Anyone who's ever lived a life that was even slightly off the path of perfection knows that a rumor is like an invasive poison ivy plant. It poisons anyone who touches it, and spreads until it covers up a whole swath of land, and takea extreme measures to remove. By the time that happena, it would be too late, and several people would have, by then, contracted a rash of such unspeakable anguish that they would have been forced to hide their faces in shame. Unlike the poison ivy plant, however, a rumor's leaves are still green well after the first frost, when a poison ivy plant loses its foliage...but not its poisonous nature. There it lies, undetected, to wait for the wind to blow its poison onto another, as words wait for a voice to spread their malice afar. To one who does not know plants, it would seem harmless. To one who does not know words, they would seem the same.

It would only serve that after Steven had dropped Megan off at her house, and had run home as quickly as possible, hoping the wind to peel the scent of liquor off his clothes, that rumors would seemingly be the last thing that could hurt him. He had just saved a girl's virginity....His blood was thick with adrenaline, the feeling of it coursing through his veins a constant reminder of what had just happened. It took all the strength in the world to make it look like he'd just been raking leaves the minute his mother opened that front door. It took him all the strength in the world to close his eyes later that night as his head hit the pillow, shutting out the world.

The rumor was swift in its ascension. Megan, the new girl, had shown up at home wearing nothing but a blanket and her undergarments. Steven, the quiet loner, had allegedly ruined a party, leaving in his wake the star football player of the town's team, Jackson, with a bad looking bruise on his face. Small talk became constricted and warped in the art of storytelling, and before long, a wonderous yarn had been spun to explain what had happened that evening, while everyone else was innocently trick-or-treating or bobbing for apples. Jackson had tried to protect Megan from Steven's sudden wrath, only to be thrown aside as Steven took his anger out on Megan...

Of course, no one told Steven this. His walk down the hall to his locker was ridden with incidences of people staring at him and quickly looking away. He didn't notice this, however. What he noticed was Megan standing by his locker, in one of her signature neon sweaters, a smile on her face. After what had happened the night before, he would've expected the world to end, but there she was, smiling as if nothing had happened. Eternally grateful, looking nothing like she had been when she had run into him on the sidewalk, she went over to Steven. Then, to the shock of everyone in the the hallway, she hugged him, putting her arms over his shoulders in a friendly embrace.

It was one rumor that didn't last long.

Megan, Charley, and Steven spent the next few weeks as inseparable friends. The weather grew colder, but their hearts grew warmer. The world seemed to abound with opportunity, the sky seemed to be a bit closer, close enough that if you strained just enough you could touch the clouds, feeling their vapor on your skin. They no longer attended the school's football games, as everyone in town always did, but instead sat on a ledge near Steven's house, their feet dangling off the crippled stone wall, talking to eachother and laughing at eachother's jokes. They would have known the game's result anyway, a blowout by the visiting team, caused by the numerous mistakes of the home team's suddenly inconsistent starting quarterback.

It was one night, three weeks after he had saved Megan from the clutches of the town's hero, that she brought it up. Charley was at home, sick with the flu, leaving the two of them alone for the first time in a long time. He knew it was on her mind, that she was wondering why he hadn't asked. He knew that if he was patient, she'd explain everything to him. It wasn't a hard thing to do, he no longer cared to know why Megan was somehow different than everybody else, different enough to make her a target for an egotistical jock's criminal sexual desires.

But he knew in the way that she put her hands in her lap, in the way that she brushed that silky brown hair out of her face, in the way the setting sun emphasized her silhouette, that she was going to tell him anyway. It obviously burdened her, and she was about to lift that burden by entrusting him. His heartbeat quickened, but only for an instant. Her voice was calm.

"I never did say thanks."

"You didn't have to." Steven answered, "If you want to thank anyone, you should be thanking Charley, he's the one who told me what was going on."

She turned to him, her expression unreadable.

"Did he?" She said, knowing he knew exactly what she meant.

"Well... he told me Jackson was stalking you, and we heard some guys say he forced you to go to his party, so I just...knew what I had to do. He didn't actually have time to tell me the why, we were preoccupied with the what."

"Charley's a good guy." Megan said, looking forlornly at the pinkish sunset.

"Yeah, he is."

A silence existed between them for a few moments, long enough for Steven to realize his hand had rested upon hers. He took it away, his hand already missing her warmth. It was so odd, that the world seemed so pristine and unmoving at the moment, when there was always a sudden flash of action waiting around the corner. It was like music, endlessly weaving a tune that happened to change every time you played the song. Was it wrong the he wanted to hear it with her?

"Jackson found out about me, when I first got here. You see...My dad died in Iraq four years ago."

Her revelation was sudden, but not what Steven had expected. Juvie? Yes. A baby given up for adoption? Maybe. But a dead father? How could that mean anything?

"When he died..." She began, "He had a will. In it, he left each of the people in his family something. But he left me something different."

"Like what?" Steven asked.

"Three million dollars."

At first, Steven laughed. Growing up in a poor town, he'd often heard the old "if I had a million dollars" routine from the kids in his neighborhood. But as she glared at him, the look on her face anything but joking, he knew she was telling the truth. His jaw dropped, his mind void of response.

"At first my mom thought it was a joke too. She kept yelling at her lawyer, saying it couldn't possibly be my dad's will, that he didn't even own three million dollars, because she was "in charge" of all of his assets. But the the money was there, in a bank account my mom had never seen and that my dad had never mentioned. My dad was simple...he'd gotten the money from his gambling days, he was just really lucky I guess. The minute he'd won the money, he'd stashed it away and vowed never to gamble again. That's what my dad's friend told us at his funeral. He didn't want to use it on himself, but when I was born, he knew he wanted me to have a head-start on life, instead of having to go to the army for college like he did. I grew up comfortable, but not rich."

By now, Steven was beginning to understand. Where they lived, the people often jokingly complained about money problems, but deep down there was an inner hatred for the rich. Walk into a laundromat and you would always hear a man or woman grumbling about how the rich took everything for themselves, how they didn't care about the common people, how they grew fat while others starved to death around them. That hatred was passed onto their children, like all hatred was, like some sort of hereditary disease. If word had gotten out that Megan was a millionaire, she would instantly become the most hated person in town. He could see Jackson, learning of this, licking his lips with excitement, knowing how easy it would be to manipulate her.

"I don't understand, wouldn't your mom be in control of the money anyway?" Steven asked, as his knowledge of legal terms and rules was slim.

Megan slouched, her hair obscuring her face.

"In the will, it said the money would go to me on my eighteenth birthday. It's in a bank account in my name." She said, tears beginning to run down her cheeks, "I don't even want it anymore. My mom hates me, she hates that she lost her job, she hates that she had to move here because it was the only place we could afford to live."

Steven put her arm around her. Money was something people sought after their entire lives. It gave them purpose, it gave them greed. And here was Megan, the very thing that people sought so restlessly for holding her in chains. Her father's gift to her an unrealized curse, ruining her childhood.

"Couldn't she just...fight for the money in court though?"

She sniffled.

"My dad's family wouldn't let her. She knew she couldn't take the money away from me or it would ruin her image, so she pretended to go along with it. They hate her, and the way she treated my dad behind his back. But he loved her so much, he didn't care."

And at that moment, it made sense to Steven. He loved her so much, that he didn't care.

She turned to him, and they kissed.