her back was to our brother and his friend.

"I hate this family," she exclaimed as Devian kept trudging across the mushy wet grass in a black T-shirt three sizes too big. Her head was pressed against my shoulder.

"Hey, mi familia," Devian called out to us. He started waving and didn't stop until we waved back. "Wave," I mumbled to Aspen. She refused and kept shaking her head. I literally had to force her hand up into the air.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Devian when he was close enough to us that nobody else would hear what he had to say. But, upon scanning the surrounding students, they were all looking at us and Correyander. We formed a small circle, like a huddle, and Devian finally started talking, "We're here to pick you two sweet ass nerds up, it's been rainin' pretty hard."

Aspen rolled her eyes and struggled to break the huddle, looking like she was about to spew tears everywhere. "You're so embarrassing, let me go before I have a panic attack," Aspen said while she thrashed her arms around until she was outside of the huddle. Silently, she started running away from the school and our small group. "Never know with her," Devian said to Correy, my brother's face slowly peering across to mine now, "Let's go home, brotha."

Correyander safely started to escort us to his car, an old black Mercedes from 1999 with fully tinted windows. I felt like a drug dealer stepping inside of it, only to quickly realize two drug dealers accompanied me. I sat in the back and bumped around the whole ride home because there weren't any seat belts. I had no choice but to stare out the darkened window. Correy pulled up to our house and rattled the car into park so we could get out.

Devian thanked him and they continued on with a lengthy hand shake that consisted of mostly slapping. I swear it lasted for five minutes because by the time I was inside and taking my shoes off, I heard the car rattle and shake back down the street. Aspen was sitting on the couch, crying.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I said, with what felt like real concern, for once. She didn't look at me, instead she covered up her face with her shaky hands. I walked over to the couch where she was sitting, but she shook her head which probably meant I should go away. Fair enough, I thought.

I shrugged to myself and felt my stomach rumble so violently I thought I was going to pass out and throw up at the same time. The dishes were still in the sink from last night, macaroni floating in the water at the top of the pot. I smiled at this small victory, dumping the water down the drain with the pasta so I could wash the pot and return it to the cabinet.

I quickly rustled through the pantry but found nothing but more boxed mac and cheese, along with crackers. I opened the box of crackers and started to crunch on those stale little squares, happy to just have something to eat.

"Do you want a cracker?" I offered, to anyone who was even out there listening to me, because I knew Aspen wasn't. At this same time, Devian came through the front door with pot. I could smell it.

"Why do you have that?" I asked, not that I was complaining or surprised. "It's for mom and dad," he shrugged and began walking up the steps. I looked over at Aspen who seemed to start sobbing more at the sight of Devian with pot, her body falling back onto the cushions of the couch while loud cries radiated through our downstairs level.

Our parents were always what you could call "hippies" or "free spirits." Mom always had her long hair dreaded, but dad got his cut into a buzz last year because of lice. Nobody else contracted it, because Aspen took so many precautions that were probably unnecessary. Maybe she didn't want to be known as the lice family, just adding to the list of names. Maybe that's why she was so upset today, words can hurt.

My parents always told us that pot was great for you, smoke it every day all day, bathe in it, sleep in it, have sex with it. I was so sick of looking at it and smelling it and thinking about it that I don't even care about it anymore. Lucky for them, Devian always had a heightened interest in dealing and growing it. In fact, one of the first books my dad read to him as a child was one that he wrote himself about pot. He stapeled together computer paper to mimic a real book and made sure Devian wouldn't recite any information to his classmates. To my surprise, he doesn't mention it in depth to anyone he doesn't trust, even to this day. Maybe that's why Devian has always been the favorite child.

Now I understand why Aspen hates this family.

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