Page 1 of Saints & Sailors

I knew how to make my mother cry. It wasn’t the best talent, but it came in handy whenever we got into it.

It just took a few vulgar words, or the flip of my pretty middle finger, and she broke every time.

Whenever I was up to no good, I loaded up my vocal bank with harsh words that would work in my favor. And being that I was always up to no good, I was constantly making withdrawals.

Being a mixture of smashed and faded while trying to remember a locker combination was tough shit. It was only three numbers, three directions, but due to my incoherent state of mind, it just couldn’t be done.

“Shit.” I groaned, pressing my forehead against the cold, gray, metal door in defeat.

“Just…think really, really, hard,” one of my best friends, Jack, suggested. It was his fault we’d broken into the school to begin with. He was that intent on getting his bomber jacket out of my locker. He wanted to impress a girl.

“Quiet,” I demanded.

In his vintage worker boots, skinny jeans, and white tee, Jack shivered amid the cool breeze wafting down the empty corridor we were standing in. He was going for a punk look. The girl he was trying to impress was into the whole ’90s riot girl aesthetic. Sure, Jack liked his Ramones, L7, and Pearl Jam, but he otherwise had no shot with this girl. I mean, her name was Me9, or, Meg with a nine on the end instead of a G. She was opinionated and socially aware, while Jack was simply…Jack.

He wouldn’t listen, though.

Ian shined his flashlight down on my activity, the light bouncing off of the steel lock and momentarily blinding me.

“Shit.” I fell back against my locker, too messed up to think straight.

“Is it that deep?” Danny asked for the fourth time that night.

Jack nodded, his blond curls soon covering his hazy eyes. “She’s special, man.”

It was ten to midnight and we’d broken into my high school to get a jacket from my locker, all because Jack thought this girl was special.

This type of behavior wasn’t unusual for me. If you asked around, I had a bad reputation.

Fuck if I cared though.

I didn’t really get along with anyone from my school. One bad run-in with the law was enough for most of them to steer clear of me. They were all rich, stuck-up, and boring anyway.

My boys, they knew how to have a good time.

Now my mother didn’t like my friends. Mostly because they were all guys, older, and covered in trouble. Danny gave me my first tattoo, Jack gave me my first hit, and Ian gave me my first buzz. At twenty-two, twenty-one, and nineteen, they were all a “bad impression” for my young and innocent seventeen as far as she was concerned.

But they were my best friends—no, more than that, they were my brothers. Talking me into breaking into my school was the mildest thing the boys had gotten me into.

Principal Leffler was going to shit a brick come Monday morning when he discovered the broken chain that once secured the double doors at the cafeteria entrance.

Ian was good at picking a lock, but Danny insisted on going all out.

I tried again to unlock my locker, but it was to no avail.

“Give it up, Say,” Danny said with a shake of his head.

“Come on, she’s waitin’ on me,” Jack whined.

“She’s way out of your league anyway,” Ian snickered.

Jack shoved Ian, and Ian shoved Jack. Soon, they were bickering, and I was lost, drowning in a sea of possible combinations for my locker.

Six, one, nine?

Twenty-three, thirty-six, five?

Eighteen, two, nineteen?