While eating our food, Sophia babbled on about the newest episode of Grey's Anatomy that aired last night.

"I just can't believe he did that. I mean, why would he leave? I was rooting for him, but I'm disappointed."

"Those writers have no idea what they're doing anymore. I could've written a better ending for him, and I'm a shitty writer." I nodded my head while she talked so it seemed like I was still listening.

In truth, I had spaced out a long time ago. I don't even know which character she is talking about. There's too many, and they keep leaving and coming back. It confuses my mind too much.

I let her ramble for a couple more minutes before cutting her off. I really couldn't listen to this anymore. I felt like my ears were going to fall off.

"Alright, I can't take this anymore. Sophia, you need to shut up before you talk my ears off." She smile sheepishly at me and finally went quiet. I continued to eat my deliciously greasy fries, not worrying about getting a heart attack or clogged arteries.

I don't care what anyone says, Burger King is better than McDonalds. Well, except for their fries. Nobody can beat McDonald's fries. They are award worthy.

My food soon disappeared from my tray, so I got up and threw all my trash away, dusting off a few stray crumbs that fell on my legs. Sophia finished shortly after me, following suit and throwing away her trash.

Once we cleaned up our area, we gathered our bags and left the mall. I guess Sophia was going to find stuff for her costume another time.

On our way home, we jammed out to the entire Lemonade Mouth soundtrack. Don't ask me why, but it was some of our favorite songs. Lemonade Mouth is one of the best Disney channel original movies, and if anyone else says otherwise, well, they can fight me.

I was too busy jamming out to notice that I got a missed call from Parker. I wonder what he wanted. Oh well, I'll just call him when I get back.

"So," Sophia asked, turning down the music a little when we got off the highway, "when are you and Scottie going to go on your first official date?"

"Doesn't this party count?" I wondered. I know he asked me out to the carnival, but that was kind of a flop and we didn't get to hang out much together by ourselves. I was hoping this party would be a chance for us to hang out by ourselves, considering we are dating now.

"Oh honey," my best friend sighed. "You know nothing about dating. It's okay, I can't blame you. This is your first boyfriend after all."

"Alright, since you're such an expert, why don't you tell me what counts as a first date then?"

"Well first off, it can't be at a high school party. That, by definition, cancels out the word 'date'. It has to be somewhere quiet, just you guys, and dim lighting so you can look all cool and mysterious to the other person."

I wasn't too sure about the lighting part, but I trusted her about the rest. "What does this count as then?" If this wasn't a date, then what was it?

"Just two people who happen to be boyfriend and girlfriend hanging out with some of their friends. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Well, damn, this sucks," I muttered to myself.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you guys will finally get the chance to go on your first date soon." Sophia reassured me.

2 minutes later we arrived at my house. I carried the bags inside with a frown on my face. "What's with the face?"

"Shit!" I exclaimed. My brother popped his head over the side of the couch, pausing whatever movie he was watching. "What are you doing home? I thought you went back to college already."

My brother had left a couple days ago, but apparently he was back already.

"Yeah, about that," he said sheepishly, sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck. I rolled my eyes as I set my bag down, took off my shoes, and walked over to him.

"What did you do this time?" I asked. Last time it was getting a girl pregnant, who knows what it could be this time. Although, neither one of them were ready to be parents, so they made the decision to get an abortion.

"Nothing bad, I swear."

"Then why are you acting as if you've seen a ghost?"

"I may have dropped out of college," he mumbled, not meeting my eyes. "You what?!" I shouted, jumping up from my seat. "Mom and dad are going to be so pissed at you. Why would you do that? They wasted all that money only for you to drop out? Why?"

"Because, I don't feel the need to go. It's not something I'm passionate about, I'm failing all my classes anyways, so I figured that it would do more good than harm for my well-being if I just dropped out," he explained.

"Was it really that bad?" He never showed any signs of struggling before. He's always loved school as far as I knew.

"Yes and no. I loved the people I met and the experience, but classes themselves, I hated. They were way too hard for me, I was always behind on a million assignments, and it felt like I would be trapped in this revolving door of never-ending assignments. The only way to put a stop to that was dropping out, I didn't know what else to do."

He looked really upset right now, it was heartbreaking. I could see the pained look on his face when he was telling me about how much he was struggling. No one should have to go through that just for the sake of a diploma.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, wrapping my arms around him. He hugged be back, sighing deeply. "Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked awkwardly. I wasn't really sure what to say right now, but I feel like repeating "I'm sorry" over and over again would not make him feel any better.

"Just don't tell mom and dad until I do. It'll be easier for me to explain why I did it then it would for you. Plus, I don't want them freaking out over me dropping out until I have a solid plan in place," he sighed.

I pinky promised him that I wouldn't tell anyone until he was ready.

"But, and I don't mean this in a rude way, do you have a plan for right now? You can't just come home suddenly. I doubt mom and dad would buy that."

He thought for a moment before responding to me. "I'm not really sure. I did get a job at a local cafe a few weeks ago, and I've managed to save up enough money for a month's deposit on a small apartment on the other side of town. Once I move in there, I'll keep working and saving up my money until I figure out what I want to do. Right now, I'm still searching for modelling gigs," he explained.

Wow. He must've been planning on dropping out for a while if he had already been saving up for a new place and had a new job.

"What even made you want to become a model anyways?" I asked.

"I don't know, it just kind of came to me. One of my friends who is studying to become a fashion designer needed a model for his new clothing line, and I needed money so I volunteered. Turns out, I'm actually pretty good at it. When he posted the photos on his social media, they got crazy popular, crazy fast. People started coming up to me at school asking me for an autograph or for my number. It was surreal, and I liked it."

"Honestly, I never would've pictured you as a model. But, I have to say, I do think it suits you. You have that tall, lanky, blue-eyed model thing going on, unlike me," I joked.

"Thanks, I wasn't sure how you would react to the news. It's relieving to know someone supports my decision."

"Anytime," I said, standing up so I could go upstairs. I wanted to try on the clothes I got to make sure it fit. I was leaving my brother alone for now, because I trust him to not make any stupid decisions. If he believed it was something he could do, then I trusted him.

Pulling out the clothes from the shopping bags, I was careful not to rip the tags off while I tried them on. If they didn't end up fitting, I wanted to make sure I could return them for a different size. Luckily, though, everything fit me.

I looked like one of those really cool pirates you always see in movies. All I needed was an eye patch, but that was not my taste.

Once I knew for sure all the clothes fit, I ripped the tags off, throwing them in the trash. I then carefully folded them up and put them in my closet, ready for the party.

---

When the day of the party arrived, I was super excited. I had never been to a Halloween party before, I had always just stayed home and watched scary movies with my brother while we gorged on candy and junk food.

The school was also buzzing with excitement about the party tonight. Apparently, word spread pretty fast about it and from what I hear, almost everyone is going. I don't know how they're expecting to fit 2,000 people in one house, but who cares.

I was never super popular at school, but I wasn't unknown either. People in my social circles knew me or knew of me, and same with some other people.

Occasionally, people would walk up to me and say hi, but I was no where near as popular as Apple or Parker. Speaking of them, ever since I started to date Scottie, people have been paying more attention to me, but I don't mind.

I'm confident enough in myself to not second guess my actions just because people stare now. Anyways, I just got completely off topic. I was supposed to be getting ready for the party tonight. I had gotten home 20 minutes ago and had gotten distracted by something.

Sophia insisted that we get ready early that way we can go to her "secret location" (that she won't tell me where) and take photos of our costumes. I didn't resist, because it would make for a nice keep sake when I'm older.

As quickly as I could, I scrubbed my body clean, my skin turning pink from how fast I was scrubbing. I then shaved my legs and anywhere else that needed it before washing my hair and hopping out, still dripping wet.

While I was waiting for my hair to dry, I did my makeup and put on my costume. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn't one of those girls who didn't know how to do their makeup. In fact, I was actually pretty good at it, but I was too lazy to do it most of the time.

After everything was done and my hair was mostly dry, I heated up my curling iron and began on my hair. When I finished the last strand, my doorbell rang and I rushed downstairs, almost falling down the stairs.

"There you are! What took you so long?" Sophia exclaimed, stomping an impatient foot.

"Sorry, my makeup took longer than expected," I rushed. We were already running behind schedule, so I grabbed my phone, keys, pepper spray, and shoved them in my purse, running out the door behind my best friend.

We arrived at her secret place and jumped out of her car, grabbing the camera as I got out.

Her "secret place" was actually just an abandoned playground. It was, however, the perfect place for taking Halloween photos. The whole place was very spooky, with cobwebs everywhere, parts of the monkey bars rusting, and something that looked similar to pirate ship sat in the sand box. Which was, by the way, littered with weeds and trash.

"Remind me again why I let you pick the area?" I coughed, removing some of the trash from the sandbox. "Because, this place is really spooky at sunset, and it makes for really cool photos," she sad in a 'duh' tone.

"Well, let's not take too long, I don't want to be late to the party," I replied. Sophia set up the camera on a tripod and positioned it near the rusting monkey bars. "Okay, now go stand in front of those and act like you just conquered another pirate ship and are celebrating by killing their captain."

"What?" I mumbled, but I still did as she told me.

---

Surprisingly the photo shoot didn't take as long as I thought it would. We were done by seven, shortly after the sun set. We took some serious photos, some solo ones, some goofy, and some photos of both of us together to commemorate today.

Once we had packed up all the equipment and loaded it back in her car, we headed towards the party which was supposed to start in half an hour, and it would take us at least an hour to get there from where we were.

This park was in the next city over, so we had to drive back and then to the opposite side of town, the rich side. I didn't mind though, it gave me time to collect my thoughts.

I must've been thinking too hard, because next thing I know I'm dozing off and waking up to Sophia shaking me violently.

"We're here!" she shouted in my ear. "OW!" I said. "Watch where you're yelling next time," I scolded as I rubbed my ear in an attempt to make the ringing go away.

"Sorry," she giggled, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the car.

It was pretty packed already, I could see some people hanging out on the front lawn, red solo cups in hand. Seriously, what is it with every American teenage party having red solo cups? You think they'd get more creative for a major holiday at least.

Once inside, I realized why this place looked so packed already. Despite the houses enormous size, everyone was crowded around in 3 rooms: the living room which was cleared for a dance floor, the dining room where a group of guys were playing a drinking game, and the kitchen where all the alcohol was.

I rolled my eyes, typical teenagers.

"Come on, let's head upstairs. That's where all our friends are." I followed behind Sophia, trying to stay as close as possible so I wouldn't get lost. Hopefully Scottie was up here because I really wanted to see him. I barely got to see him at school today because he was busy studying for an AP English test.

I could hear their laughter as soon as we reached the top of the stairs. It was drifting down the hallway from an open door at the end. "How did you know they were up here?" I asked Sophia. We arrived together, so there's no way she would've known they were up here. "Stephen texted me that they were all up here," she shrugged as we finally reached the door.

I heard them talking about the party.

"Come on, this party is so boring!" I heard Parker complain. "It is not!" Arabella refuted like a 3-year-old.

Parker snorted. "Please, this party is lamer than Andrew playing soccer, and that's saying something."

"HEY!" Andrew exclaimed. Next thing I knew, there was a couple whacks and someone cried out in pain. Okay, I think it's time to intervene.

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