"I'm not going."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm not going."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

That was the consistency of the conversation between Sam and I. Michael didn't really seem to care - but then again, he didn't care about much anymore other than hanging out with his friends until the early hours of the morning. I couldn't blame him, there wasn't much to do around here anyways. Sam had been pressuring me to go and show my face to the world since the minute he woke me up, and I had to continuously tell him no.

Well it was time to leave, and he was still pushing.

"You don't even know if he's gonna be there tonight, Soph, just come on!" Sam groaned, pulling me up from my bed. "He's there every night!" I countered, pulling my wrist from his grip and pushing my hair out of my face. I was sure I was a hot mess, but I just didn't want to go. I wanted to wallow in my shame and self-loathing. "Look, Sophie," Sam sighed, sitting on my bed next to me. "I get it, you're embarrassed and don't want to revist it. I get it."

Sam paused for a minute, "but, mom said that no matter what you do, there's always room to fix our mistakes." He said, giving me his puppy dog eyes. I narrowed my eyes at him, "don't do that." I muttered, getting up from my bed for the first time in almost twelve hours, heading towards my bathroom. I grabbed my brush and got to getting the knots out. "Don't do what?" Sam asked, a smirk on his face as he full-knew what he was doing.

"Cheating." I mumbled, "mom says cheaters never prosper." I reminded and he rolled his eyes, a victorious grin on his face. "You have thirty minutes, then we're out of here." He said and I scoffed, "Samuel Emerson, you're the one making me go - we go when I'm ready to." I yelled before he left my room and headed downstairs.

It took me twenty minutes to straighten my hair, after about five hair-wrenching minutes of agony as I ripped out nearly half my head. I then took myself to my closet, deciding what to wear. I needed to look pretty damn good in order to make up for how much of a mess I was last time. I decided on a loose grey v-neck that tied off at my midsection, pairing it with my black jeans and grey converse.

I eyed Dwayne's jacket in the corner, biting my lip as I decided on whether or not to take it. "Sophie, come on, Christ!" Michael cursed up the stairs and I huffed, "I'm going to regret this." I whispered, grabbing Dwayne's jacket and shoving it into my bag. Michael still didn't know that I had it, and I didn't plan on him finding out.

"Come on," Michael said, holding up a set of keys. He led us out to the garage, where our grandfather's car lay untouched for only the Gods knew how long. We hopped in, Sam getting in the backseat while I sat up front with Michael. This was one of the rules: never touch the car. "Grandpa's going to kill us." I whispered, shaking my head as Michael started the car.

It took us fifteen minutes to get to the boardwalk, and Michael parked the car down an alleyway a little ways away from the boardwalk, just in case some drunks decided to get a little too familiar with it and get it totalled. We already were gonna get reamed for taking it. If we got so much as one scratch on that car, we would be toast for sure. I wouldn't get to see my high school graduation.

"Meet up here at eleven-thirty. Grandpa get's home from the Widow Johnson's at midnight at the earliest, so we need to beat him there." Michael said before he took off walking down the boardwalk. Sam shrugged, "I'm heading to the comic book store." He told me. And I was left at the entrance to the boardwalk. I sighed, running a hand through my hair and entering, walking aimlessly around until a pair of little arms wrapped around my waist from behind. I jumped, turning around only to be faced with my just absolute favorite little lost monster.

Laddie.