Chapter 2: The Book Job

Dear Journal:

...I got a job today.

I had to find some way to make ends meet. I mean yeah, I can't exactly get something full-time. I mean, who the hell hires a teenager for that sort of thing?

But I guess I got the next best thing.

Apparently, a few morons in town are under the impression I still go to school.

Morons or not, though, at least they were willing to give me a job at the bookstore. And I guess I gotta take what I can get.

They did give me the job on one condition, though.

Apparently, the staff there don't want some kid looking like some kind of hoodlum in the joint.

They said, 'You got the job, if you change your look.'

Normally, I'd say 'to hell with that', and change my mind. At this point, though, I really didn't have much of a choice.

If I had to sacrifice my kick-ass bad boy image, for the sake of keeping the house that me and Miraj had, then so be it.

My guess was, they only wanted the mohawk gone. But I figured, may as well change the whole thing. Make it a package deal, you know?

That was apparently enough to get Miraj's attention.

He was probably so used to me looking a certain way, that he couldn't imagine me looking like anything else.

Besides him saying I looked different, though, he didn't really make a huge deal out of it.

But me getting a job and changing my look apparently wasn't what bothered him.

I remember him talking after we had dinner. How he missed seeing me in school.

When he brought it up, I told him outright: 'school don't mean jack to me.' But he insisted. He knew I hated the whole edumacation ordeal.

'But can you at least try? It'd really make me happy.' I remember the last guy that told me to go to school. He's six feet under now.

If it had been Iqbal that told me to do it, I'd have refused, and maybe even flipped him off. But this was Miraj, and well...I don't want to let my little bro down.

Getting a job was just one of the things I'd done for him. I guess...Maybe this wouldn't cause too much of an issue for me either.

I waited until he was in bed for the night. Then I sent a text to a friend of mine.

I told her to clear a space next to her in class tomorrow. Judging from the message I got back, she was ecstatic.

For all she knew, Hell had just frozen over.

Hey, miracles can happen. If VJ Alvi can get a job and go back to school, then what couldn't happen?

(End of Chapter 2.)