Stoneybrook Ayr

That's it, they've GRADUATED!

The students sat in their seats, playing with their navy and white caps and gowns. Some turned to wave to friends and family, some whispered with classmates sitting near them, and some slouched in their chairs, ready for the ceremony to start.

It had taken four years, some felt like the time had passed in no time at all, others felt it had dragged out forever. All the winter lodge trips, boy toy auctions, homecomings, proms, dances, parties. The trips to Disney World, California, Australia. The hook ups, the break ups, the scandals. This class had been through a lot together, and this was it. The end. Graduation.

The ties were tied, shoes were shining, dresses were flowing and the coursages left the lingering scent of freshness in the air. It was Senior Prom, four years in the making, and the excitement was palpable.

And the Senior Prom Court has been expanded to seven girls and seven guys this year, as the nominations were very close.

Heather Epstein
Darcy Redmond
Stacey McGill
Sabrina Bouvier
Cori Baker
Sheila MacGreggor
Cokie Mason

Austin Bentley
Logan Bruno
Clarence King
Marty Bukowski
Robert Brewster
RJ Blaser
Cary Retlin

((votes to Kylie by Sunday night!))

Sheila had a plan, and it looked like it might pay off. She'd decided to have a party. She and Marty had been broked up for a couple of months now, and Prom wasn't far away. Court would be announced any day, and Sheila wanted Marty to take her. But she knew she couldn't ask him. That was too simple. So she'd thrown this party, and gotten Robert to agree to bring Marty. In return, she had promised that Kara would be there. The tricky part was that Sheila knew Kara wouldn't just come if she'd asked her. So Sheila had to approach Amelia, the girl Marty had cheated on her with, to bring Kara along to the party with her. It wasn't the easiest thing she'd ever done, but hopefully it would be well worth it, she thought, looking around at the tons of kids already in her living room.

To: jefferson_wood
From: sayheylopez
Subject: Hi

Prom?

Kara's dad was back in town. She'd found that out rather abruptly and unpleasantly when she'd entered the apartment after school to find him sitting on the couch, watching TV and drinking a beer. He'd smiled at her and asked how her day was — like he hadn't been gone for months. In return, she'd thrown her bookbag on the floor and stormed back out without saying a word. She hated when he did that; showed up without any warning like nothing had happened. Why hadn't her mother given her a head's up? Kara was going to give them both an earful when she got back.

Needing to cool down and get her mind off of things, Kara headed to King Kone's and ordered her usual "people suck" special — two scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in a waffle cone. Sitting down at one of the small two-person booths once she had her cone, she took out her phone. Her thumb ran over the buttons on the keypad a few times as she debated whether or not she should text Amelia and ask her to join her. She decided against it, though, not wanting to ruin her friend's day as well.

The jingling of the bell above the door as someone entered caused her to look up — and then slowly sink down in the booth. It was Robert. Although she'd given up trying to get him to leave her alone, she didn't actively seek him out, either. If he saw her, he'd probably join her, and then they'd get to talking and Prom was bound to come up. It was all most people could talk about. Kara didn't want to think about it right now, though. Maybe she could slip out unnoticed once he was up at the counter. Or... not. He'd just spotted her, so there went that plan. Naturally. She gave him a half-hearted wave.

To: wallingford
From: dave_m_griffin
Subject: (none)

Hey Dori,

Was wondering if you already had a date for prom and if not, would you like to go with me?

From,
Dave

TO: jasonisafox
FROM: luckypenny
SUBJECT: ( PROM! )

"Prom!" Amelia read happily, locking her phone and looking up at Kara happily. She knew Kara would think she was crazy for being happy about Prom, and Brock and Ty probably would too.

"It's so close. Just another sign that we are almost out of here!" she said, shaking her whole body happily.

Heather glared at Cary as she walked past him to put the pizza boxes down on the table in their corner of the bowling alley. Instead of pre-ordering them over the internet and having his mom bring them over like a normal person would, Cary handed her a fifty dollar bill and told her to use her own judgment when it came to toppings. Then he insisted that she leave her backpack behind. She ended up waiting for almost an hour without nothing to distract her. Only the thought of humiliating Cary on the lanes kept her from going insane.

She grabbed her backpack as she glanced around at the people should would be spending a couple of hours with. This was an interesting group of people involved. Only with Cary would it be even possible. If anyone had told Heather she would be bowling with Mary Anne Spier back in the day, she would have laughed in their face. Now the joke was on her younger self. "We have one medium veggie, one medium pepperoni, and one large meat lovers," she said as she as she handed everyone a plate for their pizza. "Let's chow down so we can crush Cary."

Cokie wanted to stab herself in the eye.  With a rusty fork.  Repeatedly. 

Being ten days overdue was akin to torture.  She was never comfortable, she still couldn't stand the baby's father, and she was sick of being as big as a cow.  But maybe the day had finally come.  After suffering through excruciating contractions a better part of the day, she telephoned her mother who was rushing home to take her to the doctor.  Taking a deep breath as another contraction subsided, she made one more phone call.

"Can you meet me at the hospital?" she whispered urgently into the phone.

Robert was falling behind badly with his English. He knew the reason was all the time he'd been hanging out with Kara, but he didn't want to give that up. He also couldn't, and wouldn't, give up on basketball, so that left lunch. Unfortunately the hot dog he'd scarfed down wasn't really cutting it, and he couldn't concerntrate. He was just moving his chair back to go and get something else to eat, when someone knocked into it, and fell forward almost on to his lap.

"Whoa!" he said, reaching an arm out.

Sunny had finally mustered up her courage to have a conversation with RJ -- Katie was right, she really had to stop acting like a preteen with a crush on him -- and she had decided to do so during lunch.

She slid into the chair across from him and beamed at him.

"Can I sit here?" Sunny asked, hoping the answer was yes.

Katie wanted to know what Sunny had done about RJ. She hadn't been at school for the week; nobody had wanted her to go, especially her mom. She was scared they might call social services on her, which Krysia had already done once. Luckily Katie's step dad was the perfect husband, and her siblings were too scared to be anything but Lovely and mom, well, mom was mom. She could convince anybody of her excellence if it was just for a few hours. Then the shakes began. Katie's mom had been pretty once; Katie took after her mostly, but now her hair was a bleached shade of blonde that wasn't kept neat, her body was nearly as emaciated as her daughter's and her eyes were frequently clouded over. Come to think of it, mom and daughter did have their similarities still.

Katie texted Sunny.

what are the happs with RJ?

Come one, come all and bid on your favourite male jock!

( I'm scared. Help me. )

Katie wasn't crushed. She was determined. Determined to forget all about the text messages, the night, Trisha, Woody, everything. And the best way she knew was to go to Georgie. She hadn't seen him in a while. The miscarriage, the entire phase of not wanting to have sex, it had somewhat prevented her from attaching herself to him. Instead she'd gone to others, returned favors and gotten access to Mr White and weed. She didn't do anything heavier, though she had before. She was too busy with school, Woody and her family. She didn't have to ask the boys for alcohol; it was so easy finding her mother's stash. It made her sad. She wished her mother didn't have to drink away her life.

Little Tornado, they called her. Bane of the trailer park. It was somewhat true. She brought with her a lot of pain. And nobody wanted to hear about it. So she swirled. All of the mixtures of substances made her cry, or laugh. It depended on the situation. Sometimes she just lingered. That was her favorite. Moments of nothingness.

She'd told Georgie that she'd had an abortion. It had been easier. She didn't want him to know the truth, about scraping their baby out of her womb because she didn't eat, did too many illegal substances, the list was endless. He was happy to see her. Happy in his own way. He welcomed her inside. It was a mess. Pizza cartons lay everywhere, beer bottles, homebrew, and the scent of marijuana. Spoons. Straws. The usual. It made her feel calm. She kissed him. He didn't exactly return the kiss but he didn't pull away either. Immediately he started touching her. She pushed him away.

"I want something first." She eyed little plastic bag on the table. Mr White. He looked at her.

"Would that make you happy, sweetheart?" His voice was the same. Not taunting. Almost loving. Like he'd missed her.

"Shut up and let me have some of that weed." He lent her his joint. She inhaled the smoke, held it in her lungs, then let it escape her body through her nose. She was somewhat of an expert.

She didn't know how it happened. All she could think was: Make it go faster. Baby go faster. Make it go twice the speed of you and me.

She woke up. Clothes were scattered all over the floor. Her naked body revealed bones and the tiniest hint of body fat. Her breasts refused to shrink no matter how hard she tried. They weren't big, but they weren't concave either. Georgie sat in the corner, puffing on a joint. He was trashed. She tried to feel what she'd done, but she couldn't. Her body was numb. She craved cocaine. That wasn't a drug of the trailer trash that she was; that was what all the rich and famous people did. She could hardly ever get her hands on it these days. She vaguely remembered snorting at school during Freshman year but that was a long time ago.

"Hey babe" Georgie said, looking at her with clouded eyes. She laughed. A completely dry laugh, no joy whatsoever. It held sadness in it.

"Hey" she said. And wondered if Woody was doing the same thing to Trisha that she'd done without actually remembering it. She knew though. There was no way for them to get back together. Even if he by some miracle hadn't been with Trisha yet, she'd cheated. She'd slipped. But at least Georgie didn't make any remarks about her black eye.

Katie was avoiding him. It was obvious. She had basically ran from his house that night he met her parents. And Trisha was to blame. Trisha hadn't been around either, which confused him even more. He supposed since his sister went back to school, Trisha found she didn't have an excuse to come around his house.

In a way, he was also avoiding Katie. Every time he saw her in the hallways, he would duck into a classroom or the restroom. He hadn't called. Or really made any point to contact her. He knew she was pissed. But, surely, she didn't think everything that occurred that night was his fault.

He knew he needed to at least contact her. She deserved an I'm sorry, if nothing else.

Woody fished his cell phone from his pocket. He was a coward. He quickly typed out a message and hit send before he could change his mind.

hey

Sunny had had to go to the A&P to get some random things -- the days that she had had to do the grocery shopping for her family had passed, but she still needed snacks -- and she had sort of been at least a little bit hoping to not run into Logan.

It wasn't like she didn't want to see him, it was more she didn't know how to deal with him. For all her trouble back in Palo, Sunny hadn't actually known anyone who had been pregnant or who had gotten a girl pregnant. It was just awkward.

Still, there he was, and she didn't want to be rude, so she smiled nervously at him. He was her friend after all.

"Hey," she said, softly. "How are you?"