Susan always got all the attention. She was the pretty one, the popular one, the shining star of the family. For as long as Lois could remember, Perfect Susan had soaked up all the compliments and adoration from her parents, leaving her sister to grow up feeling neglected and unloved.
To be fair, most of this was due to their parents' blatant favoritism and Lois could hardly blame Susan for that. The two were prone to engage in fights that were quick to turn illogical and horrendous, but despite that Lois was willing to (privately) admit to loving her sister.
It's true that Susan got all the attention from their parents, but Lois didn't sit back and take this blow to her ego forever. She wasn't willing to stand up to her parents, oh no, but she did what every angry, forgotten child does: she sought out attention elsewhere.
Brought up believing she was ugly and gawky and weird, no one was more surprised than Lois herself when she blossomed in her teenage years and attracted boys, plural. Boys at school had always flocked to Susan, not her. Until now.
Lois ceased from dating exclusively, partly due to her horrible parents, but mostly because she was eager to test the waters of dating on her own without any rules or limitations.
At that point in time, she was involved with three boys. She wouldn't call any of them her boyfriend, although all three were pushing for the label.
Larry was sweet and devoted to her, but certainly forgettable. He took her to movies a lot and was a great kisser.
Dennis was popular and so, so good-looking. He brought her to parties and she had a wild, great time every time she was with him.
Matt was the most down to earth and the easiest to talk to. She easily felt the most comfortable around Matt, but this quality was quickly being ruined by his insistence that they become public as a couple.
She had just arrived home from an afternoon at Matt's, wet and angry. The two had been lounging on Matt's couch, watching a sitcom on television when he casually asked if she had 'thought about it.'
It, of course, meant being exclusive with him. He brought it up last week and she'd had to buy herself some time by saying she'd think about it. She had hoped that he'd forget or give her more time, but no such luck.
In a hurried attempt to stall, Lois had taken long, sloppy slurps of her soda and then 'accidentally' spilled the last half of the can all over herself. She got sticky red soda all over her white t-shirt and thighs (she was half-naked). Cursing, Lois shed the rest of her clothes and hopped in Matt's shower.
"I'm sorry, Matt, I'm just so clumsy!" she gushed from behind the curtain in the shower. It was better this way – if he was rolling his eyes, at least she couldn't see.
Lois stood under the shower head for a few moments, letting the warm water pulsate against her skin. Sometimes when she showered she imagined all the ugliness and bad things about her were being washed away and when she got out, she would have a fresh start. In her mind, every shower was a baptism.
Now that all the badness had washed off her, she approached the Matt situation with a much clearer head. It was unlike her to be so coy – usually she took the direct approach and spouted off whatever came to her head. The kids at school didn't call her The Mouth for no reason.
I'll tell Matt I just want to be casual,she thought, happy to have come to a decision. I'll do the right thing by him, even if he decides he doesn't want to keep seeing me after. As always, she felt good for having done the right thing, but another part of her was also sad. She and Matt had had some good times together. She would miss him.
She reached upwards to grab the loofah off the hook to scrub the sticky soda off her body and stopped short when she spotted Monty, Matt's repulsive pet snake, hissing at her from behind the shampoo bottle mere inches away from her hand.
Lois let out the most ungodly shriek and lurched away from the snake, careening backwards with limbs flapping. She ripped the curtain loose from the rod and wound up on the floor of Matt's bathroom wet, out of breath, and wrapped in a shower curtain.
Matt burst in moments later and gaped at her. This only turned Lois's horror into embarrassment and rage, a combination that never looked good on her. She thrashed and twisted until she had escaped from the curtain's tight hold on her and jumped to her feet. Her naked body quivered with rage, but Matt wasn't likely to notice – he was too entranced with her breasts.
"That stupid snake – in the shower – unbelievable– how could you –"
Matt didn't notice what she was saying until he heard 'snake.' Of course,Lois thought bitterly.
"What's Monty got to do with this?" he asked, puzzled, and Lois furiously pointed to the snake making itself at home in between his bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Matt laughed, which only made her more furious.
"You think this is funny?" she snarled.
"Well, sure," he said, grinning, and quickly realized his mistake. "Don't freak out, Lo-Lo. It was an honest mistake. My brother must have let him out of the cage again! I bet you'll look back on this in twenty years and laugh."
Funny enough, he wound up being right about that, but that certainly wasn't what Lois hoped to hear in that moment.
She threw on her sticky clothes over her still wet body and stomped right out the door, Matt following her and exclaiming, "Lo-Lo, come on" the whole time. She even refused to let him drive her home, and stomped all the way back to her house. When she strolled inside, foolishly thinking she was safe in her own house, she saw Hal Wilkerson lounging around her kitchen and smiling goofily at her.
"Hey, Lois," he said, "lookin' good!"
She rolled her eyes. "Don't be an ass."
"I wasn't!" he cried, surprised.
The earlier comment about Lois having three boyfriends was false – technically, she had four. The fourth was Hal Wilkerson, who was Susan's officialboyfriend. She and Hal had a certain unexplainable connection that made them unable to keep away from each other. As much as she wasn't proud of secretly dating her sister's boyfriend, in a way she was. Finally, she was as good as Susan in some regard, even if she was the only one who knew it.
Hal was hanging around the kitchen alone in a tuxedo and Lois suddenly remembered tonight was prom night. She had gone to spend time with Matt today in order to take her mind off this fact and, no matter what she felt about him now, he had succeeded.
"Oh, God, Hal, what are you doing here?" Lois asked, startled.
"I told Susan I came over early to see her," Hal said, and then lowered his voice, "but it's really you I couldn't wait to see."
Lois blushed in spite of herself. She cast a glance upstairs when she heard a lingering giggle coming from above.
"Did Susan banish you from the Cinderella prepping room?" Lois asked, fighting the smile on her face that was fighting to be shown.
"Yeah. She and all her friends yelled that she wasn't ready and made me wait down here. I've been down here for an hour."
"Why didn't you just leave?" she asked, exasperated.
Hal shrugged. "I was waiting for you, not Susan. You took forever to get home."
"I didn't know you were here!" she protested, and slugged him on the arm. "Why are you here? It's way too risky."
"That's why it's so fun!"
"You're crazy," Lois teased.
She felt all her stress and anger slip away after just a few minutes of chatting with Hal. He had that effect on her and it never ceased to amaze her.
Lois admired Hal in that moment and noticing how handsome he looked in his tux made her realize how ratty and unattractive she looked with her damp, sticky clothes and wet hair. She tried to casually run her hands through her tangled hair when she noticed Hal gazing back at her.
"My God, you're beautiful," he sighed.
"Shut up," she muttered, embarrassed.
"No, I'm serious." Hal crossed the room so he was standing right in front of her. "I'll be following around Susan in her princess dress all night, but I'll be thinking about you exactly how you are right now."
Lois and Hal locked eyes and became completely entranced with each other. If they had been in a teen movie, romantic music would be swelling at this moment. Susan became nothing more than a forgotten thought. They were of one mind, and that mind was saying, go for it – now!
Hal began wrestling with his belt buckle right there in the kitchen and was oblivious to Lois crossing the room until she hissed, "Come on" at him. She slipped into the garage and Hal came bumbling after her, hastily shutting the door behind them. They both stripped all their clothes off in an amount of time that must have set some kind of record.
Hal reached for her, but Lois backed away, laughing – "You tease!" he yelled, laughing too – and she positioned herself in a sexy pose on the hood of Susan's new car.
"Do you like what you see?" she wondered.
He didn't answer her, but he didn't have to.
Meanwhile, an oblivious Susan had just finished preparing for the prom and descended the stairs expecting her adoring boyfriend to be waiting for her. When she discovered he wasn't, she went searching throughout the house.
If any of this had been brought to Lois or Hal's attention at that particular moment, they'd probably say something like, "Susan who?" In fact, the two lovers were so caught up in each other that they didn't notice the garage door open and hardly heard Susan's screams until they had been going on for nearly ten seconds.