by Zara Rivas
"My favorite," Avery said deviously, and we dashed off to the kitchen.
oOoOo
"The theme could not be more boring," Torrance said in a monotone, shoving a pamphlet at me. We stood in the hallway between classes, and everyone seemed to be buzzing at the senior prom news that was just released.
"Seriously," she continued, and I could feel the makings of a full-blown rant coming on. "'A Night to Remember'? Are they joking? Is this some sort of elaborate sarcastic prank in which they try to come up with the most boring prom theme ever, decorate the dance hall with the most standard decorations ever and play the dumbest top forty hits…ever?"
"It's all a conspiracy against you, Torrance," I teased. "They know you loooove overused crap."
"Hey guys, what's up?" Avery asked, joining the group. Adrian trailed behind her, and we formed a loose circle in the center of the hallway.
"Torrance was just telling me about her enthusiasm for the prom's theme," I said dryly, passing her the pamphlet. Avery glanced at it and snorted.
"Not exerting their creativity much, are they?" she said, tossing it carelessly back at me. I missed catching it and it drifted to the floor, and none of us made any sort of move to pick it up.
"Apparently not."
"Anyone want to protest this with me? Maybe come up with a new theme and toss it at the prom committee? I mean, come on, they have to be able to do better than this," Torrance railed, and I smiled.
"I'm all for it," Avery said.
"Same here," Adrian piped up. We looked at her in surprise and she flushed. "I, uh, do think it's a dumb theme."
"Yes!" Torrance pumped her fist in the air triumphantly. "So what do you say? My house? Tonight?"
They chorused their agreement but I said nothing. When Avery gave me a questioning look, I hedged for a second.
"Well, actually, guys," I said, resigned, "I can't go."
"What? Why not?" Torrance asked sharply.
"Family dinner."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that."
"You guys go on without me, I'm sure you'll come up with something fantastic," I smiled.
oOoOo
The prom pamphlets spread around the school like the Plague during a particularly bad rat infestation. I couldn't get rid of them, I couldn't get them off my mind or out of my stuff or even out of my line of vision. I brushed one irritably off my messenger bag when I went into the Art classroom, and Tyler guffawed at me. I flipped him off.
"Sloane, I'm going to need your preliminary proposal for the CAP by next Friday, is that alright?" Amy informed me as I walked to my seat.
"Sure," I nodded. "What form do you want it in?"
"Just a normal proposal, but since things like this can be difficult to describe, you can do sketchwork if you want to."
"Will do."
"And since Xavier is working on it with you, I would appreciate some of his input as well," she added with a smile.
"You got it, Ames," I said, breezing by her to my seat.
She quickly slid into full teaching mode, turning to the class and straightening up. For some reason whenever she did this, she commanded the attention of the entire classroom simultaneously. She was pretty much the only teacher I'd ever had that could do that with a look, and not even a harsh one. Charisma, I guessed.
"For the next two weeks, which is actually a good chunk of your semester believe it or not, we're going to be doing a study on family dynamics," Amy announced, and the usual chorus of small cheers and groans greeted this. I'm fairly certain my face darkened, considering my family was amazing except for a bad seed, and I didn't want to have to include that one in anything.
"What exactly this will entail is, up to a point, up to you," she continued, "but for now I want to focus on immediate family and the relationships you personally have with people. You can express this in any way of your choosing, but I particularly want it to be clear to the viewer, even if he or she knows nothing about you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them now or at any point over the next two weeks."
"Lucky you, huh?" Tyler murmured in my ear.
"Yeah," I sighed, "lucky me."
oOoOo
Xavier caught Sloane at her locker after school, in the empty hallway. She looked like her temper was on a short leash, and she huffed out an irritated sigh when she spun her locker dial and the handle didn't budge. Pushing a chunk of hair back from her face, she tried it again and gave a menacing smile when it actually worked. Xavier raised an eyebrow.
"Feeling particularly vindictive today about your locker?" he asked, coming up behind her.
"You could say that," she muttered darkly.
"I think we all have those days."
She didn't reply and he circled around her a little so he could see her face. Staring into her locker, Sloane seemed to be contemplating something.
"So," Xavier said, "you going to tell me about what happened last night?"
"No, I'm not," she said, being brutally honest. "Maybe you'll figure it out someday, but I'm not volunteering that particular piece of information so easily.
"Whatever you say, princess," Xavier said, reaching out and closing her locker.
"What'd you do that for? I wasn't finished getting my stuff!" she said irritably, and he gave her an infuriating smirk.
"I know," he said, and walked away.
Sometimes, he thought, when you're an ass to people, they get you back. Even if it's just the small things.
Her annoyed mutterings followed him down the hall.
oOoOo
"We're having dinner here at the house tonight," Finn said the second I walked through the door. "Father dearest finds it wouldn't be prudent to have dinner in a public place tonight. Perhaps he thinks we'll start a food fight and tarnish his precious reputation."
"He'd be the only target," I remarked, dumping my backpack on the foyer floor. I tossed my jacket lazily in the hallway, knowing it would irritate the hell out of Logan to see his fancy house messed up by such pointless messiness.
"And we're having an early dinner," Finn added, slinging an arm around my shoulders and steering me towards the stairs, "because Logan also feels like you're a flight risk."
"Flight risk, hmm?" I tsked. "You'd think this was prison or something. It certainly feels like it, come to think of that."
"Doesn't it though?" Finn said lightly, giving me a small push up the stairs. "Now go upstairs and put on something daddy dearest will hate. Dinner's in an hour and a half."
"Aye aye, cap'n!" I saluted, and sprang up the stairs, taking them two at a time. This would be fun.
I called Avery and Torrance over to be my help for the dinner, and even though they weren't staying for the actual thing, they were acting as effective wardrobe coaches at that moment. I thought they might not be able to come over due to Torrance's impromptu "let's take over for the prom committee" meeting, but they said it was no trouble and that they were going to do that later anyway.
"Which one do you think would piss him off more?" Torrance mused, holding up a pair of outrageously ripped jeans and a miniskirt. "Bondage miniskirt with lots of black buckles and red thread, or the jeans that are ripped practically from your ankles to the zipper?"
"Depends on what it's paired with," I commented, fishing through my corset shirts and concert t-shirts.
"You have to wear your ratty old black converse," Avery demanded, tossing the shoes on my bed.
"Hey, careful with those!" I protested. "Those are my favorite shoes, and they're so worn out if they land on something sharp, they're done for. I'm not even sure they'd hold up if I wore them as regular shoes anymore."
"You," Torrance said firmly, pointing at me. I gulped, slightly scared. "Into the bathroom. Now. You," she pointed at Avery, "go do her makeup. Think scary. Sca-ry. Terrifying. Heard of Freddy versus Jason? We want to make her dad run for the hills. Not even the hills—the fucking mountains!"
"Torrance, you're kind of frightening sometimes," I smirked, but h
eaded into the bathroom nonetheless. Avery followed, and immediately started digging out all of the black eyeliner and facial piercing rings I had stashed in various places.
"Lip ring? Put it in, honey," she smiled, handing me my dark purple one.
"Thank you much, lady," I sang at her, doing as she said.
"You know," I said, "you guys are making this a lot more fun than it would have been otherwise."
"I should hope so," she joked.
"I mean, normally this would just be me, in my room, moping around and not really finding anything to wear because I'd be so depressed at my life situation I wouldn't want to do anything."
"Yes, but that's you on any given bad day," Finn remarked, trouncing into my bathroom and plopping down on the counter next to me. "Going for the whole gothic look, are you?"
I shrugged. "Torrance is fishing around for something for me to wear, and the words 'scary' and 'running for the hills' were involved, so I'm assuming if this night goes badly I could end up on one of those CSI shows as a psycho chick."
"Excellent," Finn said mischievously, rubbing his hands together. "I think I'm going to match you just for fun tonight. Think we could get Nic to wear black lipstick at all?"
"Not on your life," I snorted. "He's not really the Manson type anyway."
"Yeah," Avery said, "he's more the good-guy type. Is his girlfriend coming over for dinner?"
"No, this is just family," Finn said.
"I don't think she's his girlfriend anyway," I said. "I think they're just dating for now, you know? Hey Torrance!" I yelled. "Can you do me a favor?"
She popped her head into the bathroom and listened for a second, then popped right out again a split second later.
"That's cool," Avery said brightly, and quickly approached my face with an eyeliner pencil.
"Careful with that thing!" I yelled, snatching it away from her. "You're going to put someone's eye out!"
She laughed hysterically and swiped it back from me, choking, "I'm—sorry! I just wanted to see the look on your face!"
"Not funny," I growled.
"I don't know, I thought it was kind of entertaining," Finn said, and I shot him a look.
"I have your outfit!" Torrance said victoriously, holding up some clothing and presenting it proudly.
Finn looked hilarious in that moment—his face was warring for a variety of expressions, ranging from surprise to disapproval to confusion.
"Sloane," he said, "why do you have clothes like this that I've never seen?"
"I don't even know where those came from," I said, just as puzzled myself.
Torrance held up a pair of skin-tight dark jeans, with probably thirty small buckles up the outside legs of the pants, knee-high black boots with buckles themselves and heels, a loose-fitting black off-the-shoulder shirt that said "If you have a problem, feel free to fuck off about it" in silver, and a few studded bracelets.
"Well, believe it, because they were in your closet. Now hurry up with the makeup and the jewelry so I can shove you in these!" Torrance practically glowed with outfit-pride.
"I think I can get dressed myself, Torrance," I said, swallowing. No way did I want her near me in one of her crazy states.
"Oh, have it your way then," she said, tossing the bundle of clothing at me.
I honestly didn't remember where the clothing came from. I was sure I'd bought them, it looked like something I would wear at one point or another, but my mind was a perfect blank as to the occasion.
I finished coating on the eyeliner and mascara, Avery handed me a few more earrings for the multiple piercings in my ears, and Finn suggested that I do a miniature blood drop coming out of my mouth.
"Like a vampire!" he joked. I shoved his shoulder and definitely decided I wasn't doing that. I was going for slightly deranged, not comical.
The clothing did fit like a charm, though, so Torrance had picked the perfect one. I pulled on the skinny jeans, admiring the buckles (why didn't I wear these jeans more often?) and pulled the boots on over them, adjusted the shirt, put black and silver bangles on my wrists, along with the bracelets Torrance found, and presented myself for inspection about ten minutes later.
"Took you long enough," Finn grumbled. Torrance elbowed him and he shied away.
"Thou shalt not rush a lady when she's getting dressed," she chided.
"Hear, hear," Avery said. "You look great! Positively…frightening." She added dramatic effect to the last word by shuddering. I grinned in appreciation of it.
"Hey, has anybody seen my—" Dominic asked distractedly, stopping short when he saw what I wore. "I'm sorry, am I in the right place? I thought we were going to dinner, not a punk rock concert."
"We are going to dinner," I said, chipper. "Or rather, staying here for dinner. I just felt like dressing up a bit."
"I love watching the theatrics when Logan's here," Finn said mistily.
"God you guys are weird sometimes," Avery said, laughing.
"We're Lexingtons, darling," I reminded her. "Weird is just genetic."
"You can say that again," Dominic said, still eying my clothing.
"On that note," Finn interrupted, "I'm going to go get dressed to match my dear sister."
"Want some lipstick, Finn?" I called after him. "If you're going to dress like me that makes you a transvestite, right?"
I heard a good-natured "fuck you!" come down the hallway at me and smiled widely.
"This family needs psychological help," I chimed.
"I would have to agree," Dominic said.
"Weren't you looking for something?" I asked innocently, and Torrance and Avery busied themselves with picking up the mess they'd made when they dug through my closet. I had such good friends.
"Yeah, I was wondering if you'd seen my phone," Nic said, looking around distractedly as though it would materialize out of my bedroom walls.
"Oh, this phone?" Avery said mischievously, holding up a shiny silver mobile.
"Yeah, that's—" he whirled on me. "Why does Avery have my phone?"
"Nic, why would you suspect me? Why, I'm not even the one with your phone!" I said dramatically, pressing a hand to my forehead and pretending to swoon. "You wound me, you really do."
"Cut the crap, Sloane."
"We were just using it to text someone," I said, faking naivete.
"Oh, well that's all ri—who were you texting?" he asked, the suspicion kicking back in, in about 2.5 seconds.
"Oh, no one I know well," I assured him.
"That," he said through gritted teeth, "is not comforting."
I knew he was just faking being mad and it fueled my smile. "Oh don't get your panties in a twist, I was just texting Emma."
"Emma?" he asked, startled. "Why?"
"Well we had this whole debate, you see, about how we didn't know if you guys were just dating or if you were boyfriend and girlfriend. So I filched your phone, got her number, texted her with mine—see? That way she doesn't even think it was you messing around with her and being a guy with no balls!"
"I'd totally think a guy had no dick if a message came from his phone asking me if we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I'd be all, 'suuuure, you just want to know the scoop but don't want to admit it's you'," Torrance supplied helpfully. Nic shot her a dark look and she shut up, while Avery giggled.
"What on earth would you want to do that for?" He sounded exasperated.
"Well! I don't know these things!" I said.
"Did she ever reply?" he asked, trying to keep his voice exasperated but failing.
"Yeah, she said for now you guys were dating but she really likes you," I said warmly. "I think I really want to meet this chick for more than mini golf."
"Oh God," he groaned, "hurricane Sloane wants to meet my possible future girlfriend…again. I don't know if she's ready to handle you at full force one-on-one yet."
"She puts up with you, doesn't she? Same genes, baby, same genes." I patted him on the head and smirked. "Anyways, she's coming over for dinner
on Sunday. So for one, we have an excuse to give Logan if he asks us if we're free, and two, it's soon enough that you won't be able to bail on short notice."
"You are so meddlesome, you know that?"
"I know that."
oOoOo
"I feel like we're going through a funeral procession, not going to dinner," Finn whispered to me as we descended the staircase together. Nic was right behind us, and the three of us seemed to be wearing predominantly black, so the funeral comment definitely didn't surprise me. The tone was pretty damn somber, too, and I couldn't wait for the night to be over so I could crawl in the bathtub and soak away the memories right after they happened.