#oosoom

Danika slammed the door shut when she got home.

“I can see you’re in a great mood.” Her grandmother commented, flipping through a magazine.

“What the hell did my mom tell you and what the hell did you tell the school?”

“What do you mean, darling?”

“I mean I got called into the counselor's office because ‘my grandmother stated some concerns about me’ and now everyone I know there thinks I’m a fucking nutjob.”

“You watch your tone, missy-”

“No! I don’t know what you think you know but I assure you it’s wrong!”

“Really? So you didn’t try to end your life? You didn’t stay in the hospital for over two months because they were concerned you’d try and do it again? None of that happened? How about the drugs? The drinking? Was that fake too?” Her mom really went all out to ensure her grandmother didn’t trust her.

“You don’t know the whole story-”

“I don’t need to! Your mother told me to keep you safe! I will do that, no matter what! You are the most important thing, I’m sorry if you feel wronged but you are everything in this situation-”

“I’m not going to have any friends because of this! I need friends to feel sane for christ sake-”

“Watch it! You’re on thin ice young lady!”

Danika wanted to scream and rip her hair out, she wanted to go back. She wanted to destroy everything she worked so hard to achieve.

“There’s going to be some changes in your life and you’re just going to have to deal with them.”

At this point, not even her pills could give her the energy to deal with this argument so she nodded for her grandmother to continue.

“For starters, you’re going to start coming to church with me and Abuelo on Sundays.” Danika only nodded, “I gave you the summer to adjust to living here but now you’re going back to your routine which means therapy.”

“Abuela! No!”

“I’m not arguing about it, you’re going. It’s a group at the hospitals that meets Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays.”

“So I have to go to church and group therapy every Sunday?”

“Yup. And you’re not getting out of it. You also have private sessions on Thursdays.”

“So I won’t be having a social life at all then?”

“Did you really expect one?”

No, but she didn’t need to know that.

“You’re also not allowed to date and you will stay away from any and all gangs.” That one was going to be hard considering that the only people she went to school with were gang members and she was pretty sure one of them had a crush on her.

Her grandmother continued listing off rules that just brought her down, they only stopped because Abuelo was home and with him was Anthony.

“Antonio, my boy, how was school?” Maya squished his face together.

“Good, boring though. My teacher wouldn’t let me do my Algebra at recess, she took my book and said I should go play with the other kids.”

“You should, Tony. Make some friends, algebra is not as exciting as you think.” Danika told her brother.

“But I already finished the medical textbook, I wanna learn math.”

“You can do math instead of watching cartoons then, but you need to interact with kids your own age so you don’t dissociate yourself from the population, get it?” He hated it when she talked to him like he was ten, so she tried to use bigger words so he could expand his vocabulary as they had regular conversations.

“Fine, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Good, now go get started on your homework and you can read mine with me.”

He ran upstairs happily, followed by their grandfather. Abuela looked back at Danika.

“He’s smart, so I know he knows something but I know he doesn’t know everything because I know you. And you may treat him like your peer but he’s still your baby brother.”

“He knows I went to the hospital for a while because mom told him I was sick. That’s why he had the medical textbooks. He wanted to fix me when she said the doctors couldn’t.”

It broke her heart everytime he visted her and told her he found something new in his book. After a while their mom stopped bringing him, per her doctors orders it wasn’t helping her recovery to lie to him.

xxx

The next day at school, Sweet Pea intercepted her before she saw anyone else.

“So, what the hell happened yesterday?”

“What do you mean?” She kept her head down, not trying to break her grandmothers rules  less than twenty-four hours after she’d given them.

“I mean Toni said you left class and she didn’t see you for the rest of the day.”

“Oh, the office had some issues with my paperwork from my old school and I guess I just don’t have any other classes with her.” She lied easily.

“No, but you do have two more with me at the end of the day...” He said with a slight smirk.

“Oh, I uh left a little early. I needed to check on my brother.” She lied again.

“Ah, yes, the little medical expert.”

“Uh, yeah. He’s like an actual genius- reads the textbooks for fun.”

“Huh, he seems kinda young.”

“Yeah, he’s only ten.”

“Christ, I’m pretty sure at ten I was just annoying the girls on the playground.”

She let out and awkward laugh, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

The two continued to their first shared class but said no more words. When the bell rang Danika ran out of the class before he could even call after her.

Going through her normal day, turns out every class that she didn’t share with Sweet Pea, she shared with either Fangs or Toni.

xxx

Three weeks had passed. Therapy was boring as it always, chruch made her want to die on a whole new level, and group was just a bunch of other teens who didn’t want to be there, same as her.

Three weeks passed and every other day Toni invited her to hang out, maybe she found someone who didn’t think she was crazy. Or someone who just didn’t care.

It was Monday night of the fourth week that her brother finally spoke up.

“You’re never home but you never talk about hanaging out with your friends.”

“Uh, yeah I don’t really have friends.” Her grandparents looked up at her from their dinners.

“If I have to make friends, why don’t you?”

“Um...”

“I find it hard to believe that you haven’t made a single friend since you showed up,” Abuelo speaks.

Danika coughs, “Um, actually there’s this girl- she’s in a bunch of my classes, she wanted to hang out after school tomorrow.”

Everyone’s eyes widened.

“And you said you had no friends. If you had no friends, then who would ask you to hang out. Of course you can go! Just be home by a reasonable time.” Her grandmother spoke quickly, not letting anyone say anything to contradict her. She changed the subject quick too.

The next day when Toni asked if she wanted to come over, she agreed.

“Wait- really?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve said no for like a month straight, why now?”

“Uh, I don’t know. My grandma is still not used to teenagers so she was being pretty strict about me going places.”

“Oh, well cool. We need to stop by my work before we go to my place but after that we’ll have fun.”

“Okay, sounds great, I’ll meet you...”

“By my bike. Sweet Pea can show you.”

Sweet Pea. She hadn’t wanted to, but they became so close so fast. She wanted him to know eveything about her and she wanted to know everything about him. But they weren’t close to that yet.

Danika leaned her head against the car window, Tony leaning against her side and earbuds beating in her ear.

“Hey, wake up. Both of you,” Her mother spoke from the front seat.

Danika nudged her brother.

“Mommy, where are we going?”

“C'mon, Tony, look at the street signs. It’s been like three and half hours,” Danika urged her brother, straining to look at the radio’s clock. He looked up at his older sister, not having seen her for a while, before looking out the window. He saw a few signs and exits.

“Grandma’s?” He asked confused and Danika didn’t blame him. Their mother woke them up at 11 at night and told them to get in the car.

“Yeah, mom, why are we going to Abuela’s at three in the morning?” Danika sarcastically asked, already having a hunch.

She didn’t respond to her daughter, swallowing hard.

“Don’t worry about it baby, just a visit for the two of you,” She reassured her son.

The boy looked back down and started playing with the plastic bracelet around his sister’s wrist.

They pulled up at the house closer to four than three.

Danika was sat on the couch, her brother asleep on her lap while she listened to her mother and grandmother fight in Spanish. Next thing she knew her mother was kissing Tony’s head and staring at Danika like she was losing a limb.

“I love you mija. I only ever want the best for you.”

And just as quick as she was saying that, she was gone. Leaving a ten-year-old boy and a seventeen-year-old girl without a mother.

They had their grandparents, and Danika loved them but she worried for Tony.

He was so young and already confused enough without removing his parents from the picture. His dad died overseas before he could even remember anything, but their mom was there for him. Now she wasn’t and Danika didn’t know how he would handle it.

The girl blamed herself no matter how much her family told her not too.

“Don’t worry yourself so much, mija. Life is so much more enjoyable when you aren’t giving yourself extra stress,” Her grandpa told her over dinner one night. Danika didn’t miss the look her grandmother gave her.

Her mother probably told Abuela what happened and her grandmother decided against telling her husband for some reason.

The teen didn’t know why but she wasn’t going to question it.

They’d escaped regular society, having been dumped in June, but the school year was coming up and the old couple didn’t have very many options.

“He can’t go to regular school, Abuela. You know that- he's ahead of all of them. He’s ahead of most people in high school!”

“Well, where is he to go? Your grandfather and I have work, you have school-”

“What about that E-learning stuff? I’ll take him to the offices and get the paperwork filled out, all he’d need is a place to go during the day where he can do the work.”

Maya was skeptical, but they compromised on part-time ‘fake home-schooling’ and sending him to regular school to keep him integrated with his peers.

She agreed, nonetheless.

xxx

Sweet Pea’s POV

Present Time

Sweet Pea banged on the door of the woman who had always taken care of him and his friends.

“Mrs. Ruiz! Please!” He was holding Fangs up, just barely, after yet another fight.

The door swung open revealing a girl he’d never seen before. She had to be close to his age, he hoped, as she stood there in an oversized sweatshirt and basketball shorts.

“Do you mind?” She asked, annoyed.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Who the hell are you?” she shot back, flustering him.

“Well…I asked first.”

“Well, I live here.”

“Since when?”

“Since none'ya'business.” They went back and forth before Sweet Pea remembered his friend.

She quirked an eyebrow making Sweet Pea huff, “I’m looking for Mrs. Ruiz? Maya?”

She crossed her arms, “why do you need my grandmother?”

“Just- where is she?”

“On a date.”

“With who?”

“Her husband!” She yelled before wincing and looking behind her, Sweet Pea didn’t know or particularly care as to why.

“When’s she going to be back?” The girl checked her phone.

“She said sometime before 11 so within the hour.”

“Can we wait inside?”

“Yeah, no. I’m not looking to get murdered.”

“Please, I swear-”

“Dani?” They both looked behind her to see a young boy rubbing one of his eyes.

“Hey! Sorry, buddy. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

He looked past the girl directly at Fangs’ body, “He’s hurt.”

'Dani' looked in between the two teen boys and the younger one and sighed, motioning for the two gang members to enter her home.

“Yeah, they were just going to come in and wait for-”

“He needs to go to the hospital,” the boy interrupted.

“Uh, yeah, we don’t-”

“Why?” The girl cut Sweet Pea off.

“His arm is broken.” Fangs shifted and groaned, “And sounds like he might’ve broken a rib.”

“Uh, kid…”

Just as he was about to question the kid’s lack of medical knowledge Mrs. Ruiz walked in the door and swore up a storm in Spanish.

“So we’re just letting strangers into our home now?”

“I saw the snake, Tony said that one needs to go to the hospital. They haven’t been here long.”

Maya looked over his friend, “Well, he’s not wrong,” She spoke in a heavy accent, “He’s got a few fractured ribs and his arm is definitely broken, not to mention he probably has a concussion.”

The woman helped Fangs into the front seat of a truck and sped off to get him situated.

“So…Dani…” Sweet Pea drawled only to stop when she held up her hand.

“Only my brother gets to call me Dani. Not you.”

“Well, I need something to call you by. If not I’m just going to go with Dani.”

She huffed in frustration, walking back into the house and slamming the door.

Danika had little to no interest in going to school. She want’s to be able to blame it on her mental state but it was more of the fact that she hated school and the teenagers who inhabited it.

That and homework. Homework also happened to be the worst thing she’d ever encountered.

But beyond that it was boring and inane.

The people were loud, the teachers didn’t care, and gangs and drugs riddled the halls of South side High. All in all, it was a cesspool and Danika couldn’t do anything about it.

“Danika Ruiz?” A voice spoke as she walked through the metal detectors.

Looking over she saw a girl a little shorter than herself with pink hair.

“Depends who’s asking...”

The girl laughed and stuck her hand out, “Toni Topaz. I’m supposed to show you around this lovely hell hole.”

“Fun," Danika grimaced.

Toni talked and showed her around, warning her about the drugs and gangs.

"Don't fuck with the Ghoulies."

"I'm sorry...Ghoulies?"

"Rival gang. Nasty sons of bitches, filled with drug addicts, dealers, street racers, and rumors of cannibalism."

She looked at Danika with a serious face before both of them broke out into laughter.

"Dani, good to see you again," a deep voice spoke out from behind her, making her spine go rigid.

"Sweet Pea, how do you know Danika here?"

Sweet Pea. What an odd name for such a tall boy, Dani thought to herself.

"Dani and I met last night when I went to see Maya. She's her granddaughter."

Toni flipped back to Danika, "I didnt know you were that Ruiz."

"Guilty, I guess."

Danika wanted to shrink into nothing, she really didn't want to make a big deal out of her presence.

The warning bell rang, alerting them to class almost starting.

"Guess I should be going to class..." the latina girl started off towards her class before hearing Toni from behind her,

"Actually, I saw your schedule, you and Pea have first period together."

She could practically feel the smirk burning into her skull.

"Lucky me."

Dankia made her way to the back of the class as soon as she entered, only to be followed by the skyscraper himself.

“So is your plan just to ignore me all day.”

“That was the original plan, yeah.”

“And now?”

“You’re making the plan very difficult.”

She saw the smirk out of the corner of her eye but continued on with her plan.

The class went by without any further interruptions. At least not by Sweet Pea.

Seriously, that has to be an inside joke or something.

Once the bell rang, Danika grabbed all of her stuff and rushed out to her next class. This one, she appeared to share with Toni and another one of her friends.

“Danika! Hey, come join us!” She waved her over, shoving her friend out of the seat next to her. “Danika, Fangs. Fangs, this is Danika.”

Danika looked at the boy and noticed it was the same guy from last night, now with his arm in a cast.

Class had technically started but no one was paying attention.

“Danika is Maya’s granddaughter.”

Fangs’ eyes got wide, “Ah so you’re the girl Pea won’t shut up about.”

“I suppose so,” she nervously laughed.

“Well thanks for last night I guess.”

“I didn’t really do anything-”

Everything got interrupted when a woman came into the class, everyone went quiet as she walked towards the teacher and whispered something in his ear. He stood up.

“Danika Ruiz?” He questioned loudly.

“Uh, yeah.” She spoke quietly and raised her hand.

“Go with her.”

Danika grabbed all of her stuff and headed out of the room with the woman. She followed the woman until the came to a door with the label that, under all the graffiti read ‘Counseling Office’.