"Don't you dare fucking talk to me like that." I snapped at the seething boy in front of me.
"Like what, princess? Like you're full of shit? Someone had to say it!" He yelled back.
"No, don't talk to me like you're better than me! You and I are the...
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★★★
John B. hopped back on the boat and showed me where to drive it, to where he lived. We eventually reached a fish shack and docked Skipper. John B. grabbed my backpack, slinging it over his back and I smiled to myself, hopping out of the boat after him and following him inside.
Once we were inside, he showed me to the spare room I would now live in, and I took a deep breath. "You didn't have to do this, you don't even know me," I reminded him, giving him another chance to change his mind.
"What are you talking about, I do know you. Your name's Stevie, and... I know you," He said with a small shrug and I chuckled. He came towards me and sat down on the bed behind me.
"I just have to ask you something, but you have to be honest with me. It's gotta be the truth or this won't work, we don't keep secrets around here," He said, and I could tell what was coming.
I sat down next to him on the bed so I wouldn't have to maintain eye contact with him, and I sighed deeply to prepare myself.
"What happened to your face and why are you living like a... likeavagrant?" He asked.
"I live with my aunt on a boat docked on the Cut. My parents died when I was young, I don't remember them. Mom was a Kook, dad was a Pogue, they got married and mom moved to the Cut. Helen, that's my aunt, was kicked out. Then their dad died so she got the money my mom would've and now she drinks her life away and ritualistically pisses herself off. She hits me sometimes. It got really bad and I had taken enough of it, so I grabbed my stuff and my dad's boat and split, but she got a few licks on me before I could leave," I said.
There was nothing you could say to someone who spills their whole life story to you like that. Nothing could ever be correct, but he was trying to formulate something.
"Dude, I'm sorry," John B. said, but I shook my head.
"Don't be, I'm not asking for pity. I'm fine, I'm away from Helen now, aren't I? She's an asshole," I said. He turned his head to me and I looked up at him too, there was a certain sadness in his eyes, but he didn't have it for long.
"You're gonna live here now. Like... indefinitely," He said again without hesitation, and I frowned.
"Are you sure," I asked again.
He rolled his eyes, "Pogues don't leave other Pogues hanging."
I chuckled at his rule, "I'm not a Pogue though."
"Close enough, you're one of us now, whether you like it or not," John B. said and I reveled in the fact that all of this was happening so fast. I had just met him earlier today, but now he was offering me a place to live, a place with no adults, which was even better. I wondered why this was though, so decided to ask, not thinking anything of it at first.
