I love Cinder Allison. I've never told anyone before, but I've loved her ever since she transferred here. She knows it too, she has told me she knows I love her. In her own way.

We always sit together after school and eat our lunches with Catchy and Tickles and Asia. I really hate this crowd so much, with all my heart. Someday I won't be eating lunch with them and I hate that. I glare at them sometimes when I think of it.

It's Cinder that I love, because I am going to marry her someday. We'll just talk about her thing with Catchy or the time I went to the movies with Tickles. Those were just childish things; her and I have a distant future together. That is why we are not together now; we both know it. It's written in our stars.

I still get a little jealous when they sit close together and I know she feels the same way when Tickles follows me around. That's why we need Asia: she seems to be the only sane one among our after-school lunch. Asia told me I "should take Cinder to our Senior Prom" or I "might regret it later".

So I worked all summer long for two summers, mowing lawns, even though I am deathly allergic to grass when its freshly cut. In misery I sweated and ached and pushed that damn thing. At one point I upgraded to a gasoline powered lawnmower I bought at a pawn shop.

Cinder saw me pushing it home with a big dumb grin on my face.

"Got you a new mower?" Catchy was driving his dad's pickup.

"Will you help me get it home?" I asked, blushing at Cinder seeing me down there with my contraption. It had peeling paint and rust and some ragged duct tape stuck to it and a makeshift primer button. I tried to block her view of it by shifting slightly to my left. I was too skinny.

"Dude, we are going to the lake; to party all night. Later, dude." Catchy winked at me and drove off with Cinder. It wasn't as easy to smile as I pushed the thing from the pawn shop.

People honked at me and at least one person slowed down with his windows tinted and his music loud. I considered waving; but it seemed predatory and I didn't want to get my ass beat. A guy walked up to me without a shirt on and asked me if I had a lighter.

"No." I said.

"Can I come with you? I will push that shit for you." He said. "My name is Winston." Winston articulated himself. I bought it. I gave him my lighter and let him push my mower for six miles.

"Want something to drink?" I asked him.

He nodded and waited in my driveway while I went inside and made him a drink. My stepdad was already asleep and half of his gin was left. When I had made an OJ and gin for my new friend and one for myself I went back outside with the styrofoam cups full.

He accepted it and drank it without seeming to notice the alcohol. I sipped mine.

"You got two mowers?" He noticed my old mower, the push-mower where I had to sharpen its blades.

"I am keeping my old one, I know I can rely on it if I need it." I said.

"You're doing this because of a girl." Winston smiled. I blushed.

"I don't want to talk about that." I said, blushing. I drank.

"Right, let's talk business." He sounded agreeable.

"Back to business." I agreed.

"If you can get me about five hundred dollars today, I can double that and get it back to you with ten percent interest, by tonight." He put his bald hands up as if I would not believe the awesome deal he was offering.

"What do you got for collateral? You don't even have a shirt. You realize I killed myself for this money I've made?" I flexed my muscles for him, glaring.

"You should jack off more. You are tense as fuck, kid." Winston laughed. He took my drink as it was tipping out of my hand and swallowed it in one gulp and handed it back to my empty hand, an empty cup. He made a satisfied noise and wiped his lips. His eyes never left me, I felt like he knew something very deadly about me.

"I do sometimes." I decided to say, calming down. I'm not a bitch. "Let's go to a strip club or something and you show me how much street credit you got."

"The pawn shop. You want a bitch?" He nodded.

I nodded. The thought of Cinder drinking and making out with Catchy all night and the need to get proof that Winston could swindle back my money doubled so that he could pay it back with interest was a lot of thought.

So we went back to his pawn shop. He didn't know I had all my money still, or so I thought. There were some girls from my school behind the place where some music was playing and some guys without shirts sat drinking beer out of those really big bottles. Forties or whatever. Winston asked me which one I wanted a blowjob from.

I laughed and pointed at April. I didn't think this was for-real.

April went with me smiling, obviously on-drugs. I felt very guilty and actually refused the sex in the privacy of someone's car in the parking lot. I asked:

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"Who's car is this?" And it turned her off right away. I guessed it was her boyfriend Mike Gravies's car, well his mom's car probably. For some reason, as if her pattern of behavior just needed to be derailed, she just walked home after that.

I took the keys and tossed them to Mike, valet style. He had no idea where April was or where she had been. I pitied him.

I gave some money to Winston. He proved he could do whatever came out of his mouth. I expected a quick return. "You really did kill yourself."

"I guess." I shrugged and walked home. I had work to do on my new mower.

That evening he came over with bling and he was fully dressed. April was with him with a bruise on her cheek.

"She needs a place to stay the night, Sir Lancelot." Winston told me. "Want her?"

"If my stepdad knows she's here it will be drama." I was trying to think of an excuse, but that was it. I'm not a good liar, I can't come up with excuses.

"Please?" April gave me big tear-filled eyes. I ushered her into the garage. I wasn't sure what to do with her. Winston was giving me trouble, I decided.

"Where's my money?" I asked, my hand out.

He smoothly made a neat stack of hundreds appear in my hand. I gasped.

"Now you go get your prom queen. Take April with you. She's a good girl, just needs a steady friend. You don't know what that is like, not yet." Winston stopped smiling after he said this and then he left me there.

I had given him a thousand dollars, taking a leap of faith. He had indeed doubled it and with ten percent interest. Then he had given me his share and my money back. I was going to prom.

After staying in my room like a church-mouse for two weeks, April went back to her mom's place. I was very relieved. The temptation to exploit her for sex, a man's demon, I felt dirty just from contending with it. I was glad she was gone.

Ironically she was grateful to me. I begged her not to be. It turned out I'd given her sanctuary of some kind. I didn't see it that way.

"You stay away from April." Mike's voice came from behind me. Then he started his car and chased me down the street, trying to kill me. I managed to scramble over a fence.

That is when Keith Parker shot me. First his dog came out and started biting me on my arm and leg. It hurt like crazy and I was so scared I peed myself. Then I looked up and some girl was getting out of Keith Parker's hot tub with no clothes on. She started screaming and Keith Parker came running out with a small rifle.

He aimed it at me and shot three times, missing me each time as his dog retreated. Then he shot me, clipping my left ear. I thought I had died as the bullet felt like it touched my skull. I thought he'd blown my head off. Then I realized that if I was thinking I was still alive.

I got up and clambered back over the fence. Mike was there but he decided to drive away after the gunshots. I almost made it home before he caught me again. This time he jumped out of his car and tackled me. He straddled me and smiled weirdly. I took several punches to my face and jaw and then he just got up and left me there. I rolled over and looked at him.

"Rapist." I spat out some blood in his direction as he drove away.

I spent the weekend in my garage, drinking my stepdad's beer and trying to recover. I kept looking at the mowers. They had to go.

I skipped school on Monday and took the push mower first. I got fifteen dollars for her.

The clunker was next and I got six dollars for it, even refurbished. I took all the money and handed it all out in change to the bums I saw. It was like a sky-burial for the mowers. I turned them into coins and scattered them among empty hands. That's my poetry.

As I neared home I saw Catchy there. I asked him what was happening and he simply told me that he was going to take her to prom. Then he left.

On Tuesday it was time to ask Cinder to Senior Prom. I couldn't wait until after-school lunch so I skipped class and asked her during her lunch. I found her playing chess with Timmy Griefim and losing.

I got down on one knee for her and asked her:

"Cinder Allison, will you go to Senior Prom with me?" And realized my voice was trembling, my heart beating out of my chest.

"I can't, I am going with Catchy." She smiled and shrugged. Then she went back to her game of chess. Someone tapped on my shoulder.

"I told you that already." Catchy smiled, evilly.

I felt angry and had to regroup so I left. I sat down on the curb with cars roaring by and tried to get a grip. So she was going with Catchy instead of me. At least she was getting to go with someone, I didn't want her to not go. It was hard to think of a positive outlook. I tried to be objective and eventually I advised myself of a decent plan:

Why not all of us go together? That seemed like a winning solution. I was already going to go all out and spend every last dollar, that's what the money was for. This might even be better, sharing this with our friends.

After school they were kissing as I approached and I took a deep breath. I resolved not to let my hormones and jealousy control me. I was on a mission. I wanted to jump on Catchy and beat him up, but settled for interrupting his smooches with Cinder. Even she looked relieved as the rest of our lunch friends greeted me.

"We are getting a limo." I announced. And it was that simple. We were all going together.

Catchy was not pleased. He was at my house again.

Now he looked primal and insane, how I'd felt earlier before I crushed him. He said:

"You're not taking her from me. I get to pop that cherry, bro." Catchy was inching towards me.

"I thought you two already did that." I said honestly. I actually didn't believe him, Cinder had mentioned sleeping with him before. It had seemed obvious too, that they were together, he was practically her boyfriend.

"All she ever does is talk about you. I'm sick of it." Catchy sprang at me suddenly. The knife he held glinted in the moonlight. At first, I didn't realize he had cut my throat. He dropped the knife and took off running.

I turned to go back into my house; something was wrong. I staggered and slipped. Then I felt a few thoughts, impatience, outrage and denial. Those stood out. I wanted it to just be over, I was upset it had happened and I didn't think I was going to die.

I looked around and saw that he had left his truck there down the street. He came running back. I picked up the knife and stopped him, blood spurting from my neck.

"Hospital." I managed to say, hijacking him at knife point.

I passed out on the way, but he delivered me anyway. I awoke two days later, just one week until prom. I got visited by everyone, Asia brought them all to me together in one visit. She also went and got my cash and took care of everything. She makes things like that seem easy and simple. She even found herself a prom date, some mysterious guy from another school. He seemed really nice.

My stepdad fixed me up with a tie and looked at me with the limo I'd rented out the window behind me.

"Fucking proud of you." He murmured.

We all went then, without Catchy. Nobody had seen him up to that point.

The limo ride was divine. Felt like that was the whole world. I told him to just keep driving around for a little while longer. Cinder kissed me then, something about the way I said it made her want to kiss me, she told me.

All my friends and Thomas, Asia's date. April had come with us and so had Tickles. Tickles had brought Timmy Griefim. It was very good walking up those steps with all of them. I was glad things had turned out to this end.

The pictures were being taken at the entrance. We were almost to them.

Then Catchy came back to finish what he had started.

At least I flinched, thinking he was going to. But instead he just told me:

"This is all you get."