Disclaimer- I do not own the clique, any brands mentioned, or the song Barely Legal by the Strokes.
(A/N) Last Chapter, and it's my longest one. Anyways, thanks to all my reviewers, especially: Emeraldeyes101, Kaylaf96, Cela Fille, maplexsyrup, RhiniHeartBreaker, lolgirl, lipglossgirlsavestheday, LovePeaceHappiness, and towards the end, SeeminglyAngelic.
BOCD
AP Language Arts
Friday, May 23rd
2:12 PM
Who would've believed Plovert was actually smart?
But there he was, sitting near the front of the class with Cam, deeply engrossed in a some large, paper-back book.
Being in the same class with both Cam and Plovert wasn't much of a problem. Kristen sat in the back of the class, while Plovert and Cam sat in the front; Making Kristen able to watch their every move. And as long as the class was told to read the whole class period, just like they did for the past week, she was safe from any-
"Today we are going to play Scrabble." The teacher announced.
Kristen let go a sigh of relief. Even though she had to be paired up with a person who probably hated her, it wasn't exactly her fault, her teacher always picked the partners-
"And since today is the last day of school, I'll let you pick your own partners."
Kristen watched in silence at her seat, as pairs of people walked past her and picked up a Scrabble board.
Slowly, she stood up, and walked towards a pair of friendly-looking girls. Kristen stood by their table waiting for acknowledgment, but they just talked and laughed pretending she wasn't there.
So, Kristen quickly walked away from the table, and noticed the large stack of graded papers on top of the teacher's gray file cabinet.
"Can I f-file p-apers for you?" Kristen managed to stutter out.
The teacher snapped her head up and look towards the file cabinet. "Will you do that for me? Give papers without a name to me. Thanks."
Kristen nodded and smiled. "You're welcome." She walked over to the file cabinet, and grabbed the stack of papers. For thirty minutes without interruption, Kristen rhythmically opened an individual cabinet, stuck a paper in, then gently closed it. And all the while she strained to listen to the conversation between Cam and Plovert, seated around six feet to the left of her.
"We're all riding the bus today. Bus 270. That's the one that stops by Massie's house, she's throwing an end of school party. You in?" Plovert asked Cam while studying the Scrabble board and his letters intently.
Kristen gulped. Her mom couldn't pick her up from school. It was Friday, her mom would be out shopping. The only way she could get home was to ride to bus, and the bus that stopped by the Montador was bus 270. She could always walk home, but that would take to long.
"Sure. Why?" Cam questioned.
"The Pretty Committee," Plovert snickered. "minus Claire, has never ridden the school bus before, except when they go on field trips. So they decided to ride the bus today, and of course the rest of the school does too." Plovert placed five of his Scrabble letters on the board. "'Gooses'. Seven points."
"Dude, gooses isn't a word, it's geese."
"Gooses is a word." Plovert insisted.
"It's not." Cam challenged.
"Fine. Look it up." Plovert handed him the heavy, leather- bound dictionary.
Cam quickly shifted through the pages, paused for a moment and frowned. "You win."
Plovert leaned back in victory.
"It's only seven points anyway." Cam shrugged.
"Well seven points is a lot, considering your last word was 'sat'."
"Shut up." Cam hissed.
"What? The only person who has the nerve to eavesdrop on our conversation is Kristen- Don't act like I don't see you." Plovert looked up towards Kristen, and she immediately looked down, acting like she was immersed in an individual file she was looking for.
"And then she tries to cover it up." Plovert said to Cam and shook his head. "You think I'm stupid, don't you Kristen? And-"
Cam punched Plovert. "Hush." He instructed. "I think she gets it."
--
2:57 PM
"I'll let you guys out early. I want to get out of this school as much as you do." The teacher said.
"Three minutes early doesn't really make any difference." Plovert mumbled and walked out the door, along with the rest of the class.
Kristen quickly placed the last paper of the once giant stack of paper into a file.
The teacher quickly looked up, "You finished filing all those papers?"
"Yep." Kristen picked up her purse and walked towards to door.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Kristen grinned and raced out the door.
"Have a good summer!" The teacher shouted from the classroom.
Kristen frowned, what would she be able to do this summer without any friends? But her focus of attention changed when she noticed the hallways were empty, besides the small group of people that were in her class twenty feet ahead of her.
"Where is everyone?" Some boy asked.
A girl looked around. "I think they all died."
"Quit being so melodramatic." Plovert said. "Obviously they were abducted by aliens, and were the only ones left." He rolled his eyes.
"Or maybe they got let out early." Cam said.
"Every single class?" Another girl responded.
"Let's just check outside. I think most of us are riding the bus home today, right?" Plovert asked.
The others nodded, and they started for the bus loading area, Kristen a few paces behind them. Plovert and Cam took charge, and in one swift motion they opened the double doors that led to the bus area. But right when they stepped outside, the ten BOCD buses drove out of the parking lot.
The class shouted and ran toward the buses, begging them to stop, they didn't, and eventually the class settled down when the last bus left the parking lot.
Kristen walked towards the edge of the road, and paused for a moment, watching Plovert run towards Principal Burns.
"Can't you tell them to come back?" Plovert yelled.
"No. You should have been out here by 2:55." Principal Burns replied.
"But our teacher-" Plovert was cut off by a noise of the cell phone in Principal Burn's hand.
"I don't have time for this. Either call your parents, or driver to pick you up, or walk home."
Plovert looked up at the blue sky, and then at the dark clouds forming to the west. "They're is no way I'm walking home in this heat."
"That's your problem." Principal Burns squawked and paced towards to school.
"Go to Hell, bird woman!" Plovert shouted at her.
She stopped. "What did you say?" She boomed.
"You want me to say it again? Go to-"
Cam pulled at Plovert's shirt. "You're gonna get in trouble."
Plovert checked the time on his phone. "It's 3:01. According to the time, she doesn't control me, I don't go to this school anymore. And in the words of Alicia Rivera...I am so suing this fuc-"
"You're acting like a psycho- manic." Cam dragged him near where Kristen stood, but she immediately started walking.
"Can't your driver pick us up?"
"No, he's get weekends off." Plovert said. "My mom thinks having a driver, who works for you all the time is like modern-day slavery."
Which was the last thing Kristen heard from Plovert and Cam before she started running, remembering that she had to somehow get home before her mom did, or else she would have to explain why all her 'friends' didn't drop her off.
She ran in silence, only the sound of her navy blue flip-flops smacking against the sidewalk pavement accompanying her. Swiftly, she passed any small groups of people, without looking or saying a word to them. Until she spotted a group of girls, one of them with dark pink hair, walking into a neighborhood of upper-middle class houses.
"Strawberry!" She shouted and ran over to them. It was summer, they were no longer under the Groups power, so maybe they could still be friends, right?
"Oh, hey, Kristen." Strawberry dully replied.
Kristen noticed Allie-Rose, Kori, and Olivia in the background. "How come you guys didn't ride the bus?"
"Everyone rode the bus today, so most likely it's really crowded on the buses. Also, we don't have to ride the bus just because every one else is."
"I know. Followers much?" Kristen scoffed.
"Look who's talking." Strawberry smirked. "So...why are you here?"
It finally dawned on Kristen that even though Strawberry, Kori, and the others weren't under The Group's control, they still didn't like her. "Oh, um, I was just looking for a shortcut in here, to get to my house quicker."
"Well, there aren't any shortcuts." Kori snapped.
Kristen cheeks became red. "Oh, well, bye." She turned and sprinted out of the neighborhood. Slowing down, she decided to rest when she reached the sidewalk. As she wiped her sweat-slicked face, she heard a rumble in the distance, and looked up to she dark clouds quickly covering the once clear sky.
Kristen sighed, "Just great." She thought and slowly started walking, fully knowing that she wouldn't make it to her house dry, or before her mom came home.
Looking behind her, she saw a white Mercedes slowly moving down the street, until it halted on the other side of the road. The driver's seat window rolled down.
"Hi Kristen! Do you need a ride? Your mom knows me, so I think you'll be fine." Cam's mom said.
Kristen paused for a moment. Remembering that even though she knew the person, or people in the car, her mom always told her to say no if someone asked. But this was different, her mom was friends with Cam's mom, claiming that the Fisher family was one of the most "modest" people in Westchester. And they were, although it was evident that they were richer than they looked. How would they be able to pay for that expensive Mercedes, or for all that Drakkar Noir Cam slathers on his neck? Though needless to say, Cam smelt very good...
Kristen shook the thought out of her head.
Kristen thought about declining her offer, how would she be able to explain why she didn't come over to Cam's house to play soccer anymore? It would've been easier if Harris were driving. And what about Plovert-
A loud rumble of thunder interrupted her thoughts. "Um...Sure." Kristen finally replied, waited for a car to pass, and then crossed the otherwise empty street. "Thanks," she said, looking down as she sat on the cool, tan leather seats. She closed her eyes for a moment, her head resting on the glass window, hearing the beats of some song playing on Cam's iPod. Maybe Plovert wasn't in the car after all. Maybe he just-
Click.
The sound that someone's tongue made when they were extremely angry.
Kristen slowly turned her head to see Plovert, looking straight forward, a gentle smile on his face.
Maybe having Cam's mom in the car was a good thing, cause she would have the decency to pry Plovert off, when he tried to strangle her.
--
"I didn't take no shortcuts. I spent the money that I saved up. Oh, Momma running out of luck-"
Cam pressed pause on his iPod. Sitting in the passenger's seat, through the mirror, he watched carefully studied Kristen. Her body was rigid, arms stiffly at her sides, her palms heavily pressed down onto the leather seat. Periodically her eyes shifted towards Plovert's direction, then quickly shifted back. Meanwhile Plovert had this unique look on his face of hatred and content. He kind of looked like one of those evil smiley faces that people drew.. The ones where at first they seem so happy, but then someone draws in those diagonal eyebrows, and it turns all evil-looking. Cam felt sorry for Kristen for a moment, but then chuckled, thinking about what Plovert was going to eventually say to her.
Cam frowned. "Mixed feelings." He thought to himself, and pressed play on his iPod.
"Then she said, "Oh, you're a freak. They ordered me to make mistakes."
Cam grit his teeth, remembering what Kristen had said to his a few weeks back during that IM conversation.
--
Kristen wiped off the beads of sweat that formed on her forehead, though the air conditioning was on. Noticing that Cam was looking at her, through the mirror, she didn't want to him to see her with sweat dripping down her face. Her thoughts where suddenly weighed down with the fact that there was a chance they both may like each other
"Impossible." Kristen thought to herself. Besides Plovert and Alicia, wasn't Cam the person she used to most? And besides Plovert and Alicia, wasn't Cam the person who hated her the most? But still-
"Why don't you call your mom, to tell her your getting a ride home." Cam's mom said as she stopped at a red light.
"'Kay." Kristen managed to chirp. She pulled out her phone, called her mom, knowing that she wasn't going to answer her phone. "Hey mom." She left a voicemail. "Um, I missed the bus, 'cause the teacher didn't let us out at the right time. Cam's mom is dropping me off. So...yeah. Bye." Kristen snapped her phone and shoved it back into one of the pockets on her shorts.
Cam's mom chuckled. "So how did you guys miss the bus again?"
"Our teacher was all like: 'I'll let you guys early.'" Cam mimicked. "But actually we weren't early, 'cause by the time we got outside all the buses were leaving."
"We were supposed to load the buses by 2:55." Plovert added.
"I see." Cam's mom nodded her head and at Kristen. "Seatbelt, please." She said to her.
"Oh, sorry." Kristen hastily fumbled with her seatbelt.
"Gosh, Kristen. Didn't your mom ever teach you correct car safety?" Plovert insulted, only loud enough for Kristen and Cam to hear.
And at that moment, Kristen knew that verbal attack was just the beginning.
--
"Oh, you ain't never had nothing I wanted. But...I want it all, I just can't figure out...Nothing."
Cam sighed, pressed pause, turned, and looked at Plovert. He didn't know if he should grin at Kristen's expense, or feel bad for her. Either way, he knew this car ride would be far from boring.
"So remind me, where do you live again?" Cam's mom asked Kristen, when she stooped at a four way intersection, and put on the windshield-wiper. Heavy drops of rain pelted the car.
"The Montador-" Kristen started.
"Wait, I thought you lived the Pinewood?" Plovert said with fake innocence.
Cam's mom raised her eyebrows, while Cam sighed for the second time in less than two minutes. "Well?"
Kristen's throat tightened. "The Pinewood. I say the Montador 'cause more people know where it is."
Cam's mom nodded.
"Or you're just a poor liar." Plovert mumbled.
"What was that?" Cam's mom asked.
"Oh, just that I knew Kristen's family would never live in such a... snobby place...hey just couldn't afford it..." Plovert trailed off.
"Do you want me to just drop you off at Massie's house?" Cam's mom glanced at the unmoving red light. "Cam said she's having a party."
"Kristen's not invited." Plovert chided.
"She has to, uh, go to a soccer day camp tomorrow, so her mom isn't letting her go anywhere. I wouldn't say she wasn't invited," Cam looked at Plovert. "she just isn't allowed to go."
Plovert gently kicked the passenger seat, where Cam sat.
Kristen slowly locked eyes with Cam, thanking him.
And what did she get back?
Something that told her she might not be so lonely this summer:
A smile.
--
Pressing play, Cam contentedly sat back in his chair.
"Together again, like the beginning. It all works somehow in the end. The things we did, the things you hide. For the record, it's between you and I."
Block Estate
Living Room
Friday, May 23rd
6:47 PM
Massie raised her glass for a toast. "To the end of eight grade."
"To the end of eight grade." The Group chorused.
"And to the start of high school, where we will be nothing." Derrick added.
"Such a downer." Claire shook her head. "You have to learn to live in the moment." Claire shifted in Plovert's lap.
"I wanted to go swimming." Kemp pouted and looked at the heavy rain, falling outside the window.
Massie ignored him and looked around. "Wait, where's Cam?" She asked.
"Gone. He has a girlfriend." Plovert frowned.
"Oh, what's her name?" Alicia leaned forward.
"Why, I believe she goes by the name of Kristen." Plovert said in an English accent.
(A/N) So there. I left you with a semi-happy ending...for Kristen. Deal. Epilogue? Maybe. Sequel? Probably not.