p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Lance's POV/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance were mature, he would admit with candor that his actions were his own fault and he should face the consequences as a responsible young adult. However, it was a bold assumption to be made that Lance was mature./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The real train of thought that departed the station that was Lance's mind went more like this: Everything was to blame on his Abuelo. If his Abuelo had not come to America, he would never have met his Abuela, and thus, his father would never have been born, and his parents would not have met, and he would not have been born, which meant that he would have no younger siblings to make him late for school, unable to double-knot his shoelaces./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If his Abuelo didn't come to America, he would not have tripped on his untied shoelace at only his second (2nd) real high school party. As a junior./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't tripped on his shoelace, he would not have ended up nose-to-nose with his know-it-all, teacher's pet yet also somehow cool artsy rebel, obnoxiously handsome, effortlessly chivalrous, and naturally athletic rival, Keith. By some cruel twist of fate, Keith happened to be tying his shoe at the exact moment that someone stepped on Lance's untied shoelace and caused him to trip and fall to the floor, narrowly missing landing on Keith./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't narrowly avoided smashing his face into Keith's (perfect, delicate, gorgeous, strikingly elegant) face, he would not have been flustered./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't been flustered, he would not have drank quite so many shots (partially in an attempt to one-up Keith, who seemed to not even notice the competition Lance was trying to goad him into)./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't drank nearly five (5) tequila shots, he wouldn't have been so drunk, and he would not have lost his inhibitions./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"No, if his Abuela had simply decided to stay put in Cuba, Lance wouldn't be a non-anxious, reckless, and impulsive teenager at a stupid high school rager, that by all leaps of logic, he should not have even been invited to in the first place./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"However, as fate (or rather, the economic situation) would have it, his Abuela did decide to come to America, and because of that, a video of Lance making out with a random boy in a closet was shared and seen by over half the school, effectively shoving Lance out of the closet, and outing him to the entire school- no, the entire world./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Gee, thanks, Geraldine. You'd think someone with a name like Geraldine would think twice before deciding to humiliate someone like this, but evidently Geraldine just wanted someone else to become a social pariah. Lance blamed it on his name. People with names like Aiden never got into these kinds of situations. Lance also bet that Keith would have been too cool and smart to ever get caught with his pants down like this (proverbially speaking, of course)./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sadly, Lance was also a fairly smart guy. Smart enough to know he couldn't really blame this on his Abuelo. Also smart enough to realize the social consequences of this video and to know that nobody in his family could see it. It would either result with him spending the next two years in some all-boys Catholic school they couldn't afford (which would also be counter-intuitive, considering that it was uhh, an all-boys school) or with Veronica smacking down anyone involved in the invasion of Lance's privacy./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Anxiety was a bitch, anyways./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance were mature, he would admit with candor that his actions were his own fault and he should face the consequences as a responsible young adult. However, it was a bold assumption to be made that Lance was mature./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The real train of thought that departed the station that was Lance's mind went more like this: Everything was to blame on his Abuelo. If his Abuelo had not come to America, he would never have met his Abuela, and thus, his father would never have been born, and his parents would not have met, and he would not have been born, which meant that he would have no younger siblings to make him late for school, unable to double-knot his shoelaces./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If his Abuelo didn't come to America, he would not have tripped on his untied shoelace at only his second (2nd) real high school party. As a junior./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't tripped on his shoelace, he would not have ended up nose-to-nose with his know-it-all, teacher's pet yet also somehow cool artsy rebel, obnoxiously handsome, effortlessly chivalrous, and naturally athletic rival, Keith. By some cruel twist of fate, Keith happened to be tying his shoe at the exact moment that someone stepped on Lance's untied shoelace and caused him to trip and fall to the floor, narrowly missing landing on Keith./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't narrowly avoided smashing his face into Keith's (perfect, delicate, gorgeous, strikingly elegant) face, he would not have been flustered./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't been flustered, he would not have drank quite so many shots (partially in an attempt to one-up Keith, who seemed to not even notice the competition Lance was trying to goad him into)./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"If Lance hadn't drank nearly five (5) tequila shots, he wouldn't have been so drunk, and he would not have lost his inhibitions./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"No, if his Abuela had simply decided to stay put in Cuba, Lance wouldn't be a non-anxious, reckless, and impulsive teenager at a stupid high school rager, that by all leaps of logic, he should not have even been invited to in the first place./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"However, as fate (or rather, the economic situation) would have it, his Abuela did decide to come to America, and because of that, a video of Lance making out with a random boy in a closet was shared and seen by over half the school, effectively shoving Lance out of the closet, and outing him to the entire school- no, the entire world./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Gee, thanks, Geraldine. You'd think someone with a name like Geraldine would think twice before deciding to humiliate someone like this, but evidently Geraldine just wanted someone else to become a social pariah. Lance blamed it on his name. People with names like Aiden never got into these kinds of situations. Lance also bet that Keith would have been too cool and smart to ever get caught with his pants down like this (proverbially speaking, of course)./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Sadly, Lance was also a fairly smart guy. Smart enough to know he couldn't really blame this on his Abuelo. Also smart enough to realize the social consequences of this video and to know that nobody in his family could see it. It would either result with him spending the next two years in some all-boys Catholic school they couldn't afford (which would also be counter-intuitive, considering that it was uhh, an all-boys school) or with Veronica smacking down anyone involved in the invasion of Lance's privacy./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Anxiety was a bitch, anyways./p
