"Wait here, boys," Lynn told them like they were children as she slipped out of the Durango's front seat. "I just need to pick up a few things then we can head to the concert." The rain slammed down on the suburban as hard as the door closed, Matt and David's mother bulldozing through the perilous storm's wind and rain.

They sat dead in the silence, the boisterious pitter-patter of rain drops on the hood of the car the only noise spiraling through the empty space of the car. David peered at Matt, Matt looking out the window with a content smile, his breath colliding with the window, steaming into a thin white cloud against the glass. David never saw Matt like this before, always smiling like gold streamed through his lips. Even when Mom punished him for being "out with the guys" so late, his smile never faded. Matt's eyes fluttered to David's, David's eyebrows raising to trigger the inquizition.

"What?" Matt asked innocently, slumping down in his seat.

"What's going on, Matt?" David blurted bluntly, pivoting toward him, leaning his arm on the grey seat.

"Nothing," Matt curtly replied, folding his hand beneath his elbows and looking down at his sneakers like he was a criminal.

"I may be younger than you, but I'm not stupider than you," David responded, his eyes cutting Matt's heart into scraggey pieces. "C'Mon, lay it on me."

"I'm serious, David," Matt meekly replied, running his hands through his hair. He didn't know why he wouldn't tell David about Alana. He didn't want to drive a wedge between him and David like he has with himself and his mother. David and him were pretty close. He squirmed a little in his seat about lying about Alana, not blazoning to the masses that he was, he thought, in love with Alana.

"Look," David began, becoming more forecul in his gestures. He held out on of his hands and index finger to count the reasons why he thought something was up. "You're always out...late. Your amount of smiling as of late is definately not healthy or normal. You're a lot more energetic on stage than you are as your usually awkward self..."

"Hey!" Matt interrupted in defense. "You try doing what I do day in and out in front of..."

"That's not the point," David continued, blinking his eyes to search for where he left off in the mist of Matt's interruption. "It better be a girl thing or else I'm concerned for your health..."

Matt's breath snagged in his throat, his heart running leaps and bounds around his body, his hopes of delaying that assumption pounded to dust at Matt's transcient seclusiveness. Who knew David could be as smart as Matt.

"I knew it!" David yelled in victory, raising his fists to the sky. "What's her name? I need details!"

"Alana," Matt admitted, rolling his eyes at Matt's feminine urges to gossip.

"That's a pretty name," David told him, his eyes brightening a few shades of blue at this new tidbit. "Bet she's pretty, too. Did you guys kiss yet?..." He paused, a sly smile diffusing on his face. "Wait, you didn't sleep at Joe's last week like you told Mom, did you? You Devil!"

"For the first question, sadly, no," Matt laughed at David's bluntness, shaking his head as his fingers danced on the window. "The second question...what do you think?"

"You're going to be in deep shit if Mom ever finds out," David told him seriously, concern flooding his pale face. Matt nodded, the most violent verbal assault loomed in his future if she ever knew about where he was and he really didn't care, he was too in love to care what she did, nothing could keep him and Alana apart. "Where did you guys meet?" David asked as the both of them watched their mother bumble through the sparatic downpour toward the car, her black umbrella as unresilient in the furious wind and rain as hawaiian drink umbrella bobbing in a pina colada.

"I'll tell you later," Matt whsipered, leaning close to his brother so his mother wouldn't hear inadvertantly. He didn't know how is mother could even think with the water pounding in her ears and groceries stretching out her arms like silly putty. "I don't want Mom to hear and flip out like usual."

"She does that a lot, doesn't she?" David sympathised and realized, his eyes meeting with Lynn's gentle eyes darting at them in the rear view mirror.

"Do we believe in seat belts, boys?" Lynn asked with her hands on her hips irritably, the boys grappling for the seat belts hiding deep within the car's cushions. When the extracting and proper placing of the seat belts were completed, Lynn gave the boys a smile, lowered her visor to block the blinding sun from its premedataited path for her eyes and said, "Let's boogey........."

"You called for me, mother?" Alana asked timidly, her fingers curled around the edge of the cherry wood door as her mother sat at her desk surprisingly undisturbed, her eyes boring with a glint of resentment straight ahead like she was under the spell of hypnosis.

"Please come in and sit, Dear," Marie told her, her voice swaggering on the edge with drunken inhabitions, her eyes red with straightlace aggravation. Alana approached the brown leather chair as confidently as possible, her head convinced that she knew what this confrentation would be about; it had to have happen sooner or later.

"Maybe you should discard that innocent look on your face and tell me why you think I called you in here," Marie propsed with a severe frown, crossing her ankles and leaning foward, her hands folded under her strong chin to get ready fro battle.

"I do not know what you mean," Alana murmured down to her silk white nightdown, eyes valiantly trying to avoid her mother's deadly glare.

"Just tell me, Alana," Marie begged, anger rising in her body like her blood pressure. "Why are you sneaking out so late? There is no need to deny it, I saw you leave your bedroom window the other night."

Alana's fear spiked in her bloodstream, the hairs on the back of her neck as sticking up as straight as pins. The question of her mother seeing Matt in her room that night frightened her more than the prospect of losing him.

"I went for a walk..." Alana told her mother, wringing her hands around her nightgown as her eyes met her mother's malignant stare. Alana's spirit seeped from her pores to the floor, hiding with the dust under her feet.

"With a boy, I am sure," Marie spatted at her, crossing her arms in disbeleif. Alana stared at her blankly, her mouth dropped to her knees. "Do not look so surprised. I asked Thomas if he knew about your midnight strolls. He told me everything. I should have fired him right then and there for keeping that a..."

"No!" Alana protested, falling to her knees and lunging toward the desk, her hands clasped together tightly with mercy. "It was my fault, my doing. Do not punish Thomas for my bad judgement! Punish me."

"And I will," Marie told her forcefully, rising from her desk and hovering over the groveling Alana, narrow slits of dissapointment and shame shielding her eyes. "You will go to school and be picked up right after and come home. You will study non-stop to bring up you less than average grades. You will not be able to leave the house without my permission. There will be no using of your phone, telephone, drawings, televison, nothing. Especially not your rope. Seeing that boy is prohibited." Deciding that her stipulations for her daughter were set in stone and clear as glass, she rose regally from her seat behind the large cherry-wood and sauntered toward the door, feeling proud that she could still control her daughter, control something. Alana kneeled on the ground stunned like a cherished pet was just put to sleep.

"Stop groveling and go to your room," Marie bsrked, stomping her foot as she wisked to the main stairway.

Alana felt like she was being crushed with the weight of a thousand butcher knives, cutting and breaking every bone in her body. Tears snaked up into her eyes and hugged her lashes as the moon crawls into the darkening night. She was convinced that her and Matt's relationship, if not her life, was over just like that.