He was Alexander. Never Alex, never Xander, but Alexander. If you didn’t want to call him Alexander, he was Toxic. No one new why. He was a senior, which was kind of a miracle because, as everyone knew, Toxic wasn’t the sharpest cheese in the fridge, if you get me. He didn’t have much going for him, considering that he lived in a trailer, that his mama was a crack head and that all the money he had came from washing tables at the Sunny Side Up. What he did have going for him, though, was his good looks. All the girls in Bridge County High were chasing after Toxic, and word from the senior girls was that he was good in the dark, too, if you follow.

Let me tell you some other stuff about Toxic, because turns out he figures pretty big in the story you’re got in front of you. Toxic was a player. He’d led you around all sorts of corners, telling you he liked you a real lot, that you were some swell girl, and then you’d find him with his eyes all over the backside of some other girl and his arms around the waist of a third. Thing about Toxic was, he got away with it. Instead of getting mad at the son of a bitch himself, you’d go after those other girls, because it must have been all their fault to begin with. You’d chase them high and low until you graduated, and then you’d stand there all decked out in your cap and gown and realize the scumbag seduced them, not the other way around. And there went four years of your life, trickling away while you wrote your initials and his on the bathroom wall.

Trust me. I’ve got some experience with Alexander Johan.

I was a sophomore when Toxic finally chose me for his new girl. I kept my knees pretty close together because I didn’t want to end up like Emily Turner, eight months along and big as a house, but I still managed to keep him in my net for a good month and a half. Most girls only last a couple of weeks, is my estimate.

So one day I come into the cafeteria, arms liked with some girlfriend or another, and I see Alexander’s back turned to me, with his lips all over the face of some other girl. I couldn’t see who the bitch was on account of his head being in the way, but right then and there I set a price on the poor slut’s head. And then he moved and I saw the stealer. Turns out it was my freshman sister, little Abercrombie Buzz. I hated that girl. Always had.

I didn’t see her all day until dinner, and on account of our parents being there we didn’t say a thing to each other about boys. We smiled and talked about homework and put on a grand old show, but after Mama put away the ice cream dishes and went on upstairs, we stood there looking feral, waiting for one of us to speak.

I did the honors. “You bitch,” I said. I guessed I ought to let her defend herself before I started yelling my head off, but I didn’t think she had much to say.

“Dailey,” she said, like she was trying to calm me down I think. She knew me pretty well. “I know you like Toxic and all, but you haven’t heard the way he talks to me. He loves me. I can see it in his very eyes.”

“His eyes?” I spat. “Buzz, all you see in his eyes is your own damn reflection, girl, that’s where all that love’s coming from, not him! I been datin’ him for nigh on seven weeks. You don’t go cheatin’ on your sister’s boyfriend. That’s just low.”

Buzz shrugged. She was some tiny little freshman thing, barely fifteen and already into harder drugs than I even knew where to find, let alone how to smoke. “Sorry, sis,” she said. “I just can’t give up on true love.”

And that’s how Becca “Buzz” weathers became the infamous Pregnant Freshman of Bridge County High. I don’t suppose I pitied her in the least.

Anyhow, Buzz took off before anybody actually saw the baby bump, but everyone knew why she went. I guess I’m at fault for that. Buzz told me and I told Pregnant Emily, and if you’ve got a secret you really ought to keep it far away from Pregnant Emily’s ears. Things go straight from that girl’s ears to her mouth, without that inconvenient pit stop at the brain. The whole school knew about Buzz faster’n she could pack a suitcase.

The police got in on it pretty quick, and me and my parents were on the news a couple of times, but after the craziness of the first couple of months everything died down. Mama and Daddy never forgot about Buzz, and I sure as hell didn’t forget about the damn bitch either, but Buzz pretty much disappeared for good.

Course, I saw her again, so I’m leading y’all off on a chase, but it wasn’t until I graduated and went off to the city so in keepin’ with the timeline of things lets say she was gone for good.

I hooked back up with Toxic and things went pretty good. He went to some college up north-east when he graduated, and I followed him a year later. Not to college, just up north. Damn weird place, the north east. Anyhow, that’s how it all started. Buzz got pregnant, I got angry, everything moved from Kentucky to New York. Be seein’ y’all later, then, to finish up the story.