I started hanging out with this Shannon girl. We had some in common, her mom had left her to live with her grandmother at a young age because she had a major drug/alcohol problem. Her mom sobered up and became, yet another, upstanding member of the church community. Her mom was nice, I never had a problem with Catherine, save for her self righteousness and her constant berating me for choosing the Marquis de Sade as a personal hero during some church project thing.

At first she was in charge. Every Sunday after sacarament we'd duck out before Sunday school and hide out in the bathrooms or on occasion outside to grab a smoke before the bishop came hunting us down. The first couple times it was getting out because neither of us wanted to be there, after awhile it became getting out because we wanted to hang out together. In a lot of ways, she was my first real girl crush. At 13 I had thought a lot of girls were cute, but I never really knew any of them as well as I knew her. This drew me to her, this made me love her a little.

Soon, no one was in charge. We fell in step. I was thinking what she was thinking and vice versa. It was beautiful and crazy and I loved it.

My Tata didn't like her. Everything I loved about her, he hated. The multi-coloured hair, the boots, the loud music, her ripped jeans. The list went on, but I was allowed to hang out with her simply because her mother was (here we go again) an upstanding member of the church. She'd come over nearly every day or on occasion I'd go to her place. I opted for her to come over to mine more often because there was more room (I lived in a big house, her in a small apartment) and I'd have ready access to my keyboard or guitars if inspiration struck as it often did at random.

She started staying with us for days at a time. Tata hated having her over, aside from the obvious reasons, she was a vegetarian and therefore a thorn in the side of our meat eating asses. Out of all the friends I could've had, she required the most effort.

It was with her I was finally allowed outside with. She and I would take my dogs for long walks around the nearby school or we'd walk to the park and back. We'd go to the mall even. Normal teenage girl stuff. Well, usually.

We had our moments of insanity. One brilliant afternoon we tore up a circus magazine, I took a picture of Marilyn Manson and her a picture of Kurt Cobain, taped them to our foreheads and put on crazy hats. I had the top hat, she had a mon-chi-chi hat. We sat on the corner for hours watching people watch us. Not saying a word to any of them. Most rambling on in Spanish, some praying for whatever reason.

Other times we just went around pretending to be British. You'll be amazed at how much free shit American's are willing to throw at you if they think you're a tourist, particularly a tourist with money. Watch enough Absolutely Fabulous and you can pick up the idea of how we were acting. I was Eddie she was Patsy, it was strange and fun. Shop and drink, drink and shop.

Those times, even after and during the bad... I always felt like we were invincible. Not even the gods themselves could've torn us apart.

cont...