Today is my first exam. I guess I knew, in theory, that I was in for this kind of thing when I agreed to let Dana send me to school. But, you know, it's never really real until it happens.

Kind of like syphilis.

I'm at least three years older than everyone else in this class, and I'm still obviously the most nervous about this test. Probably something to do with the fact that I have the reading skills of a twelve-year-old.

The teacher agreed to help me out with any questions I don't understand, but the answers are still up to me, and that's the part that freaks me out.

It's a times like this that I almost wish I was still on my own, you know, whoring for money and dying from starvation and syphilis.

Syphilis. Fuck. Who the hell even gets that anymore? Aside from me, and the trick that gave it to me, anyway. Couldn't get a normal disease like HIV or something, or at least hepatitis! You know, the ones that get whole posters of their own in the clinics. Syphilis is just a name on a list, like gonorrhea, you never hear about people actually getting it.

Whatever. I'm getting treated now, and Dana's throwing gai at me like crazy. Shit, man, I could make a fortune on the streets just with the contents of the medicine cabinet at home. But then Dana would get pissed and that's always a hassle.

Not that he seems to care much if I steal from him. No, he'd throw a fit because I didn't take my meds and my gai. He's such a freak. But not the bad kind so, whatever, I stick around.

(It's not that I don't love him or anything, just that old habits and ways of thinking are kinda hard to get rid of, right?)