"I don't think anyone is here." Keys jinged and Natoya held her breath as she saw the shadow of a head lower to the ground. Not a single thought flooded her mind as she watched a lady hold her hair that hovered inches above the ground, protecting it from the bacteria that hadn't been swept or mopped in decades. They surveyed the stall she was in before she could hear the sound of footsteps leaving the area, like she had just evaded the antagonist in a video game.

She softly exhaled, and relaxed as she stayed crouching on the toilet, her feet on the seat, balancing on their weight as she waited a few more minutes. Eventually, getting bored she scrolled on her phone and patiently waited for the sound of the tardy bell.

But once the sound filled her ears- the sound that signaled everyone in the halls that they were late for class, she made a break for it.

Natoya climbed off the toilet and slowly peeked through the gaps within the crack of the stall. Once she knew it was safe, she pulled the door open and started the next step in her escape plan. She had never done anything like this before. She'd be shamed and shunned by her mother if she did- she didn't know if she'd make it through the school year at the catholic school her mother forced her to attend. But today was a great day to be a woman. Stepping out of class with her backpack to use 'feminine products'. Her classmates might've made fun of her that day, but they wouldn't joke for much longer after they realized how much of an advantage she had over her male counterparts, who didn't have any reason to bring a bag to the bathroom.

Her heart was racing as she reached for the door. An underfunded door, one that she knew didn't have an alarm because it was held open by a tiny little pebble. If it wasn't, it would lock and one of the janitors would have to come to open it again. It was the complete opposite from her old school. It didn't have large, blocky walls and big windows with tiny balconies. Big and wooden [medieval?] doors with black nails. Cast iron chandaliers hanging oh so far from eachother. No, this school had chain fences lined with graffiti. G's and S's and other letters, and weirdly placed palm trees. Rubbish all over the ground- cardboard, trash bags. But it wasn't 'fake' like Natoya's old school. It wasn't overprotective like her mother. The only thing that held her back was a little back fence which she threw herself over, held up by two metal fence posts with dents and names carved in them.

What was she thinking? Natoya wasn't one to skip school. At her old catholic school she didn't dare, lest they beat her with the wooden sticks, like they've done for generations. But the other day Jess had told her that he didn't have class- some school holiday. And she- for some reason- told him she did too.

She wasn't thinking about what would happen once she got home, once her father found out. She wasn't thinking about Andre or how confused he'd be when she didn't show up for class... And besides, her father generally ignored the calls from school unless it was 'important'. His general rule of thumb was as long as she didn't get hurt, he didn't care.

"Don't pick up any boys." He'd joke whenever she left in the morning. And in que, Natoya would roll her eyes and laugh at his comment. Maybe some sassy comeback. But a small part of her was hoping to bump into a certain someone she had met a little bit ago.

The dark haired boy who was into Bella Rosallini- her books- not the author. But Natoya wouldn't be too judgemental if he did like the author that way. Bella- from the restricted knowledge Natoya knew about her, was an ellegant young lady from a wealthy family. And she was intelligent, but anybody would know that if they read her books. Dillegent words used to describe a single sentence, inked into paper like a kiss onto skin. Rosallini wrote about her adventures in the world, despite her young age, and Natoya was jealous of her for that.

Throughout her childhood Natoya's parents both joked she wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend until she was 30. At a young age, like any other child, she didn't resist this idea too much. But she was [age] now. She was practically an adult... And most of her classmates had boyfriends and girlfriends. Almost all of them except Andre... But his mother was like her father- from what she understood. Natoya liked Andre's mother, she met her once or twice. She was a very fragile, yet traditional and almost strict woman. And Andre abided by her rules.

"Gotta set an example for the littles."

"The littles?"

"Mileva and Dominic."

And it wasn't like Andre couldn't get a girlfriend. He was part of the school's basketball and football team... He was handsome and funny and kind. He had the softest curls that hung right over his face, and the prettiest hazel eyes. He looked like his mother in that sense. A strong yet fragile lady. But you could tell his father was white from the way his siblings looked. Mileva must've had the most of his genes- she had lighter skin, and far lighter hair- blonde. Her eyes were blue and the only way you could really tell she was related to the rest of the family was the line of freckles she had across her face. It must be a family thing- Andre, Dominic, and their mother had them too. Mileva also had her mother's temper. One time their mother scolded Andre for not going to practice one day because it was going to pay for his college tuition. And then the next Mileva was scolding him for something else- Natoya couldn't remember. It also wasn't like he didn't want a girlfriend. He had his eyes on one girl but after being turned down he respected her space and left her alone. Natoya respected that. It made her self-concious sometimes. If a guy like him was rejected so easily... would she also be rejected?

He laughed when she brought it up. "Why do you care?" He'd ask. "You're pretty, cool, funny-"

Or did he say "You're pretty cool, funny-"... She couldn't really remember. She was lost in her own train of thought, only hearing the last words Andre had said. "A guy would be stupid to turn you down." The statement made her blush, and she thought about it for days... but on the other hand Andre never mentioned any guy who might've had a crush on her... At first she was kind of hoping for one of those teenage love stories, the new girl comes into town and the jock from the high school falls for her or something cliché. Andre laughed at the idea, and in truth she realized it was stupid. But as she entered the library she felt the same need for validation peeking it's way into her heart.

She swiped up on the app, closing it out in her phone as she opened the door. It was a safety app Andre had her download, and told the police your location if anything ever happened if you pressed a button. It would call them and have you put in a pin once you were safe. Andre loved to talk about safety. Natoya saw it as lame sometimes- until she realized he wasn't doing it because he was cautious. He was doing it for her, because she caught a look on his phone and he didn't have any of the safety precautions he had her download.

"Natoya? Again? You might as well get a job here at this rate." The librarian, Paul laughed.

"What can I say? It's a nice library." She laughed as a greeting to his original response. She glanced around the area- Jess wasn't here, not yet. She wasn't surprised. He said he'd be there at noon, family business to deal with in the morning.

"I'm starting to think you're not coming here for the books." Paul's voice was low, low enough that only she was able to hear as his head made a motion to a random, dark-haired boy standing across the library, reading a page in a book he had just pulled out from the bookshelves. It wasn't Jess, but her heart skipped a beat thinking it was.

Natoya didn't have a quirky response. Instead she could feel her face grow red.

"What?" She said, her voice sharp before she quickly softened it. Her eyes were wide and she awkwardly laughed- a denial of his words.

"Calm down, calm down. I'm joking." Paul laughed, causing Natoya to laugh as well but not as loud. An awkward chuckle. A paranoid chuckle. Who heard him say that? Who heard her say that. Is she going to be looked down on? Judged? Her face was growing hotter by the minute. "Go have fun."

"Yeah, yeah." She rolled her eyes and wandered off to a separate section. How embarrassing would it be if she went to the same section. She'd look desperate. She wasn't desperate, though. She didn't even care. But what if he thought she didn't want to talk to him? She hated the way she was acting, and just opened a book that she already read and pushed the thought to the back of her mind, where it only grew... What was she doing here. She felt so stupid. Skipping school to go to a library? He probably wasn't even here. He probably was also in school. That would be her excuse if her dad caught her. She felt overwhelmed and went to the library... She was still learning. Or maybe thought it was a half-day... Or maybe her dad would understand.. Or maybe-

"Avoiding me now?" She heard a voice speak up from beside her, and she quickly looked up, maybe a bit too quick, to meet his gaze. Her heart practically skipped a beat as she made eye-contact with him.

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"Oh. Hi Santiago."

"It was Natoya, right?"

"Yeah." Santiago was a boy from her english class. A louder boy who thought he was funny but disrespected the teacher and got into several near-fight experiences with Andre because of how much shit he'd talk. He was athletic-ish but wasn't on any sports teams. He was an only child, and acted like it. "What are you doing out of class?"

"Uh..." Her mind filled with thoughts as she tried to come up with an excuse, none of the things she had just thought of felt like the correct thing to say.

"Relax, I'm just joking." He said, and playfully acted like he was going to punch her shoulder, barely making contact. She felt uncomfortable, and just awkwardly laughed in response. "Are you studying for the final?"

"... The one that's three months away?" Natoya replied, sheepishly and with an awkward smile.

"Oh, yeah I guess it is."

"Are... you here studying for it?" She felt bad for wondering if he followed her here. Did he even know where she lived? Most likely not. In fact he probably just came here on his own.

"Yeah, no." He laughed, his left hand finding it's way to the back of his neck, and up his brown hair.

"Oh... Okay."

The conversation continued for a few minutes, An awkward few minute. Andre normally delt with Santiago, at first he let Natoya deal with him but after a while they realized it was more efficient for Andre to just step in. At school Santiago was different from how he is now. He'd 'fake' punch her, leaving an inch or two of space between his fist and his crooked aim, which annoyed the hell out of Andre, and is generally where he'd step in. Other occassions he'd make fun of what she was wearing, backing it up by some sort of half-induced compliment.

Now he was just awkward.

"Well. I gotta get going."

"Okay.. See you."

"Yeah, see you in class." And he wandered off. Natoya waited for him to leave before she finally sighed and glanced back at the book she was holding, putting it back on the shelf before she'd look for something else to read.

"Anyway." His voice spoke up again, Natoya figured he'd turned around and she resisted the urge to slouch her shoulders in annoyance as she heard the start of a continued conversation. and she looked up, respectfully only to realize the single word she had dreaded a second ago was connected a completely different person.

"Hey." She said, her voice a lot quieter as her eyes met Jess. She swallowed her words as they made eye contact, and everything seemed like it went faster as they spoke. Her heart felt like it was going faster.

"That sounded... Interesting."

"Did it?" Natoya scoffed as she joined Jess with the same book from the last week. It was a story about the murders of the Cartier family, a book she was suprisingly interested in. They originally started sitting at a random desk, but eventually moved to sitting against the wall in a random corner, with the book on Natoya's lap to make it easier to flip the page.

She was enjoying the time they were spending with each other, the random pause in the book where she'd hold onto the last word she'd read and bring up some random point about the book, or the discussions they'd have after reading for a few hours. She'd seen Jess a few times in the past week, and their schedules seemed to be roughly the same, and she and him almost always saw each other during the week at this library.

Eventually they started talking about their personal life, how things were going. Jess was always pretty secluded about his personal life. She didn't know too much about the city, not enough to know any school names. But he seemed to know the area pretty well, he recognized her high school.

"What school do you go to?" Natoya asked as they moved on from the conversation about Santiago.

"Other side of town." Jess replied, just as closeted about his home life. He never really went into heavy detail. In fact the only thing Natoya really knew about him was that he lived with his parents, went to a different school, and was an only child. They actually had a lot in common in that sense. His parents were overprotective, her mother was too. His parents never wanted another child and... well. For lack of better term, 15 years ago Natoya's parents didn't even mean to have a child. "But you go to Monarch?"

Natoya was a bit embarrassed by the answer 'yes' so she just shrugged and nodded. It was underfunded but.. it's all her dad could really afford.

"I heard it's a good school." Natoya scoffed at the response.

"They must've lied to you," She joked.

"You'd differ?"

"It's definitely spending it's funding in places other than chairs."

Natoya liked how smart Jess was. He used bigger words, more precise words. Suprisingly it didn't remind her too much of her mother, who's words were laced in hatred and cold. His didn't have much emotion attatched to them, but they were used almost seemlessly. Like they were supposed to be there. But Jess was mysterious- and Natoya really liked that about him. Maybe more than she thought she did.

[transition]

"Did you see that post about [skate park]?"

"No, what was it?"

"Some party going on there or something." Jess laughed.

"Are you going?" She asked with a little smile. Jess didn't talk too much about anything personal, anytime he did it was like a reward.

"Thinking about it... What about you?"

She hesitated before she'd consider answering it. "I might." She was mulling it over. [more detailed words ending with some last idea]. She had already skipped school... Her father would probably kill her twice if he found out. But she was practically an adult. Why didn't he understand that?

......

8:52 p.m.

......

Natoya slipped through the crack in the door, closing it slowly, and as quietly as she could before she started quietly walking to her room. It was the first room in the apartment, right next to the door... But not close enough.

"Natoya?" Shit.

"Hey daddy." Natoya replied as she turned the knob on the door.

"You're back late." Natoya's dad spoke in a lower voice than usual, he had walked over to her and leaned against the archway of the hallway seperating her room and the bathroom from the living room, kitchen, and his room. His arms were crossed, and he was a very dimly lit sillouette leaning against the wall.

"Yeah, I got caught up at the library."

"I'd assume because you would've had plenty of time spent at the library."

"What do you mean?" Her heart dropped, and she could feel it in her throat as he gave her a certain look. He knew. The two stared at eachother, determining who was going to make the first move. "...I'm sorry... Dad."

"I'm very disappointed in you, Natoya."

Her voice grew quieter as she spoke. "I'm sorry dad."

"Did you think you'd get away with it? Did you think I wouldn't get a call from your high school and they wouldn't tell me you were missing?" Natoya stood silently, guiltly looking up at him. "What were you thinking?"

"It's just the new school." She began festering a lie. "I just got so stressed out with everything-" Her words bubbled out as she watched her dad become more and more disappointed in her. Not because he thought she was getting stressed out. Because he knew she wasn't. She knew this school was too easy for her. She came from one of the best private schools in New York, and now went down to this raggedy high school that probably was closer to the worst school in [city] than the best ranking in New York.

He put his hand to cover his mouth and she wanted to cry at how composed his disappointment was. After a moment, a speechless moment between them he finally spoke. "Do you have any idea..." How much money he put into her staying here? Into how stressed out he was about his missing daughter? The part that hurt the most was she knew she had made a stupid decision. And he knew she knew she made a horrible decision. His words never ended, and he looked away, gathering his thoughts before he made eye contact with her again. "Was this about a boy?"

The sudden change of questioning shocked her. And she hesitated before she'd shake her head. That was her first mistake. A pause before a nonvocal answer.

"Your mother and I have told you over, and over again that you can't have a boyfriend until you're eighteen."

"It's not over a boy!" She fumbled, noticing her red, hot face of embarrassment. "I just went to the library." She said, quieter.

"I understand you're turning into a young woman now. And you're going through a lot of-"

"Dad!" She was dreading where this conversation was going. She thought the day would never come. She 'flowered' into a young lady several years ago.

"We need to talk." Natoya knew what this talk was going to be about. She felt her face grow hot as she thought about it. It wasn't just any talk.

"I already know, dad." Her voice was sharp yet sheepish. She averted her gaze, looking anywhere but his face. Natoya had gone to Christian schools her entire childhood, and some time in the 7th grade she and her entire class had been taken one of the auditormiams to be given a speech about 'purity'. That was the only talk she had about such a thing. And that was all the information she needed. She didn't care about their metophores about being a flower, or being degraded over time. She thought it was ridiculous and stupid and at first she and her classmates were terrified, but eventually all of them got more comfortable with the idea of boyfriends. Of course- there were no boys at her school... but.

"Natoya."

"I know dad!" She then shouted, and quickly opened her door, shutting it behind as she leaned against it. Her heart was beating fast. She knew he'd enter the room and make a huge deal about it. But he was the last person she wanted to talk to about this. Her father would make a whole big deal about it. Talking about boyfriends, and dating, and mens intentions. Her father, unlike her mother, wasn't Christian. Or at least he wasn't to as much of an extent as her mother. He never made her go to church, or enforce his music on her. He cared about what she wore but not enough to do anything about it. "Please dad?" was all it really took to be able to walk out of the house in jeans and a small t-shirt. "Everyone will make fun of me if I wear that." was another legendary line.

She heard him sigh, the sound of silent contemplation before his footsteps left the hallway.

She might've won this time. But it was only a matter of time before he'd bring it up again.