Once again, Stacy is upset and nobody knows why. Our teachers can't figure it out, Nicole doesn't want to figure it out and everyone is coming to me for the latest gossip as if I've ever been in the loop before.

"Can we like, pig out tonight?"

These are the first words that come out of her mouth at lunch. Nicole and I have been fighting over the true ownership of my grapes for twenty minutes and the two of us pause to look at her.

"Tonight?" I ask, thinking about how free I am because Dante has practice for the game tonight and might be working. I was just gonna hang out with him at the theatre but if Stacy wants to do something, then hell, we might as well.

"Yeah, I heard the Spring Carnival is in town this weekend and next," she rubs at her eyes, smudging her eyeliner slightly. I have to shuffle over and fix it for her before we progress. "Are you two free?"

Nicole picks a grape off my plate with her long slender fingers. "I have plans with the beau but I'll cancel for you," She says, sounding like she really doesn't want to cancel.

"I was just gonna piss of Dante, but yeah, I'll go with you tonight,"

She frowns. "We don't have to go tonight if it's a big deal, Nic. Ken and I can pig out at my place and you and Max can do whatever couples do these days."

She says it as if she wasn't a staple part of a couple this time last month.

"Really? Great, let's carnival on Sunday," Nicole picks up her phone and starts tap tapping away in her calendar. "What time do you want to group up?"

Stacy's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "Sunday?"

"There's a game tomorrow and our boyfriends want us to be there,"

"He's not my boyfriend," I remind, somewhat bitterly. The two of them brush me off as if the reminder of my wonky relationship status means nothing to them. It probably does. "Anyway, I promised to be there and I don't know, my sister wants to come along too,"

"Your sister? McKinley?" The disgust on Stacy's face is understandable. For some odd reason, they both hate each other even though they've never ever sat down and spoken a (civil) word to one another. I don't get it but whatever.

"Yep, she's friends with Dante's sister and heard we were sort of a thing," I waft Nicole away from my grapes and send her a warning glare that she totally ignores. "She said she wants to see if he's worthy enough for me,"

Tyler comes jogging over from his table, holding a plate filled with cookies. "I come bearing peace offerings," He says before any of us can say anything.

Some girls a table down from ours start batting their eyelashes at him as he sits down across from me.

"What do you want?" Stacy takes a few cookies from the plate he's holding and stuffs them in her mouth. My guess is the pigging out has already begun.

"I'm here for Kennedy," He eyes her carefully and then gives me a whack ass smile that really creeps me out. "KFJ, will you grant lowly Tyler Barrett an audience?"

"I'll pass, thanks," I say, noticing that my grapes are all finished. Nicole takes one of the cookies from the plate and tears a chunk off it. She throws it at Stacy who catches it in her mouth and then releases a chuckle that directs all attention towards her.

"I just realised Kenny's initials are JFK backwards," She comments, showing a wide smile. "And if she marries Dante, her initials would be KFC."

Tyler and Stacy starts laughing, attracting attention to our normally chill table. All the baseball guys are staring at us. I catch eyes with Chad and he winks at me, making me feel all awkward inside.

"Okay, what did you want?" I ask him, figuring the only way I can get him to go away is by listening to him. He sighs and then looks back at the table where all his friends are sitting.

"Chad wants to know if you'd -"

"No," I pinch the bridge of my nose and look away. "Whatever Chad wants, tell him I have a boyfriend and we even post pictures on Instagram together for him to see,"

Tyler grins. "I saw that picture, you and Danny in the movie theatre! You had popcorn in your hair!"

I imitate him and he rolls his eyes. "Anyway, go tell Chad to leave me alone,"

"He wants help with geometry," He says, ignoring me. Just as I'm about to speak, he holds his hand up. "Chad saw the picture and since it was captioned Geometry Buddies with a heart next to it -

That heart made my night. All of us including Jackie and McKinley had an intense pow wow about what that heart could mean on the Saturday morning and came to the conclusion that we're basically in a relationship already.

"- And he thinks that you could save him from failing geometry and keep him on the team,"

"No," I repeat. Tyler pouts and then snatches up the plate of cookies from underneath Stacy's hand. Her bottom lip shakes and guilt colours his face before he gives them back to us and runs away.

Stacy and I hit the grocery store on our way home. She's in the mood for chicken but after the whole KFC fiasco I just want to eat salad and become a pescatarian.

"You know what? I love candy and other snacks," She says on the way to my house. We plan to have a sleepover of some sorts filled with food and hopefully the reason why she's so moody today will be revealed. My bet is on it being her period being late yet Nicole thinks her mom made out with Wayne.

I don't want to think about that.

"What's your favourite candy, Stace?" I ask, looking at the precious jolly ranchers in my carrier bag with glee. They're so lovely, all the watermelon and the grape flavoured lollipops a girl could wish for.

"Fuck outta here with that favourite candy bullshit, I love them all equally," She snaps at me with a dirty look on her face. Offended, I take a few steps away from her, making sure she notices so that she'll begin to feel bad.

She doesn't even seem fazed.

"I've been meaning to ask this ever since Instagram-gate but," Stacy picks up again after we get into her car. "How are things with you and Dante going?"

"Instagram gate?" I put my seatbelt on and raise my eyebrows. "Was it really scandalous?"

She gives me this exasperated expression. "Girl! All my middle school friends go to school with him and they all have major crushes on him! So when they saw you were in a picture with him with a motherfucking heart in the caption -"

The heart that made my life.

"- they all contacted me to see if I knew who you were! They're all so totally jealous of you," She giggles. "It's so odd seeing my old friends be bitter and my new friends moving on with life."

"Shit then," I say, rubbing my chin. "He must have a lot of girls after him,"

She shrugs as she backs out of the parking lot. "More or less. Apparently he had this really steady girlfriend for about a year and they had a messy breakup in the middle of junior year,"

"Really? He dated a girl for about a year?" Talk about committed. Most relationships in my school (with the exception of Stacy and Wayne's two year stint) last about seven months at the most. It's pretty bad but what can we do other than be faithful to our feelings?

"Mhm, they said they were the couple you wanted to be but simultaneously hated," She stops at a stop light and then glares at me. "You know, I've never met Dante,"

I lean back in my chair and release a long sigh. "You could always come along with McKinley and me tomorrow to see -"

"No chance!"

"Thought not," I chuckle as she speeds off, turning the corner into the street where my house is. "Do you wanna watch She's all that tonight?"

Stacy retches and then parks on the street corner slightly haphazardly. "That movie is so gross for no reason. Ten Things I Hate about You please, Heath Ledger is so hot in that movie. Even if his hair is long,"

"Long hair suited him," I say, sinking into my seat and deflecting her disgusted look. "Stop looking at me like that, it did!"

She tuts and then opens the car door. "Kennedy. The truth will set you free,"

"I speak the truth," I follow suit and get out her car, closing the door behind me. "Is that a foreign language to you or?"

Stacy imitates me before sticking out her tongue and demanding I unlock the door. "I don't want to watch a movie anyway, let's just eat and talk about communism,"

"Communism?"

"I have a history paper due Monday,"

"Ah. Communism."

It doesn't take long for all the candy we bought to disappear and it takes an even shorter amount of time for the conversation to shift from Lenin and Stalin to boys.

"Hey, do you know Brennan Rosedale?" Stacy asks after a long moment of silence. The name's familiar to me and it takes me a while to place.

"Yeah, he's the guy with the glasses in my algebra class," I say remembering that he sits right next to me. She beams. "What's up?"

She shrugs. "Oh... nothing." I stare her down. "Okay, okay, he's helping me with chemistry and he's kinda cute,"

I cover my mouth with my hand before speaking. "Brennan? He's into Star Trek and Lord of The Rings, you know?"

With a coy smile on her face, she twirls a strand of hair around her finger. "I could be the Bilbo to his Baggins and the Captain to his Kirk. It's all cool."

"You hate Star Trek," I deadpan.

"Star Wars is so much better, what's wrong with him?!" She snaps, scaring Jackie off his chair. He decided that it was in his best interest to come into my room and play with his cars on my desk when he saw that we had some Reese's pieces cups.

"Ouchie! Kenny, I have a booboo," He wails, the pouty face coming on in full force.

"You don't," Stacy dismisses and sticks one my lollipops in her mouth. I go to check on him anyway and find out that he indeed has carpet burn on his arm.

"Go put some cocoa butter on it," I pat his head and give him my last precious watermelon jolly rancher. With watery eyes, he nods and leaves my room, yelling for mom.

Stacy tuts at me. "You baby him too much,"

"I really don't." I lean back and rest my head against my bed, thinking about how little I baby Jackie. All I do is give him food and listen to him when he talks about cars and Sponge Bob. That's not babying. That's just being a great sibling!

"Whatever you say, Ken," She rolls over until she's on her stomach. "You know, it's nice having a girl's day. Even though we're missing Nicole, it's been a while since any of us had any girl - to - girl time outside our sleepovers, huh?"

Feeling slightly awkward, I scratch the back of my neck. Her brows dip and she sits up on her elbow. "Hasn't it?"

"Well... you've only been single for a month now, Stace. Nicole and I normally hang out, the two of us without you."

She gasps. "You did?" I nod and she blinks, suddenly enlightened. "Wow. And now the two of you aren't single... Wow."

"I'm technically still single," I correct.

"You and Dante are practically a suburban family with two kids and a dog already, stop lying,"

Feeling fed up, I sit upright. "Okay, could you tell me why everyone brings up marriage any time I mention him? First it was Nicole with the whole KFC thing, now you with our suburbia two-and-a-half-kids fantasy and I don't get it,"

She shrugs. "I don't know. It just seems natural to bring up marriage around you when you're in a relationship, you're pretty motherly,"

"I'm not motherly," I say stubbornly.

"You so are. I bet if Jackie came in here asking you for something - anything - you'd do it,"

"Shut up, Stacy,"

She giggles a little bit before sighing. "But really, the way Nicole talks about the two of you and from the way you talk about him too, it's like you're a couple of newlyweds," 

I lie back down and consider her words, wondering when in my passionate speeches did I give off the vibe of a married couple. I can't be that bad, can I?

"Speaking of Dante, you know I've never seen him up close before, right?" She groans and pushes herself off the floor, humming a song. "He might just be really ugly,"

"He's not ugly," I say immediately, looking up at the ceiling.

"To you he's not,"

"He's not ugly," I repeat and then finally look at her. She's sitting at my laptop and scrolling through my Facebook dashboard. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for him on Facebook," She says casually, still humming her song. "Hey, what was his surname - oh wait, never mind, I found him."

Suddenly fearful, I scramble upright and rush over to her, staring at his page over her shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"He's actually genuinely hot," She says casually. "Wow. His teeth are like... dazzling. I mean, I saw him in that photo but it was weird and now I can see that... wow."

"Stacy,"

She clicks into his profile page photos and scrolls through them with a highly scrutinising glare. "Okay, no fuck boy poses, he really likes baseball... and fucking twizzlers - are you sure he's not gay?"

"If anything at this point, he's bi." I rub on my chin and look at the pictures with her. "Oh wait, there's a girl in that picture,"

Stacy clicks it and gasps. "She's tagged as Tia Monroe - hey, is that his ex-girlfriend?"

My heart fills with dread. "His ex? She's so pretty!"

"Damn right she is - the comments on this are so cringe, they're just hearts from - oh, it's her!" She gets click happy and then squeals with glee when this Tia's page isn't put on private. "Oh my God, look at all her photos! Even without makeup, she looks like some fucking Instagram model."

"Oh yeah? Let me see," I push her out of the way slightly and start clicking through her pictures. And Stacy's pretty much right - she's absolutely perfect in like every way. I bet she doesn't even wear highlighter because she naturally glows - or if she does, she puts on the right amount and doesn't overcompensate like some of us.

I'm so pissed! How can I compete with beauty like that? Feeling horrified, I take a few steps back until my legs touch my bed and I flop back onto it, staring at the blue ceiling.

"She's a cheerleader, makes sense. You know they're very in shape and shit. Flexible, have good hair, never break fingernails while doing jumps." She titters. "If we hadn't been on the softball team, I so would've become a cheerleader just for the good skin alone,"

Shout out to Stacy for rubbing salt in all my wounds.

"Ken?" She turns around and sees me on the bed. "I bet she's not over him, she has like a ton of photos of the two of them together from like last year. And oh! On the day he posted that picture of the two of you, she went on a rant about the people you love hurting you the most,"

"Yikes," I say, tapping my chin. "You said their breakup was messy, right? Do you know what happened?"

She shrugs and clicks back to Dante's page. "Apparently nobody really knows. Only that she yelled at him in school the day after he dumped her,"

So he dumped her? That surely means he would be over her, right? I mean, being dumped is much more painful than dumping someone because it's out of the blue and you don't even know what you did wrong. I don't really have anything to worry about in that case, I mean, he's obviously moved on.

"I bet she cheated on him," She goes back to Dante's page and sighs. "She looks like the type,"

Well shit. If she cheated on him then he probably had to dump her for his pride. Which could mean that he's not over her. I mean, he has that photo of her from two years ago in his profile pictures and everything should be deleted if he was over her, but there's also the chance that he simply forgot to and I'm just overthinking this per usual. It would make sense but -

"Ken, your mom's calling you," Stacy says, snapping me out of my momentary daze. I get off my bed and stretch, wondering what she wants before leaving the room.

When I get downstairs, my mom's on the phone, laughing with a pained expression on her face. She looks relieved to see me and hands me her cell with such finesse.

"It's your dad," She says and then ducks out of the room. I watch her go, shaking my head before putting the phone to my ear.

"Hey dad," I stifle a yawn.

"Kennedy, hello! How are you?"

"Um, good? How are you?"

"I'm fantastic!"

The conversation basically dwindles down to small talk from there. My parents have been split up for as long as I can remember but they somehow maintain a great friendship with one another, even though we live miles away from each other. He's even good friends with David and twice every summer they meet up and have a bake off. It's weird, but they're both great bakers and I get to eat their shit so what's my problem?

"Sorry I'm calling you on your mom's phone, neither you nor McKinley were picking up," He says once he's made sure that I'm not taking any drugs, my education is going good and I'm also not pregnant.

"Oh, yeah, sorry." I scratch my head, my mind wandering to the possibility that Dante isn't over his ex who shall not be named for reasons. "So, um, what's up?"

"Oh!" He pauses. "I was wondering if you'd like to come and spend next weekend with me in the old 'Mento,"

"...Mento?"

"As in the Sacra,"

"... Dad, what are you talking about?"

He groans loudly. "Kennedy, where do I live?"

"In Sacramento - OH! You want me to come up to Sacramento next weekend?" I lean against the wall and think about it. It'd be awkward if it's just my dad and I walking through the capital city by ourselves. I don't want to be lonely for a whole weekend but I don't think I have any plans so... "Huh, I don't know,"

"McKinley's coming," He says, slashing my fears. I mean, I don't mind hanging out with my twenty seven year old sister and my dad for a whole weekend in comparison to hanging with his old ass.

"Oh, well - okay, I guess. Are you coming to pick me up? From like, home?"

He laughs like I made a joke. "Of course not, darling. I've got work - but I can pick you up from the station if you take a train,"

I refrain from groaning. "I'll plan it with McKinley,"

"Coolio! That's what the kids are saying now, right?"

"Sure dad," I suddenly remember that Stacy is waiting for me upstairs. "Hey, dad, I've gotta go, Stace and I are doing a piece about communism."

He pauses for a long while. "Communism?"

"History paper on Lenin," I explain and he goes ahh appropriately. "I'll see you next Friday, okay?"

"That's cool. Bye Kenny," 

I go to find my mom and tell her about the plan to meet up with my dad next weekend as well as give her phone back to her. She raises her eyebrows and sips on her tea knowingly but just simply tells me to have a good time before putting her silk scarf on.

Stacy is still on Facebook by the time I get back to my room, but she's not alone. She and Tyler are laughing about embarrassing middle school trends together and I don't like it.

"Did you have the soda flavoured lip balm, Stacy?" He asks, making himself home on my bed. I almost push him off but settle for sitting on the floor instead. Imagine, being demoted from my bed to the floor in my own room.

"Oh my God, I had the Dr. Pepper one and I wore it religiously! Ken, did you have 'em?"

I roll my eyes and think of the unopened soda flavoured lip balm I bought a few nights ago. "I had the Sprite one,"

"Well, I for one had the Fanta one and I smelled all citrusy all the time," Tyler says proudly. I relax a little and watch Stacy's face contort into one of pure confusion.

"You wore the soda lip balm Tyler?" She asks. "But - I don't get it,"

"Um, yeah?" He snuggles into my pillow and winks at me when I glared at him. "Kennedy introduced them to me and I didn't wanna have some nasty dry ass lips all the time,"

She looks so enlightened. "Well shit, your masculinity is rock solid isn't it?"

He laughs and is about to say something else when my laptop starts making noise and everyone's attention is directed to that instead. "What is it?" I ask.

"Someone tagged you in something," She chuckles and then gasps. "Nicole tagged you in a KFC post,"

I hate my friends.

"Wait - whose page are you on?" Tyler scrambles upwards from my bed and goes to Stacy. "You're on Dante's page? Looking at his photos?"

"Yeah?" I face palm at the cool tone of voice Stacy uses to say this. It's as if what she's doing isn't even the slightest bit creepy.

"Isn't that..." Tyler turns to me with a look of disgust on his face. "Stalking?" He whispers and I roll my eyes at his theatrics.

"It's not stalking, it's necessary research." Stacy says shortly. "All girls do it,"

"Necessary rese- what are you even researching?!" He looks so upset, it's slightly funny. "Kennedy knows him!"

"Crazy ex girl friends from high school, any weird habits... if he listens to country music," She shrugs. "The list is endless."

Tyler leans against the wall obviously having gained a whole new perspective on the whole situation. He looks from Stacy to me and I shrug and pick up a stranded bottle of nail polish and start painting my hands.

"I never knew girls had to do so much," He says. "Like, listen to country music? Why is that a problem?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want a potential boyfriend to be lusting over Dolly Parton and fucking Willie Nelson while with me," She says a matter of factly. I can't tell if her point is valid or not but I just leave it because what the hey, it's not hurting anyone.

"Wow," Tyler looks at the two of us in awe. "That's so true. So, if a person I like is lusting over Willie Nelson, should I just ditch them?"

"It's up to you. It's just best if you know these things so there's no nasty surprises when you end up doing the do,"

"Nasty surprises?" He takes a seat next to me on the floor and closes my bottle of nail polish. When I look to him for an answer as to why he did it, he shrugs. "It smells. What type of nasty surprises?"

Stacy pretends to think about it. I know she's pretending because her eyes have lost focus and her expression is rapidly becoming less welcoming. "Like... you look up and there's a photo of Willie above, smiling and watching you - OR! There's a photo of your mom underneath his pillow!"

Oh dear.

܆

word count: 33k? somewhere around there

a/n: I just changed some things to the plot of this story and it actually reminds me of that Ariana Grande song Moonlight it's so cute I love cute stories so much