[center][u]Lynn[/u][/center]

Lynn looked up at Amelia as she spoke, her eyes doing their usual routine of comparing the girl against herself. As per usual, Lynn came up short. Though Amelia was maybe four inches taller at most, she had a good twenty pounds on Lynn. Lynn tried to puzzle a birth year or something of significance from her as she spoke. [i]She can't be much older than me,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]Christ.[/i] As she glanced around, it was clear that passers-by thought similarly. They looked at Amelia differently, like she was a teenager, and the looks at Lynn were more mixed. Some looked at her height, or the skeleton arms that extended from the six-times-over rolled up sleeves of her hoodie, and some at her tattoos. [i]I gotta start rolling with some blind motherfuckers or something.[/i]

Lynn smirked at Amelia's comment. Well, at least she got it. Getting it was a hard concept to explain. Lynn wasn't entirely sure that Amelia Got It, but she Got It more than Nat, or him, or most. For a moment, unbidden, the drunk-hazed over memory of Watch Boy blurred into her mind. [i]He Got It,[/i] Lynn thought. She hadn't really tried to sift through the foggy recollections of that night very much, but as she did, she remembered distinctly thinking there was something about him. [i]Yeah, he walked like he just got out of boot camp.[/i] Lynn filed it away for later. He might be something worth looking into. Or, if nothing else, that watch was worth a few days' work at [i]Vaquero.[/i] Lynn listened to Amelia's words with great interest, though she continued to eat and rarely looked back up at her once she started talking. [i]It's a joke. But I wanna know what you think the punch line is.[/i]

Lynn's attempt at getting a firmer grasp on just who the girl who could teleport anywhere and stayed on the Promise was snapped as soon as she started talking about the jacket. In her algebra class, Lynn felt firmly like someone had picked her up and dropped her into Russia. Lynn's academic career was, in a word, abysmal, and each class the Promise threw at her seemed like some kind of cruel joke. They were talking about all kinds of academic sanctions and other things, or even putting her back a few grades, just because she missed a few (read: all) of her assigned tutoring sessions. The only classes she eked out a respectable performance in were her power training classes and in Spanish, where the teacher at least acknowledged she had a very functional, if crude, grasp of the language. In power training, Lynn was reminded of some of the boxing gyms near where she lived. Those were one of the few ways to Get Out, to find something in your life that had some semblance of discipline and order and meaning. Lynn had always wanted to join. Che wouldn't allow it.

But none of her classes hit Lynn with that feeling of utter helplessness and complete, dizzying confusion as what Amelia was talking about.

There was not a single part of what she said that Lynn could grab onto to understand. Having parents that took you shopping. Their being the worst. Clothes fancier than department stores. Their watching closely enough to force your fashion. Someone shaping you into a [i]lady[/i], which was some ethereal idea Lynn had given up on attaining around the age of ten. Having the money to buy something like that casually - and younger than they already were. 

Lynn had thought going up to the Promise was going to be something that was utterly unnerving, the sort of shattering change that upended everything. But it was just a nicer-looking detention center with a better view. The last thirty seconds jarred her more than the rocket trip, than the meetings spent handcuffed to a table talking about the Promise's rehabilitation rates, than all of it.

Lynn wondered what Amelia's parents looked like. Her mom was easy, just - her, but older, more wrinkled, maybe, probably saggy the way old people got. Her father was middling height, his face an unformed blur, the space beyond the edges of the map. Lynn could understand someone's parents being the worst - she'd seen a fair few like that, and to the extent Gary had been a parent, he'd certainly been a strong contender for the worst as well (Again, the thought of him catching justice in prison brought an unconscious smile to Lynn's lips, the mental image of him throwing up a worthless, burned hand to stop an ass-beating the only pleasant vision of violence Lynn's imagination liked to conjure up). But how could parents that took you shopping for clothes be the worst? Lynn had parents, for a bit, the way crutches give you a leg again when you've broken it through and through. Lucy - her family. That had been good. But then Lynn had burned their house down, and the fuzzy haze of what Amelia talked about, of what Amelia had, had burned with it. They'd never said that was why. They'd waited a few months. But the conversation had come with the coded words they always used. [i]Financial limitations[/i] and [i]better situation for everyone[/i] and [i]you'll always be welcome here.[/i] Lynn was angry at Amelia's story, but not sure who to direct it at, which made her angrier. 
 
Lynn stared back at Amelia. [i]Does she have a reason? Is it just being a brat?[/i] Lynn's hunch that she hadn't ever seen anything in the way of real shit seemed backed up so far - although in fairness to the girl, Lynn thought that of most people. Maybe she had now. She'd seen a man get his head blown halfway to hell and not lost her shit. She'd stayed in the woods, when Lynn had bet fully on her running.

Lynn swallowed the chunk of her cheeseburger she'd been chewing on for a good minute. "Huh," she said, still trying to process all the nuances and implications of Amelia's story. The last, least important part of the story that baffled Lynn was why Amelia didn't just steal both jackets. That seemed like such a plain and obvious solution to her. She could teleport. The fuck? Had Lynn been given a private moment to jot down her thoughts in her notebook, she would carved out a column on the page littered with lyrics and idle charcoal sketches to label Amelia firmly under the "NO FUCKING IDEA" category of humans.

And last but not least, whatever Amelia thought was pricey was certainly going to be beyond the pale for Lynn. [i]Looks like I'm stealing a jacket,[/i] she thought. [i]I could probably turn out Fish and make a few bucks, though.[/i] "It's a cool jacket," Lynn said, her tone more or less neutral. When Lynn was busy thinking, she liked to throw out anything non-committal. If they knew what was going on, they had something over you, and she didn't want Amelia knowing how little she understood her. Lynn briefly considered saying something incredibly jarring, to try and see how the girl would take it, but she was too shaken herself to pull that off.

She looked up and saw Keaton and Eli across the way. A quick flash of not jealousy, because Lynn didn't care, but something - flashed through her gut. [i]Well how come they're hanging out and didn't ask me?[/i] Lynn wondered. That would complicate things. She needed to tell Keaton about her suspicions about the docking bay. Lynn would not ever have admitted it to herself, but she was practically giddy to tell the girl something she'd puzzled out on her own. [i]I'm not dumb,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]No one gives a fuck about algebra or stupid British novels or biology anyway.[/i] "Do we get to haze the new fish at all? Maybe that break dancing bastard will come kick somebody again."