She wipes imaginary dirt from her off-the-shoulder white t-shirt. "Well yeah, I never get tired though. I'm like an insomniac."

Watching her, I'm shaking my head to reboot it again. Her shirt, her jeans, even her hands are perfectly clean.

"What?" she asks.

"How do you not have any grease or paint on you?"

She shrugs and picks up a wrench. "I'm a girl. I know how to stay like spotless."

I look around the messy shop. Nothing is clean in the garage. Not one tool. Not one spot on the counter. Not even the rags to clean with. Nothing. How she stayed spotless is like magic or something.

Chapter 3.

When I was a kid, I played the three major American sports: baseball, basketball, and football. After my number one cheerleader, Mom, died from cancer, I lost interest. Besides, the workload Ron piles on me hardly allows time for homework. However, once Coach Gains timed me running in gym, he wouldn't stop begging me to join the team, even calling Ron when I tried to use the garage as an excuse. Ron of course, wanting to seem like the good guy, gave Coach Gains his full support, which means he bitches non-stop during track season but would never tell me I can't run.

I don't love running or anything. But when college scouts started looking at me right away last year, I began envisioning a way out of my futureless future. A life free from the garage, Ron, and my stepbrothers. A real life. I'd never thought college a possibility until the first day Coach Gains told me someone from The University of Florida had asked about me. After that, I took practice and the meets much more seriously. My dream does leave a ping of guilt inside me because I'm not sure how Ron and the boys will make it without me, but I crush guilt down with the fact I shouldn't have to take care of them forever. Four years of hell should be enough.

During the long hours a track meet takes, since I only run the sixty, the hundred-meter dash, and one relay, I usually read. One of the few things my father left from his summer with my mother was a comic book collection. I've been addicted to the things since I was little. At first, I was just searching for a piece of my unknown father in them, but then the stories, the art, and the selfless heroes reeled me in. Though track meets are a break for me from the shop and even homework, today during lunch Coach Gains called me into his office and explained (yelled) if I didn't get my Trig grade up from a D+ to at least a C, I'd be hitting the sideline.

So I'm sitting at a picnic table on the side of the bleachers under the shade of a cluster of palm trees, eating a hot dog-got to love school concession stands and their cheap food-working on polar graphing, and waiting for the hundred-meter all call. I already kicked ass in the sixty. I take a bite from my hotdog and start my third graph when someone plunks a pile of magazines on the table next to me. I'm not surprised by the neon pink clad body that follows. The bench creaks as she sits and I can't help letting out an irritated sigh.

Harmony frowns. "What? Like now I can't sit by you?"

Amid the scent of fresh flowers-the girl must rub herself with lilacs or something-I hold in another sigh. "I need to get ready for tomorrow's quiz. If I don't get my grade up, Coach isn't going to let me run." I point to my Trig book then her. "Besides what are you doing at a track meet?"

She shrugs. "Not being able to work at the garage, I got bored." She flicks the top magazine open with a thumb. "Study away, I won't bother you."

I clench my pencil instead of my jaw. "I see you made it home alright. I wondered when you weren't in Anatomy." Last night she insisted on walking home no matter how many times I offered her a ride on my bike.

"Yeah, I didn't get to school till after lunch." She glances at the half-eaten hotdog. "Should you be eating before running?"

I shrug. "I can't run hungry. It's just a small snack."

"You're always hungry," she says, licks a thumb, and pushes a page.

Okay, so my stomach gurgles a lot. Ron rarely buys groceries. Him and his kids live on convenient store food and drive thru fare.

Harmony whisks through pictures. I crunch numbers. Intermittently, she points to ads of teenagers covered in denim and sand. "How is that fashion? Isn't it blah? How is this stuff in? Everything's so plain." Each time I shrug, but she continues pointing and asking the same questions. Until she says in a nonchalant tone, "So you going to prom?"

"Ah, no," I say, pushing calculator buttons. My homework would be a lot easier if I had a graphing calculator, but Ron forking out a hundred dollars for one isn't going to happen. "I thought you were going to let me study away?"

Ignoring me, she stares at a glossy picture of a girl dressed in pink ruffles. "Why not?"

I tap my pencil on the table and stare at the zigzag line of a graph that should be a curve. "Too busy. No one worth taking."

"Like no one?" she asks, creasing the page. Glancing at her pink fingernails on the pink dress, I'm hoping she isn't hinting for me to ask her. "It's your senior year." Her nail outlines the dress. "This school's got like over a thousand kids. There has to be someone here who rocks your boat."

There is one person who gives my boat a bit of a sway. I glance across the fence past the line of spectators leaning there. Most of the team sits on blankets at the end of the field under the bright, hot sun. Mirana and Eric sit with their group of friends who consist of the popular people. Mirana tilts her head back and laughs at something. Sunlight shines off her dark hair as she leans on Eric. "Nope, no one," I say, but Harmony follows my gaze.

She looks across the field. Her pink mouth presses into a frown. "Or is it that your someone is already taken?" Suddenly, my latest graph becomes very important while her fingers drum on a magazine cover.

"Dusty!" My stepbrother Mike stops in front of the picnic table and I force myself not to curl my lip in annoyance. He stares at Harmony. "Making new friends? Or should I say, a friend?" After running a hand through his slicked backed hair, he shoves his cell phone in his pocket and walks over. His brother and shadow, Junior, follows at his heels.

I inwardly groan as they sit then realize if they're here, Harmony won't pester me about Mirana. Mike plants his butt next to my homework on the top of the table-so short he likes to tower over people whenever possible. Junior sits on the bench across from Harmony. They come to almost every sporting event at school. It's their lame tactic of trying to pick up chicks. While I introduce them, they both stare at Harmony like they've never seen a girl before. I won't be surprised if drool soon wets the table.

end.