All Grown Up

by Grubor, Sadie

  He let go of my arm and we walked down to the water where people were fishing.

  "So, Chloe, what do you plan on doing after high school?"

  "Well, I’m waiting to hear back from a few places about scholarships and admittance. You know, all that fun stuff." I smiled at him.

  Jay and I ended up talking for about an hour. I hadn’t realized it had been that long until Roni showed up to get me for the volleyball game. I groaned and reluctantly got up to follow her, Jay close behind.

  Back at camp, the next game was getting ready to start. Everyone split up into teams. Mina and I ended up on the same team, Roni on the opposing. I sucked at sports and knew it, but that didn’t stop me from trash talking the other team.

  The game was tied, we would score and almost immediately the other team would catch up. I avoided the ball at all costs, backing up all of my previous trash talk, letting someone else nearby cover my position. However, the last hit sent the ball directly at my head. I was about to duck when Mina jumped and landed into my side, sending us both tumbling to the ground and laughing hysterically. Jay appeared above us laughing. Reaching down, he helped Mina up and then me.

  "Sorry." He said leaning over to me. I gave him a curious look. "I couldn’t get there in time to catch you." He smiled and went back to his position.

  By our last day at camp, I couldn’t have been happier about getting out of the damn tent and sleeping in my own bed. I smelled like charcoaled ass and seriously wasn’t about to take another cold shower. I'd had enough of those for the rest of my life. Everyone packed up early in the morning and hung out for a few hours until we all started to disperse one group at a time.

  Arriving home, I ran straight to the shower.

  "Bitch!" Roni jokingly yelled after me as I slammed the bathroom door closed.

  "HA HA!" I yelled in victory.

  After showering away the weekend and feeling more like myself, I went down to the truck to get my stuff. I dumped my things out into the washing machine and started to wash the grime and fire smell out.

  I could hear the shower running when I got back to my bedroom. I sat down to my computers and fired them all up. The sound of all of them buzzing around me was like an instant high.

  "I missed you all. My babies!" I rubbed my fingers gently across the keyboard.

  "You are sick! S-i-c-k!" Mina said as she entered my room from the balcony. I laughed hilariously at getting busted talking to my damn computers.

  "Yeah, well….so what?" I stuck my tongue out and she laughed at me.

  Mina sprawled out on my bed and Roni came out of the bathroom in some comfy lounge clothes and sprawled across her bed. It only took a few minutes till I heard their even breathing and knew that they had fallen asleep. I chuckled silently at the both of them and went back to my computer.

  I pulled up my email account and started checking through my emails. While I was going through to delete the spam, I noticed a new address. I knew who it belonged to immediately. Leo. I hesitated, biting my lip for a few minutes and looked up to see if Mina and Roni were still sleeping. I opened the email that had been sent at two in the morning.

  Hey,

  How did camping go?

  Leo.

  It was strange. It was a very simple email but it was just strange. It took me about ten minutes to figure out what to reply back or whether I should reply at all. I sucked it up and hit the reply button.

  Hi.

  It was fun, glad it’s over.

  Chloe.

  I hit send and wanted to instantly bring it back. I am such an idiot. Why didn’t I just ignore it?

  "Arghh," I groaned out loud.

  "What’s your problem?" My head shot up and I saw Mina lying on her side with her head propped up on her hand looking at me with a raised brow.

  "Nothing." I mumbled.

  Other than the fact that I just replied to an email from your older brother.

  "I just messed up something and I don’t know how to correct it." I shook my head and closed out all my email stuff in case she decided to come over.

  "You better not have messed up my program." She scolded playfully and stretched. "I’m hungry! Let’s go down to the diner and get some food."

  "You get to wake up the grouch then." I pointed to Roni. Mina started throwing pillows over at Roni.

  "What the fuck!" Roni’s head shot up and saw Mina holding her sides laughing. "You will pay, Mina!" Quicker than Mina could comprehend, Roni was off her bed and tackling her. Mina broke out into loud laughter as Roni tickled her relentlessly.

  I turned off my computer and slipped on my shoes.

  "Last one to the car has to pay for lunch!" I yelled and bolted down the stairs with Roni and Mina close behind. Laughing so loud brought Judith out of the kitchen to see what the commotion was.

  "Girls! Settle down!" Judith yelled, as we made our way to through the door.

  "Sorry, Judith!" I yelled and touched the truck first.

  Chapter Twelve

  Boohoo, BOO!

  Chloe

  Waking early, wrapped up with Roni and Mina, having shared a large oversized blanket in the tree house, I sat up and looked around. The remnants of our ‘Good Luck at College’ party from last night was scattered around - bags of chips, bowls of melted ice cream, bottles of water and soda, cookie bags and a large pizza box. The thought of all the food we ate last night made my stomach turn.

  I lay back down next to Roni and wrapped my arms around her.

  I was going to miss her so freaking much.

  Roni started to shift and move, I could tell she was waking up. She rolled over and smiled at me.

  "I’m gonna really miss you," tears formed in my eyes.

  "Me too, Gates," She hugged me tightly. "It will only be a year before you guys join me and I will be visiting as much as possible." She smiled and kissed my cheek.

  "How come no one woke me up for the lesbian make-out session?" Mina groaned out as she stretched. "I’m offended! Am I not hot enough for you two?" We laughed and Mina wiggled herself into our hug, all of us pressing our head forward together.

  A few hours later, we had said our goodbyes and watched Roni’s plane take off. Teary eyed and feeling slightly numb from our trio being separated, Mina and I headed to get some lunch.

  Before Mina and I could miss Roni too much, senior year of high school was upon us. Mina dragged me out, kicking and screaming, to shop for school clothes. I didn’t think I needed any more clothes but Mina disagreed. Shopping felt so weird without Roni.

  I finished Mina’s program for her computer and had her all set up with her new state of the art designer program, specifically designed for her. It only took me a damn year to get it done. She was thrilled and used it to create some portfolios that she wanted to put together.

  School had begun in the normal fashion, settling into the routine of the school day, figuring out what each teacher expected from you and so on. Luckily, I had been in AP classes for most of high school, so I only had four major classes to worry about. I had an advanced computer course, but the teacher and I knew I could probably assist with teaching the class, which is what ended up happening. He used me to assist other students during class, set me up as a tutor and set me up with a part time job with a local company that needed some IT assistance.

  Mina was in full Halloween party planning mode. She had finished the invitations and had gone over everything with her parents. Distribution of the invitations was going to be done by a guy in a grim reaper costume passing them out. I tried to tell her that it was slightly creepy but she just called it festive.

  The week before the party, Mina had received the costumes that she had decided on for us. Us meaning Roni, her and I. She had stuck with the Alice in Wonderland theme, however, I was not prepared for the skimpiness of the outfits. When I thought Alice in Wonderland, I totally went to the Disney cartoon, not Mina. She found the sexiest versions that she knew our parents would let us get away with and bought those.
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  All costume’s had fluffy skirts that barely passed the middle of our thighs. Mina’s was light blue with a white apron, sleeves with ruffles around the hem of the costume. Roni’s was black and red with a white apron-like front that had red hearts on it, puffy sleeves, and a crown. My costume, the Mad Hatter, was shiny green and gold, with a small bolero like cape that was gold, green hat (like the Mad Hatter), and black corset looking middle. Mina made sure that she and I had knee socks and black shoes. Roni had bare legs and red heels to match. I tried to fight her but no such luck. Roni wasn’t any help either when she fell in love with the costumes.

  I was sitting in the computer lab during my free period when I got a text from Mina asking me to skip my last period and meet her at the truck. When the bell rang I bolted to the parking lot while the campus was filled with students shuffling around to their next classes.

  I found Mina leaning against the truck.

  "Okay, what’s up?"

  "I’m what’s up, baby!" Roni jumped from behind my truck.

  Squealing like a five year old, I ran and threw my arms around her. Mina bounced up and down.

  "Okay let’s get the hell out of here before someone spots us." Mina said quickly before shutting the passenger door of my truck. Roni climbed into her car, I got into the truck and we all headed back to my house.

  Once we were all in my room, Mina called a meeting about the party tomorrow. As usual, Mina had a plan and was ready to hand out assignments on decorations, food, costumes and anything else you could imagine.

  "Okay, I have all the decorations waiting in boxes in the dining room at my house. So, I think we should start decorating tonight." She smiled looking between Roni and I who were lounging on my bed while Mina sat across from us on Roni’s bed. "Mom is going to start making some of the food for the party so that it’s ready. You know, stuff that can be done beforehand."

  "Shouldn’t we help her?" I asked.

  "Sure, as long as we have the decorating done first." Mina’s voice was firm. I saluted her and she stuck her tongue out.

  "Now, if you are done being a smartass," Mina glanced at me, "we need to think about what party games we are going to go with."

  "Games? What are we Mina, five?" Roni groaned.

  "I wanna play pin-the-arm on the zombie! Can we? Can we?" Raising my arm in the air, I waved frantically.

  Mina scowled.

  "I was thinking more like a costume contest/awards, maybe apple bobbing, and….."

  "Seriously, Mina, this time I am going to have to just say NO." Roni gave her a stern look. "Are we all going to go trick-or-treating, too?" Roni looked at her exacerbated.

  "Okay, fine. We’ll just go with music." She crossed her arms and huffed. "But, I will get Halloween music in there somehow." Roni groaned and I laughed.

  We headed over to Mina’s about an hour later and started decorating. Mina had gotten so many decorations on top of the ones that Elaine already had. They really loved Halloween, it was almost disturbing. We hung fake dungeon scenes on every wall in the dining room and living room. There were spider webs stretched across all windows, over every archway and even around furniture. Mina made sure to put in black lights and strobe lights. She even got a mist machine. A life size coffin was in one corner that electronically opened if you walked passed it and electronic spiders that would drop down from the ceiling and crawl back up their wires. It really looked cool. Hell, they could probably open up their own haunted house.

  I was the first to bail on decorating and went to help Elaine. She was making cookies in the shapes of bats, pumpkins, ghosts and other ghoulish shapes.

  "So, what has my dear daughter planned for your costumes?" Elaine asked as I was putting icing on some of the cookies.

  "I’m surprised you couldn’t guess…or that she didn’t already show you." I smirked.

  She looked up to me smiling.

  "Alice in Wonderland," I sighed. "Of course, Mina is Alice."

  Elaine chuckled.

  "Roni is the Queen of Hearts and I'm the Mad Hatter."

  "Well those sound interesting." She smiled. "Leave it to Mina." She shook her head.

  "So, what about you and Robert? You guys are coming right? At least for a little bit?"

  "Mina decided that we should have matching costumes, though she was kind enough to let us pick for ourselves." She laughed. "We haven’t decided just yet. I need to go out tonight and pick something up."

  "You better hurry or suffer the wrath of Mina Mackey" Wiggling my fingers in the air, I widened my eyes and made an O with my lips.

  "What about me?" Mina asked as she and Roni entered the kitchen

  "Nothing." I said innocently.

  "Uh-huh…" She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

  After we were done decorating and helping Elaine, we headed up to Mina’s room. Mina was playing with her fashion program and I was helping her through some of the features and options that she had with the program. Roni was in the shower. All of a sudden we heard loud voices downstairs.

  Mina jumped up and headed to her door, I was hot on her heels. We both stood in her doorway listening.

  "BOO!" Mina and I jumped and screamed.

  "Damn it, Roni, you scared me to death." Mina yelled. I laughed.

  "What the hell are you two doing?" She asked looking at us like we had lost our minds.

  "There were loud voices downstairs and you interrupted my eavesdropping, damn it!" Mina scolded. Roni laughed. "Now I’ll just have to go down and find…."

  "Mina!" Elaine called.

  "Coming…" Mina yelled as she headed downstairs.

  Roni and I were lying across Mina’s bed talking when Mina burst in, closing the door behind her. We turned around quickly to look at her. She had her back pressed against the door, a huge smile plastered on her face.

  "What is it?" I asked her, starting to smile myself, hers’ was so infectious.

  "Oliver," she whispered.

  "Oliver?" I furrowed my brows.

  "Oliver is here?" Roni asked.

  Mina nodded her head fervently.

  "Leo is home for the weekend and Oliver is with him." She walked over and threw herself down between Roni and me.

  "Uh oh," I shook my head. "Am I gonna have to fake another night with Oliver?" I giggled. Mina smacked me.

  "No, of course not, we are just friends. Because he is with someone."

  I raised one eyebrow.

  "Okay, okay, so maybe I would like more. But, I would never do that, so I just get to dream about it." She was still smiling.

  We didn’t see the guys until it was time for dinner. Elaine and Robert had gone out to dinner with my parents so Mina, Roni and I were rummaging through the kitchen for food. I was sitting on the counter top, Roni was leaning on the cabinets across from me and Mina’s ass was sticking out of the refrigerator.

  "All who say we get pizza say ‘I’" I raised my arm.

  "I." Roni said giggling and raising her arm.

  "I." said a boisterous voice that came from behind me. I turned and Max was standing with his hand up.

  Mina stood up and rolled her eyes.

  "Fine." She grabbed the phone and started ordering.

  I watched Max eye Roni from across the room while she pretended to ignore him.

  Damn she was good. I have to remember to give her props later.

  Then Leo came in with Oliver. Leo. Internally I felt the panic begin to take over. As I was going to hop off the counter he walked over and leaned back between my legs. I blushed ferociously and leaned back from him. It’s not that I didn’t want to be near him, I just felt weird.

  "So, Roni could you please pay attention to my friend over there before he leaves a pool of slobber on my mom’s kitchen floor?" Roni smirked and looked over at Max.

  "Screw you dude!" Max spit out. "Why don’t you worry about yourself and get the balls to turn around and tell Ch..." Leo cut him off by walking over to him and grabbing his head in a headlock.

 
"Don’t be that way, Max."

  Roni was standing next to Max. Once he pushed Leo off of him he wrapped an arm around Roni.

  "It’s about time you got your fine ass over here." Max said squeezing her. Roni giggled.

  I hopped off the counter the second Leo moved, standing next to Mina while she finished placing the order.

  "Jesus Christ! Could you guys have been any louder?" She slammed the phone down. "I could barely hear what the retarded guy on the other end of the phone was saying. Shit!"

  I covered my mouth to hide my hysterics at Mina’s rant. Leo, Max, Oliver and Roni all cracked up while Mina leered at all of them.

  After the pizza Mina, Roni and I decided to head up to Mina’s room to get some sleep before tomorrow’s party. Max did everything in his power to delay Roni from leaving. Before Mina got all the way upstairs she yelled back down.

  "You guys had better have costumes for tomorrow if you plan on being here for the party!"

  ~ ~ ~

  Party day had arrived and Mina was running around like a crazy woman trying to get everything perfect before the guests started arriving. Roni and I were moving things around three or four times before she would finally decide on where she wanted it. Leo, Max and Oliver had gotten conned into moving furniture around. Two hours before the party, Mina had started to calm down, declaring that it was time to get dressed for the party. I sighed as they dragged me up the steps.

  After we were all showered, it was time to start hair. Mina and Roni put my hair in curlers and then they took turns with each other’s. Mina had her short blonde hair smoothed down and flipped under with a large light blue headband around her head. Roni had her strawberry hair rolled up into spiral and loose curls, having Mina place the crown into her hair securely. Then it was time for the makeup.

  Roni worked on Mina’s makeup, and then Mina did Roni’s. Mina worked on my makeup while Roni was busing taking out the curlers and working my hair so that it hung out loosely from my hat. Once they were finished we moved on to costumes.

  Almost two hours later, we were all putting on our shoes and getting ready to head downstairs. Elaine appeared, not in costume, in Mina’s room with a camera.