The grass is dewy, but she doesn't care. Her legs ache. She plops right down. For a good while she just stares at said dewy grass, frowning at it. How it looks in the moonlight absolutely annoys her. It shouldn't look this nice. It's just grass.
The festivities she has just escaped from - a good ways away, thanks to her determination to walk as far from there as possible - can still be heard, loud and clear. Yelling and singing and laughing and the odd explosion.
"Hey guys," the next idiot yelling, "Check this one out!"
She cringes as she imagines the yeller contorting into some cartoonish maneuver, the impressed looks or the off smirk accompanied by the fighting words, "Bet I could do better."
She attempts to make up excuses in her mind. Why she even bothered with the stupid party. Why she even hoped for someone who wasn't a crazy moron to show up. Why she had believed Buster's "Don't worry, it'll be a calm one. Just a little get-together. Nothing to write home about."
A short sound - a chuckle of sorts - escapes her. If that was calm, she doesn't want to know what a party Buster considers wild is like.
She raises her eyes to the moon, surprised by it's lack of a face. It's completely random, but in the most creepy times - say, while she's undressing - she'll see it grinning down on Acme Acres. She has almost come to expect it to never fail to grin when it would make her the most uncomfortable. She is, after all, completely alone.
When she sifts her torso, she feels her back cracking. For a moment, she attempts to sit up straighter, but just gives up after a few minutes of discomfort, instead rolling onto her back.
The stars above her are in their usual perfect, clearly constellational patterns. She's memorized all of them by now. Each one is impossibly bright, impossibly equal. Well, impossibly, if this wasn't Acme Acres.
She hears the meowing long before the cat actually appears. It makes her sit up, just up to her elbows, but up nonetheless. She looks around her, an almost-prayer creeping into her mind. Please, don't be Furrball.
Alas, Furrball it is.
She tenses when she sees him. Especially by now, Furrball's appearance means only one thing. Well, one person, more specifically.
But Elmyra never actually appears. She waits and waits, biting back the urge to push the cat away when he gets right up next to her, pacing in circles for a moment before finally plopping down and resting against her side. She gives one last check around her, and then relaxes again.
A shooting star glides across the sky. Furball perks up, and watches it. She's not sure if it's just cat-like love for moving shiny objects or a sentient effort, like he understands what to do. He meows, as if making his wish out loud. She doesn't make a wish. She stopped doing that when she was little.
She imagines, though. She can very clearly see everyone at the party who notices it wishing with all their might. Children, every last one of them.
She closes her eyes then, while Furrball relaxes against her. There's a drifting feeling, the beckoning of sleep.
"Oh, hey."
Her eyes shoot open. But she doesn't frown like every instinct inside of her tells her to. She grins up at the boy standing over her, looking mildly surprised to see her there.
Furrball meows, jumping up and scurrying toward him. He rubs against his legs and, laughing, he bends down and pets him.
"I thought you were supposed to be over at Buster's place." He's looking at Furrball, but directing it toward her. She sighs, not moving.
"I was."
"Boring?"
She stifles a laugh. "Opposite."
"Of course."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
But he doesn't answer and she knows what he means. They're too crazy. Always have been, always will be.
He sits down then, Furrball jumping onto his lap.
"The stars are too bright tonight. It's creepy."
"They're always like this."
"Then I'm just noticing it now. I don't like it."
"Well, they didn't draw it so you could like it."
He's silent for a moment, and she realizes he's listening to the party. Finally, "They drew it so they could like it."
"Yep. Poor us."
She looks at him. He pets Furrball and frowns up at the stars. The party kids begin a horribly off-key rendition of "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile."
"Why isn't it snowing?" he says eventually.
She frowns. "Why should it? I mean, other than to break up the party."
"Oh, I don't know. It feels like it should. It's winter."
"There are places where it rains all winter. Even on Christmas."
He rubs his eye. "Acme Acres isn't one of those places."
"I wish it was." She remembers the shooting star as soon as she says it, and rolls her eyes at herself. No one would make that wish come true anyway.
They sit in silence for a long while, the constant gibbering from the party making it feel slightly longer.
"I should go," he says. "My parents will think I got eaten by a bear or something."
Instead of something normal like, "Okay," or "Maybe just a few more minutes won't hurt," she says, "We should get drunk."
"What?"
"We should get drunk. The two of us. That's what other stupid teenagers do."
"Bad idea. I'll become an alcoholic. Addictive personality, you know."
"Addictive personality?"
"You know, that whole money thing. That stuff's like drugs."
She laughs. "You're cute."
"I'm serious."
"Cute."
"Drugs."
"A little alcoholism never hurt anybody."
She pulls herself up then, absently brushing grass off of her skirt. He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't move as she gets closer to him. Eventually, she picks Furrball up off of his lap and plops the cat down onto the grass, earning a meow, and then sits down and swings a leg over his lap, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Okay, we'll get drunk. And I'll become an alcoholic. Then what?"
"You'll knock me up."
"Really?"
"Really. And we'll move away to somewhere where it rains all winter long and get married and have ten more kids and be miserable."
He seems to take this all very well. "I'm assuming I'll still be an alcoholic."
"Of course."
"And miserable."
"Yeah. Doesn't that sound great?"
"Beautiful. Really beautiful." He nods.
"Thank you."
He gives her a lopsided smile. "You're joking, though, right?"
"Oh, yes, of course. Sort of."
"Sort of."
"I mean, we don't have to do it tonight. No rush. But we should eventually."
"Become teen parents?"
"No. I said we need to get drunk first, by the way, but I don't mean that either."
"Then what should we really do eventually?"
"Get out of here."
He doesn't answer right away. He breathes. He looks thoughtful. He pets Furrball.
"We need to get out of here, Monty. The two of us."
Finally, he says, "Sure, Mary."