"But he aight?" LaTrice asked, cutting up another onion.

"We don't know yet," Tyler said, wiping away what he told himself were onion tears.

"That's fucked up," said LaTrice. "If that were my boy, man, I'd be runnin' down the street, chasin' that motherfuckin' car, make that fucker pay for that."

"Well, Charlie's not my ‘boy'... " Tyler didn't know why the implication made him so jumpy.

"I meant your friend, stupid." LaTrice clarified, cutting up the last onion.

"Oh." Tyler looked at how much mise en place she'd accomplished in a half hour. "You're really good at that. Have you thought about going to culinary school?"

"Bitch, please, it's only because my mama was never home so I had to cook for my brothers and sisters."

"Still... it's a possibility. For the future." LaTrice tried to scoff it off, but Tyler saw in her eyes a spark starting and that was enough for him. "Anyway, thanks for helping out in the kitchen. Kinda short staffed today."

"That's my fault," said Josh, appearing at the doorway, with Travell brushing past to put on his hairnet and apron. "LaTrice, wanna meet me in study hall so we can go over your Andrew Jackson paper?"

"That crusty ol' white man is so BORING!"

"Well, he had some very radical ideas... "

"Populism, yeah, yeah," LaTrice said upon her exit, rolling her eyes. Tyler began washing up as Travell took over. Josh lingered a little longer than he should've had.

"How is he?" Josh asked.

"SHE is doing fine. I mean, yeah she can focus on her studies more... "

"I meant Charlie."

"Oh. He's still in ICU. The doctor told our other roommate that he's got some internal bleeding in his brain... "

"Jesus."

"Yeah. So, all we can do is hope and pray I guess."

"Will you... if he wakes up... "

"When."

"Right. When he wakes up... can you tell him I was thinking about him?"

Edward burst into the kitchen. "Josh, your history study group is about to start. Oh and Tyler? There's a very handsome punk rock young man looking for you."

"Hipster," teased Tyler. "Us kids these days call them hipsters."

*

"Penny," said Tyler, as he and Andy sipped bubble tea and watched the sunset over Lake Michigan.

"How's that?"

"Going currency for thoughts. Unless it's gone up."

Andy smiled. "Just reminiscing. These use to be called the Belmont Rocks. They were these huge boulders and we'd all come here after like a rave or like after Café Pride. So we'd see the be sun on its return journey."

"What's Café Pride?"

"It was like a gay youth hangout. Stopped going after a while, kinda got trashy. Dunno if they even still do it.

Tyler couldn't help but feel a little jealous. "I wish we had something like that where I was growing up."

"Sorry, I always kinda get nostalgic round this time of year. End of summer. Back to school."

"Yeah." Tyler got quiet for a moment, slurping the last of his bubble tea, watching the sun sink lower past the horizon.

"All right, your turn. I'll even pay a nickel for ‘em."

Tyler sighed. "It's been an interesting summer. I'm happy to be here sure, but I just thought... "

"That you would've conquered this city by now? Next stop: world?"

Tyler was embarrassed that he was so transparent. And that the sentiment seemed so... shallow when said by someone else. "How did you know?"

"Ah, the sweet idealism of youth. We've all gone through it." Tyler slugged Andy's arm.

"You're like two years older than me."

Andy lifted him up and made him turn from the lake and face the city. "It's a big bad world out there, dude. You made it here, that's the first step. There's no way you can accomplish everything you hope to in a lifetime, let alone in a summer. So just go with it. We're young, we're alive, we've got our whole lives ahead of us."

Tyler breathed it in for a moment, then began to tear up. The first person that was just so kind and awesome to him for no reason, in his whole life, was Charlie. And who knew how much life he'd have left ahead of him.

Andy kissed him and held him tight as the sun disappeared into the lake and day turned into night over Chicago.

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CALL TO ACTION: Author Danny Bernardo needs your help! Please visit: http://igg.me/p/203358?a=1020165

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