"Oh.. okay then.  Well, if she calls or comes back, could you tell me?”<br/><br/>The conversation ended quickly after that and Linda stared at her phone in worry after she’d hung up.  She didn’t understand where she and Matt had gone wrong.  Sure there was the whole teenage rebellion thing, but wasn’t this a bit extreme?  She and Matt had always done their best, with both Gabrielle and Vivio and somehow it seemed they had messed up both times.  She turned the phone over contemplatively, considering if she should call her eldest daughter.  Gabrielle was sleeping right now and had work the next day.  But Gabrielle was also closest to Vivio..<br/><br/>With a sigh, she placed the phone on the table and just stared at it.  Her reverie was broken when her husband walked into the living room.  His blond hair was messy; he’d had a hard time sleeping as well.  “Are you going to pick Vivio up soon?”  He wondered with a jaw breaking yawn as he stumbled over to the coffee pot.<br/><br/>“No..”  He was immediately looking at her, focusing a rapidly awakening eye on her face.  She twisted her fingers together in distress, “Mr. Payne said that Vivio left their house twenty minutes ago…”<br/><br/>Matt immediately scowled and leaned against the counter, sipping from his mug.  There was nothing to say.  The two adults shared a long-suffering look, both clearly wondering where it had all gone wrong.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">~~~~~~~~</div><br/>Vivio idly poked through the racks at the shop, looking for something interesting.  She wasn’t adverse to shopping, but she was definitely no super shopper like Aisha who was flipping through hangers like they were on fire.  She pulled a black t-shirt off the rack and laughed at the ridiculous message on it: RUN, No Walk to HAPPINESS.  A quarter rainbow completed the cheerful message.  She dropped the motivation t-shirt back on the rack and went back to searching.<br/><br/>“Heyyy, what do you think of this?”  Aisha lifted a hanger with a shit-eating grin.<br/><br/><span style="color: deepskyblue">“Sorry, I don’t do hooker.  But it should fit your closet just fine.”</span>The blonde deadpanned, ignoring the cackle from her friend.<br/><br/>“You just wish you had this body!”  Aisha responded, blowing a kiss before she placed the sequin monstrosity back on the rack.  “You weren’t at G yesterday.  Ditching me for a boy toy already?  Hos before bros!”  The sour “tch!” had the pink-haired girl blinking at her friend curiously.  “Hmmm?  Were your parents—no. Something else.”  Brown eyes evaluated her friend, before she speculated aloud “You went silent after my forest text.”  A flinch and brown eyes were narrowing, darting all over the uncomfortable teen’s frame in search of clues.  “You were in the--? Yes.”  Aisha glanced around from the increasingly stiff Vivio and glanced out the store front to the electronics store across the walkway.  It showed a news report about last night’s gang fight.  Brown eyes darted back to her friend and then a vulpine smile overtook her face.<br/><br/>“So I heard Bakuda was at the pow wow last night.”  A flinch confirmed her suspicions, “Hmm…<span style="font-style: italic">Oh</span>.”  She seemed to realize something and the look in her eyes hardened for a moment.  “Oh well!  None of our business!”  She dismissed with a flippant toss of her hair, “But you’re just a teensy bit too obvious, Vee veee ohhhhh.”<br/><br/>The blonde only flipped her smirking friend the bird before stomping further into the store.  Aisha only cackled again and followed.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;">~~~~~~~~</div><br/>Monday.  Another day of hell.  Vivio pinned her borrowed skirt in place, secretly amused how many inches she had to take off for it to not fall off. (“You’re just a twig!” Aisha shouted from her corner of the room, having seen her smirk.)  She pulled the shirt into a semblance of neatness and then picked up her borrowed purse.  Snagging a pen from the kitchen, she placed it in the purse next to her phone and charger.  She was all set for school!<br/><br/>Aisha whirled to a stop next to her.  “Alright! Let’s go!”<br/><br/>The two boarded the bus towards their school: Northern Liberties High.  There were only two schools in the city, theirs and a religious private school.  Vivio’s parents had considered sending her to the private school but none of them were religious so four years of bible studies had seemed like a waste of time.  Then again, the past two years had seen a steady decline in the quality of Northern Liberties.  The place had become a covert, and at times not so covert, base for gang recruiting.  However, Vivio wasn’t sure her parents were aware of that tidbit; the school seemed to be trying hard to suppress that little fact.  The two girls were walking past the school gates when Aisha suddenly elbowed the blonde.  The pink-haired girl nodded to a sandy-haired, long-sleeved wearing boy who was further ahead of them.<br/><br/>“Hoh?  He’s still alive?”