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keyboard and typed out the first words that popped into my head.
    I hate motherfucking Warner Green.
    The cursor taunted me as it sat there, useless.
    With a deep sigh, I went to close out the program and ignored the Save notification when it popped up. I couldn’t bring myself to erase it. I’d worked so hard and it seemed like failure if I did. But Warner was right: there was no salvaging the shit I’d attempted to write.
    My biggest hope was that the following night, he’d give me something to work with.

6.

    Wardo
    She met me at her car the following evening, seeming much more at ease than when I’d left the night before.
    “Are we headed to my place?” she asked, suddenly appearing apprehensive about the entire thing. Maybe that Frank guy had been in an ornery mood. Maybe she was about to start her period. I don’t know. I had noticed that her boobs were looking a little bit bigger.
    I was chewing on the knuckle of my right thumb as she looked me over. “You know what? Why don’t you ride with me? I need to head over to my friend Gary’s house for a few minutes.”
    This was my plan now, and she knew it, so she said fine and crawled into my car. She shoved some papers and cigarette packages out of the way before sitting her prissy ass down on my seat. I watched from my periphery as she settled in and secured her book bag in her lap, trying not to look disgusted by the sheer amount of trash in my car. I didn’t clean it up on purpose just to see if she would say something.
    Looked like she wasn’t going to.
    After a ten minute ride, Gary’s place came into view, and I couldn’t help but smile. If anything was going to make Dawn chill out it would be an hour or so at Gary’s.
    I parked and led her to his door, where I walked in without knocking, pleased as punch to see him hunched over a pipe, mid-inhale. Giving him a nod, I jerked my head back a little to introduce him. “G? Dawn Bunny Sims.”
    “Dawn,” she corrected me, her lips pursed in distaste. Coming to rest behind me she whispered angrily, “Are we at your dealer’s house?”
    I laughed and moved over to the bar, taking a seat on one of the stools. “Wait. So because he’s smoking up, he’s gotta be my dealer? Nice. Real nice. You’re judgmental as hell, you know that?”
    She shifted from foot to foot as she looked for a place to stow her bag. I motioned for her to hand it over, and she did blindly, not realizing that I intended to pull out her laptop.
    “Dawn.” Gary let out a wheeze and a long stream of smoke erupted from his lungs. “You’re the bunneh, right?” He scratched his head, his nasty fingers scraping through his shoulder length hair. It was brown that day. I guessed he had washed it.
    Dawn rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “Really, Wardo? You tell everyone about that shitty nickname?”
    Gary raised his hands in defense. “No. Not everyone. We’re family here.”
    “We?” Dawn’s words came out just a second too late, because one of the bedroom doors opened to reveal my friends, Jemma and Declan, tumbling into the living room, laughing hysterically.
    And Jemma’s shirt was on inside out.
    Classy.
    “Hey, Warner,” she said in her scratchy voice. She was halfheartedly trying to tame her red just-fucked hairdo.  
    Declan scratched his chin and grabbed a cookie, throwing a peace sign at me in the process. “Heya, Wardo.”
    Dawn’s eyes got huge. “ They call you that, too?”
    I shrugged, trying not to reveal that I’d kind of always liked her attempt at getting under my skin. It made me think she cared. A little. Whatever.
    Declan sidled over to Jemma and pretended to chew on her face while I groaned at their rampant PDA. She tugged on his brown mass of hair, making it stick up another two inches when it had already been about three inches high when he walked in. He yanked on her red curls in response, and she palmed his face to shove him away.
    “Guys, this is Dawn Bunny Sims. DBS,