“You were right, Reg. Ellie is back. I guess I owe you a twenty,” Shane chuckled, slapping his hand down on the bar.

“Can’t a girl drink in peace?” I mumbled.

Shane looked the same. Spiky blond hair overly gelled and styled and a giant loserfied grin that had my palms itching to slap him. Reggie stood off to the side looking as emaciated and bombed out as she had when I had seen her at Darla’s.

“I never thought I’d see your beautiful face back in these parts,” Shane chuckled, waving the bartender down and ordering a beer. Reggie flanked my other side, patting my arm and giving me a silly, drug addled smile.

“I had hoped to never have to see your ugly mug again,” I said, returning to my whiskey, finishing it off and waving the bartender down for another.

“Why all the hostility, Ells? Can’t an old friend just be happy to see you?” he asked and I narrowed my eyes in his direction.

“You’re not going to leave me be are you?” I asked.

Shane grinned. “Hell no. It’s been a long time. We have catching up to do! There just aren’t enough hot girls in Wellston since you and Dania have decided to hide away. I’m stuck with Reg and she’s definitely not hot.”

Reggie didn’t even realize she had been insulted. She continued to pat at my arm. I shoved her hand away and she teetered precariously on the stool. The girl was wasted.

“When Reggie said she saw you, I couldn’t believe it. Not with the way you blew out of town and never came back,” Shane said, tipping his beer back, some of it dribbling on his chin.

“Well, you know, Wellston has that certain kind of charm that’s hard to stay away from,” I muttered, thinking that coming into Woolly’s was most likely a very bad idea.

Reggie snorted. “If I ever left, you sure as hell wouldn’t find me back here,” she said, suddenly lucid.

“Well why don’t you leave then?” I asked, genuinely curious. I tried to ignore Shane and focus on the girl who had never really been my friend even though I saw her every day.

I had never talked with Reggie much beyond where the party was or what kind of drugs she had. I didn’t have deep friendships with anyone. And that had been fine. Shane Nolan and Reggie Fisher weren’t the type of people you wanted to share intimate parts of yourself with.

Reggie rolled her eyes, propping her head up on her hand. “There’s no way my dad would let me go anywhere. He likes to keep his precious little girl right where he can get to me,” she mumbled, I wasn’t entirely sure what she was getting at. I looked at Shane and he just shrugged, obviously not concerned.

The truth was I didn’t really know anything about either Shane or Reggie. I knew that Shane had grown up living with his grandparents. I never knew where his parents were and I had never bothered to ask.

Because I hadn’t really cared.

Even though this was the guy who had taken my virginity he was still a virtual stranger in so many ways. How could I have shared such an important moment with someone I had no intentions of knowing beyond that?

God, I had been such a messed up kid.

And Reggie was just as much a screw up as I had ever been. Maybe worse. Her self-loathing had gone to a whole other level. It was common knowledge that aside from chronic substance abuse, Reggie was a cutter with a little bulimia on the side. I had caught sight of her upper legs when we were changing one night to go out. They were covered in scars and jagged cuts.

I had never asked her about it. I pretended I hadn’t seen anything.

Because her problems weren’t my business.

Everyone knew that Reggie’s dad was the pharmacist in town. He worked at the local drug store, which helped cater to our pharmaceutical needs.

She had grown up in a big house in the nicer part of town. She always had a decent car and great clothes. And she had always acted as though she didn’t care about any of it.

When I was a teenager, it used to infuriate me that she had so much when I had so little. The grass had seemed so much greener on her side of the fence.

It was strange that I never wondered why a girl who seemingly had everything chose to hang out with losers like Dania, Shane, and me. Why she took so many drugs and slept with so many guys. If I hadn’t been so completely self-involved I would have questioned what was really wrong with her. Because it was very clear, sitting beside this woman who I had known most of my life, that her story was probably just as sad as mine.

“Shit, if I had the chance to fuck off, I sure as hell would take it,” Shane said, distracting me from my realizations about Reggie.

“Oh yeah. And where would you go?” I asked, pretty sure he’d say something lame like Charlestown racetrack where he could play the slots.

Shane smiled. Not a lascivious, predatory one. It was nice and almost sweet. Huh. That was new.

“I’d go to Florida. You know, to Disney World or something. I’ve seen pictures and it looks awesome. And it’s warm there. And you can pick oranges right off the trees.”

I chuckled. “You want to go to Florida for Disney World and oranges?”

Shane frowned. “Well, it’d be a hell of a lot better than this shit hole,” he replied defensively.

I had no idea that the people I had hung out with actually dreamed of something else. I thought I had been the only one to think of the world outside of Wellston. Apparently I wasn’t. I just happened to be the only one of our group that had actually made it out.

And had come back.