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"He's what?"
I've heard her wrong. She has to be talking about someone else, someone expendable, one of the throwaway friends. Not him. Not now. Nevermind that I've known it in some small hyperaware corner of my brain since Monday. The room is tilting at a funny angle, is the only thing I can think.

[She smiled a twisted smile in the middle of class, making everyone wonder what was going on in her head. She hadn't been the same since last weekend.]

I'm walking down the street to get lunch when I almost run into some guy on the sidewalk. I've been like that, unaware and more than lost in reverie all week. I look up to apologize and the only thing I can do is stare. He looks like hell.
"What....how......the hell?"
"Do I know you?"
"No, but I know you. And who you're looking for."
"How the-"
"Look, just trust me. I'll give you a ride to where you need to go."
"Look, you creepy bitch-"
"Oh for chrissake....think for a minute. You know how I know."
He gives me a funny look and I find that he knew from the beginning. Little prick, I don't know whether to kick him or kiss him. I'm lying- I know exactly which, but instead walk back to my car. We pulled up in her school parking lot, pissing off this gimped-up DJ who looks about 13. I gave him the finger and then pissed off Brian by interrupting his class and dragging her out.
"What the fuck are you doing here? It's the middle of school, you ass!"
"Shut up and follow me."
She almost passed out in the middle of the parking lot when she saw him standing there, leaning against my car and staring at something shiny. I smirked, I'm sure it looked bitter, and they decided it was time to go.

[Fast forwarding a week made a funny expression cross her face. Ryan was confused.]

It's been a week, one week since he showed up here and we shoved his sorry ass into rehab. He hates us both now, but me in particular since I've never been anything but trouble and the agent of destruction of a good buzz for him. I wish I could be her, just so I'd have a chance to say something that had any kind of meaning.

[Fast forwarding two months means a strange curve on the graph and her mouth. Aliza won't tell Ryan what's going on.]

He still thinks that no one cares. It's infuriating. If we didn't care, we wouldn't have made him do this rehab thing, we wouldn't have- well, I wouldn't have risked getting kicked out of the house by my mother when he needed a place to live. She's still furious about it, sniping at every chance about drug addicts being in her house, even though she's not one to talk. It's only for a week, but I'll be paying for the rest of my life. I'm thinking about that as I pull up in her driveway. Knock on the door.
"He's having one of those days. I'm trying to talk him out of it."
"Right. Can I stay here for a bit anyway? I don't want to have to face my mother."
"Sure."
We walk inside, accosted by the cat. I pick him up and get a shirtful of cat hair for the trouble. Hell with you, I think, and put him down on the couch. The cat sits there and stares at me, and at him. He's sitting on the far end, hiding from the world and not looking at her when she talks. I try not to listen, not to impede things like the damn third wheel (and chauffeur and jack of all trades and general cabana girl) that I am. It sounds like she's getting somewhere. Little pieces of the conversation occasionally surface, and float over to me, where I grab at them even though I know it's a horrible thing to do.
".....it's not like anyone gives a flying fuck...."
That's it. Third wheel is not happy. Third wheel is sick of all this. Third wheel asks her to shove over a minute. She doesn't want to, but I'm good at ignoring things. I look at him and curse myself for my inability to be as harsh with him as I am in my head. But not even then, because I know he hears it.
"That's shit, man."
"No it isn't. What the fuck would you know?"
"I know that people care about you," I silently tack on "dipshit" in my mind and wonder if he heard it. Probably.
"Right. Bullshit. Seriously, no on-"
"Damn it," I say but it doesn't sound mean, just oddly nice, "I know people do. You've gotta believe me." I notice that she's left the room, god only knows why, though the cynical part of me says it's for a saves-the-day dramatic entrance when I botch it.
"No-" I don't let him get that far, and look him straight in the eye.
"I care about you. Ok? I know you don't believe me, but you're a sociopath, so you can do your thing if that'll convince you."
He gives me the oddest look- I don't think he's quite used to the way I treat that particular gift, but what the hell, it's always worked for me- and I think I might've made an impression. I hope to hell I have. I wait, wondering what he'll do, and part of me notes that he's been crying. And still is; I immediately feel like shit for being responsible, then kick myself for being so arrogant as to assume it has anything to do with me. The silence is starting to freak me out, and he's beyond noticing and can't see for all the issues.
"Dude...." That sounds so moronic, I think, "C'mere." I lean over and put my arms around him, and he's still crying, and I think miserably, are there any two people in this world that are more screwed-up? She comes back in and you can almost hear the shock detonating like an H-bomb. It's out of context, but I have a certain malevolent satisfaction knowing that I failed to be inept, that I proved to her I'm not just somone's bitch to be ordered around, good for manual labor and money and emotional dumping.

[There really aren't words for that expression. She looks sad and ecstatic and something indefinite at the same time. Ryan is worried, still, and Logan shoots her a quizzical look.]

Five months after he shows up here, three months after I proved to him that I can be trusted, and he's forgotten all that. I'm still just the errand girl for the two of them, shut up and drive, shut up and do this, most of all just shut up. He's not screaming at me, but that's worse. I know I'm not worth the effort this way.
"I don't need a fucking keeper."
That's it. That's the end of my patience. "Really? That's news to me. What happened the last time you went off on your own?"
"Shut the fuck up. You don't know anything about me."
It's like being beaten, but I would choose physical hurt over what he's doing to me. At least cuts heal, bones reknit. Being flayed with words always leaves and keeps you raw. Against my own volition, helping his cause and kicking down my pride, I start crying. You fucking fool, that's what he wants, but I immediately correct myself, You're not important enough for him to waste time hurting. Except he knows I have a reason, made a point, and doesn't know me to cry. I stop as quickly as I can, and he's still angry at me, only slightly less gratingly abusive. I start yelling at him, saying everything I'm thinking, and he's yelling back, until-
"You fucking idiot, I don't want you to kill yourself because I- oh, fuck." The last part said in a quiet, sick voice.
I know he's looking at me in horror and derision so I just don't look up. Stare out the window at a passing bus and act like nothing has been said. It's not like he didn't know already, I'm sure, even though no normal person would know. Fucking sociopathic bastard, although part of me is smirking at the irony of that statement. I, too, have been known to steal people's thoughts.
It turns out that Option Number Three, the one he uses on everyone to get out of trouble, was not out of the question here. Bastard, I think, why do have to be so damn good at this? That's the last thing I think, aside from I shouldn't feel this safe right now; I know he's not bulletproof.

[She wakes up, not that she's been asleep, and that brief moment of contentment is gone, blasted into a hundred tiny pieces when she remembers she's awake and in class and he's not. Ryan is concerned, Aliza feels sorry for her, and anyone who happened to look over at her has wondered at least once what is going on.]

"Okay," I say, feeling the bitter words roll off my tongue, "About this assignment....."