Kyle's eyes jerk in my direction once he's alerted to my presence. His eyes on me make me shifty. He's had this effect on me since I met him, and I hate that he can get under my skin. I turn around to shut the door in order to distract myself, and when I glance back at Kyle, he's staring at his Nikes. I plop down in the seat next to him, hoping this goes by quickly.

"Coach Prescott says the two of you are having issues communicating," she says almost immediately.

I bite my lip to keep from losing my temper. That probably wouldn't make Coach too happy.

"What do you two think about that?" she asks.

When neither of us speak for a solid, excruciatingly silent minute, she turns her question to Kyle specifically.

"Kyle?" she asks, "What do you think? Do you think the two of you have issues communicating?"

I pointedly don't look in his direction. His response isn't important, and I don't want him to think it is. In fact, I want to punch him before he even opens his mouth.

"I think I've tried to communicate with him, and somewhere along the line I got sick of trying," he says.

I can't resist glaring at him, but I stay quiet. He glares back at me.

"What about you, Bryant?" she asks.

I don't respond.

"What do you think about what Kyle just said?" she tries again.

"I think this is a waste of time," I tell her honestly.

"Well I hope you'll both at least try during our time together. Your coach is right, communication is important," she tells us.

This is a joke. Any other Coach would make us run until we threw up, force us to shake hands, and move on. Coach Prescott wants us to talk about our feelings; it's ridiculous.

"Well, let's start with something simple since neither one of you seems too thrilled to talk to me," she says.

I almost tell her she's not the one I don't want to talk to, but I have a feeling that'd be proving her and Coach Prescott's point, and I don't want to do that.

"I want you each to take a moment and think of one word to describe the other person. The word can have a neutral connotation or a positive one, but make sure it isn't an insult," she says.

Rich pops into my head without giving any thought to the exercise. If she wouldn't have said the part about making sure it isn't an insult, I would've come up with something meaner to say, but rich works, so I settle on that.

"Take about five minutes to think, and then I'll ask you each to say your word," she says.

The office is blissfully silent while we pretend to be giving her stupid question real thought. When the five minutes are up, she asks Kyle to say his word.

"Independent I guess," he mumbles.

My stomach pinches when I hear his thoughts of me. I strive to be independent in life, and while I don't really care about his opinion, it's nice knowing I put that vibe into the world. I don't know what I expected him to say, but it's an interesting choice.

"Okay, Bryant?" she asks.

"Rich," I tell her.

Kyle scoffs, and Mrs. Shipley turns her attention to Kyle. I glance at him too, and he seems put out. Something about his response makes me feel guilty, but the guilt makes me angry because it was a sensical word to choose to describe him.

"Is something wrong with his description of you?" she asks.

"Nothing," he mumbles.

"You are rich," I tell him in frustration.

This is a stupid exercise.

"I guess I just wasn't aware we were looking for loopholes," he tells me, which is the first thing he's said to me directly. Then he turns his attention back to Mrs. Shipley and explains himself to her as if I'm not worth the time to him.

"The word rich has a neutral connotation to most people, but anyone who's spent more than five minutes with Bryant knows it's a fucking insult as far as he's concerned," Kyle snaps.

The f-bomb throws me for a loop. Kyle usually isn't the first of the two of us to lose his temper.

"Let's watch our language," she scolds Kyle before turning her attention towards me.

"Is that true?" she asks me.

"I wasn't trying to be a dick. It's the first word that popped into my head," I tell her honestly.

She gives me a warning look about my language before moving on.

"That doesn't really answer my question though I appreciate that you weren't trying to insult him. Do you think the word rich is an insult?" she asks me.

"I think it describes him, and it has a neutral connotation. That's what you asked for," I say, feeling my patience snap.

"What do you think about the word he chose for you?" she asks, shifting gears.

I shrug.

"It's fine."

"You looked surprised when he said it," she says.

I narrow my eyes at her.

"There are a lot of words in the English language," I tell her.

"And you were surprised he settled on that one?" she asks.

"I guess," I tell her.

"Okay, this is a great start. Now what I want you to do is pick a word that describes yourself. I want you to take five minutes again, and come up with the word, and at the end we'll discuss it," she says.

Can't wait, I think before actually giving this one some thought since last time it backfired. Minutes tick by while I think. Then she asks Kyle for his word before I come up with one for myself.

"Smart maybe?" he offers.

Honestly, it's true. The guy's taking all honors classes while playing every sport imaginable. It takes someone smart to pull that off, but that he says it about himself makes me scoff.

"Maybe not," I say to be a dick.

Then I glance over at him. He isn't even looking at me. He's staring straight at Mrs. Shipley. Seems about right.

"Bryant, I will not have you insulting one another in my office. If that's how these sessions go, I will report to your Coach you aren't trying. All I ask is that you make an effort," she lectures me.

"Fine," I tell her through clinched teeth.

"Alright, now what's the word you'd use to describe yourself?" she asks.

"Poor," the word comes out of my mouth before I'm aware I've settled on it.

"Interesting that your words are opposites," she muses.

"Not really when you consider the two people I've been asked to describe," I retort.

"What do you think about Bryant's description of himself?" Mrs. Shipley asks Kyle.

"I think it's sad he sees the world in dollar signs," Kyle answers without missing a beat.

"Some of us have to consider money," I snap at him.

He looks at me for the first time since we've been in here.

"Do you? Last time I checked she married my dad. You have money now. Whether you like it or not, you're as rich as I am," he says, but I reject his premise.

"My mom's money isn't mine," I argue.

"My dad's isn't mine," he snaps back.

"There's a fundamental difference between a person raised with wealth and person born into poverty. It might be harder for the person born into wealth to see it, but believe me when I tell you it's there," I tell him.

"So, your problem with me is my dad's money? I can't help if he made a couple of decent business decisions," he tells me incredulously.

"My problem is that you find it sad I see the world in dollar signs. Some of us have no choice in the matter. Money matters a hell of a lot more when you don't have any," I tell him, not giving two shits if Mrs. Shipley has a problem with me cussing.

"It's not the money that pisses you off?" Kyle asks me.

I'd tell him to fuck off, but he sounds like he's genuinely trying to understand, so I make an effort to explain it to him.

"It's the way you pity people without any," I tell him.

"I wasn't aware I did that," he mumbles as the bell rings.

Well, glad that's over.

"That was a great start boys. Good luck at practice," Mrs. Shipley tells us as we leave her office.

That was as bad as I thought it'd be.

***

Fuck. I aim to avoid Holland when at all possible, and most nights, that's a simple task. We have a system that's been working flawlessly since I started selling his product for him, and that system involves as little communication with the soulless piece of garbage as humanly possible.

So, I'm not happy when I slip into his office in the middle of the night to give him his cut of the profits, and I notice too late the lamp on his desk is still on.

When I see him, I consider trying this again some other time for all of two seconds. Walking out of this room would communicate some form of weakness, and where men like Holland Amerson are considered, showing weakness is the equivalent of submitting entirely.

"Get it done?" Holland asks me.

He means did I manage to put drugs into the hands of half my fellow students this week. I try my damndest to ignore the idea that I'm getting my hands dirty for this prick, but my stomach still rolls at the thought.

"It's done," I acknowledge, even though the words feel like acid as they leave my mouth.

Here's the thing. The drugs the asshole deals are small time, but they're big money. I don't know if it's his conscience keeping him from selling anything stronger than pot, an unlikely possibility, or if it's the misguided belief he'd do less time pushing this crap on the streets than he would pushing crystal meth. Whatever his reasoning, he only sells marijuana, and my conscience, however jaded it may be, thanks him for it. Even as far as I've fallen, I'm still not as soulless as the prick sitting on the other end of the desk right now.

I reach into my pocket, and I pull out the envelope stuffed full of fellow student's cash. It's a thick wad of cash, something I'd never actually be able to call my own, but I know it's a small fraction of what Amerson pulls in in a week alone.

"Impressive, son," he says.

The endearment triggers my gag reflex. I was raised to believe I'm dirt beneath these asshole's feet, and I believe it most days, but I don't strive to be that. His encouragement has the opposite effect than he intends. It makes me want to strip my skin off my body and boil it in the hopes of removing some of the filth I feel permanently attached to it these days.

"It's all there, I presume," he asks, his tone as condescending as ever.

I flick my eyes to the doorway of his office. I always feel four times more paranoid having these conversations in the same house as I know Kyle is in, even if he is sleeping at the moment. I narrow my eyes at him, hoping to get the point across to him this isn't a question I intend to dignify with any more significant response than that. He smiles.

"I trust you, of course, but a man can never be too careful," the asshole says, then he proceeds to pull the bills out of the envelope to count them.

As he counts the large wad of cash I just handed over to him, I consider walking out of the room. The only thing that stops me is the knowledge that this brings me one step closer to my endgame. This is just a means to an end, and I need to suck it up.

"Any trouble this week?" he asks the question uninterested in my answer.

He knows as well as I do that if I ran into trouble, I'd handle it. It's not my style to complain, and it never has been. I give him a single shake of the head in response.

"Ben Hartley interfere?" he asks, this time taking his attention away from the bills long enough to watch me while I answer him, showing he has more interest in my answer to this question than the last.

Of course, that makes sense. This question directly ties to the guy's profit. The previous question was only about his punk step kid's well-being.

"He's not an issue. Everyone knows your shits better," I tell him, which is true.

While both men focus their businesses on small town drugs, only one of their operations is truly small town. Amerson has the backing of multiple big wigs. Given his time as a defense attorney, he has contacts that would make Ben Hartley, a fellow student at my high school, shit his fucking pants. The good news for Ben is that Holland hasn't officially decided selling on his turf is something that won't be tolerated. I look for that to happen at some point in the future, but I'm hoping for my plan to be wrapped up by that point. Amerson reaches in his top desk drawer, and he pulls out a large bag of pot.

"You're dependable, Bryant. I like that," he tells me as he finally concludes counting all of the money in front of him.

He holds up the bag of weed to me, and he takes a few measly bills off of the top of his stack, and effectively dismisses me from his office. Once I'm in the quiet hallway of his mansion, away from his fucking deceitful and soulless eyes, I breathe a sigh of relief, but I don't fully relax until I'm behind the closed doors of my bedroom where I know Kyle won't even think about coming.