the rules

May 2083 (graduation) - Summer Phoenix, Dallas Deppiesse, and Vicky Garth are 18, Lucy Harris is 16, Sarah Harris is 14.

*soundtrack: "Rhinoceros," by the Smashing Pumpkins*

On the morning of their graduation, the seniors gather in the library to receive their ceremony plans. Dallas has picked up a random physics textbook, just to pass the time.

Summer says to him, "Haven't you learned enough already?"

Vicky wasn't planning on joining them at this table. She tried her hardest not to, and actually first sat on the other side of the room. But Meadow needs to pass out paperwork, and collect their forwarding addresses, and she's far too old to be running back and forth across the library to do it.

"You kids will just have to put aside your differences for a couple hours," she says.

Summer can see Vicky seething there in her peripheral vision. She can feel the heat of that tortured gaze scorching her skin. "Ugh," Summer says. "Will you get over it already?"

"Get over what? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Whatever it is you've had stuck up your butt your whole life," Summer says.

Vicky's name is called first. "You're a fool," she says. "I don't know what you're talking about." She slings her chin up, back straight, and walks into the auditorium, letting the door swing closed hard behind her.

"She even walks like she has a stick up her butt," Summer says, bursting out into mocking laughter.

He doesn't remember Vicky being so bitter, and he's sorry to admit that he probably had something to do with this transformation. So when Summer laughs, Dallas considers not laughing along with her, since mocking isn't very nice. But in the end, Vicky isn't very nice anymore either, so he laughs.

Vicky Garth: graduating with an 4.0 high school GPA. She has been awarded four scholarships including merits for academics, visual arts, and dance, totaling $4,250. She will attend Lake City University in the fall, and plans to study medicine.

Summer Phoenix, who comes with a fan club: graduating with an 3.6 high school GPA. She has been awarded five scholarships, including merits for academics, and athletics, dance, accounting and commerce totaling $5,250. She will attend Lake City University in the fall, and plans to study business management.

Dallas Deppiesse: graduating from the Lake County Honors program with a 4.0 high school GPA. He has been awarded five scholarships, including merits in academics, small business accounting, mechanics club, chess club, and is the first Lake County resident in ten years to be awarded the very prestigious Bradcliff-Weston Award. His scholarships in total amount to $15,750. He will attend Takemizu Academy in the fall, and plans to study astrophysics focused in aerospace engineering, with a minor in education.

Congratulations Lakeside Heights High School class of 2083!

Immediately following the ceremony, Lucy is on a mission. Dallas's parents want to throw a graduation party for the class, but since his father is tragically shy, and his mother is closed off and kind of antisocial, they'll leave the party planning up to Lucy.

Lucy is more than happy to oblige. In fact, she'd already made her way through most of the audience within fifteen minutes of the ceremony, and arranged Summer's grandmother to bring a few dishes with her.

Everyone is invited, and everyone is coming.

That is, until she runs into Vicky Garth in the girls' bathroom.

Vicky sneers as they meet. "What do you want?"

"I don't," Lucy says. "I mean, I don't want anything. I was just... the bathroom."

"Hmph," Vicky growls.

Lucy isn't sure if it's a good idea or not, but she doesn't want to make things even uglier if word got around that they were having this party and Vicky hadn't been invited. This is a party for all the graduates, after all. "You know," Lucy says. "We're having a party over at Dallas's place, for graduation, if you want to come."

"What, you think I'd want to go to his graduation party? Are you serious?"

"Not his," Lucy says. "It's for everybody, so it's kind of yours too. And since you're..."

"You mean, since my parents shipped me off, since I'm alone here and pathetic, is that what you mean?"

"No, I didn't..." Lucy's voice trails off. Rather than try to explain herself or remedy the situation, she just turns to go.

Lucy doesn't run, not this time. The last time Lucy ran away from Vicky Garth, she wasn't even being chased. For years she's dreaded the moment she might be caught and cornered with her. It's silly, maybe, to think she should have to run away from this girl. She's just a girl, even if an angry one.

Or maybe it isn't so silly, because this time Lucy hears footsteps behind her, quick ones.

Lucy shrivels back from her as Vicky shouts into her face, "You disgust me!"

Lucy is stunned, the shock stinging her eyes. Very few people have ever been angry with her, nobody's ever disliked her, and never in her life has she ever inspired disgust! She's speechless.

But Vicky continues, "Do you know that it takes everything I have in me not to rip your hair out, every, single, day! He was the one good thing that ever happened to me! This is not the kind of person I am! I'm not supposed to feel so angry! But I can say this now, since I won't have to be around here looking at you anymore - you disgust me!"

"What's going on here?" Summer says, walking up to them. Lucy has long since broken out into uncontrollable sobbing.

"Mind your own business," Vicky says.

"Lucy is my business," Summer says. "This is still about Dallas, isn't it? Would you get over it already? It's been two years!"

Sarah also hears the shouting and runs eagerly into the courtyard.

"High school is over now," Vicky says. "You don't get to be little miss popularity anymore, walking around here like you can just tell everybody how to live! Why don't you look at your damn self? I don't see you getting over your boyfriend any better."

"My boyfriend went to war!"

"You ran him off to war," Vicky says, thrusting her finger at Summer's face. "You're a mess! He'd rather go off to war than deal with you!"

Summer clenches her jaw so hard it trembles. Between her teeth she mutters, "Oh, hell no."

Summer lunges forward, hitting Vicky at waist-level and knocking them both off their feet.

"Cat fight!" Sarah yells, though she doesn't even need to. The fight announces itself with their shouts and screams echoing off the courtyard walls.

Summer and Vicky grapple at hair and clothing. Summer lands a punch to Vicky's cheekbone, Vicky digs into her shoulder with freshly manicured claws.

"You should do something," Lucy says, with her face buried in her hands.

Sarah stops cringing to see who she was talking to, and that's when she notices Dallas, and the look of honest appreciation on his face. "Oh," she says. She sees what he sees, Summer and Vicky, two beautiful girls, grappling at each other. "We should do something."

Sarah jumps in between them, dodging arms and claws, taking Summer by the waist and holding her back. She's wild. She's seething and spitting and striking out her arms as far as they'll go, which is just slightly out of reach of Vicky's face. "This is not over!" Summer yells. "I'm gonna eat your fucking head!"

Vicky stops. "You said what?"

Summer screams, fighting harder against Sarah's arm. But Sarah holds steady until Summer stops fighting, taking a moment before she lets go, to let Vicky get away. For these few sweet moments, Sarah Harris is holding Summer Phoenix, the taut muscle underneath petal-soft skin, the intoxicating scent of perfume mixed with adrenaline.

Sarah lets go. And as they all regroup, she's thinking, God, she kicks ass!

***

Compared to graduation, the after party goes on largely uneventful. Vicky does not attend, which is wise, considering everything.

Summer's grandmother brings a salad and dessert, and Lucy's parents bring a gift for Dallas and promise that Lucy can stay out until 1:00 if she wants. And everyone does silly dances to old cheesey music, and the Deppiesses and Harrises and Phoenixes all have a good time together.

As they're having lunch, Summer tells Lucy, "I feel really bad about Vicky. Was that too much? Should I apologize?"

"No," Lucy says. "I don't like her. She's a bitch."

"Wow," Summer says. "Did you just swear?"

"Just a little," Lucy says.

"He slept with someone," Summer says.

Lucy stops chewing. "Who?"

"Tyler, I mean. Do you worry that Dallas will, while he's gone? I mean, have you guys talked about the rules?"

"What rules?"

"You have to talk about the rules," Summer says.

"I know you don't want to," Summer says. "I get it, but you have to. Or you'll just run into trouble."

Lucy holds a bite of her fruit salad, hovering above her plate. "I don't know what the rules are. What are they supposed to be?"

"Whatever you both want," Summer says. "Both, together. You have to decide it together."

***

Lucy stays late that night, helping clean up the dinner plates and put leftovers away. He doesn't know what he'll do without her most of the time. It's the simple things she does for him, not cleaning up dinner plates, but the things he could never do for himself, like inviting half the neighborhood to his graduation party.

He can't even fathom how he might show his appreciation, but he offers, "You should take the car when I go."

"You're going to let me drive your car?"

He taught her to drive in it, even though she's a terrible driver. "It's our car," he says. "I mean, you helped build it. It's not like I can take it with me."

"I'll hold it ransom," she says. "So you have to come back and get it." She's trying, but she can hardly muster a smile.

"I'm coming back," he says.

There is rarely a moment of silence in this house, between his parents and his sisters and his dog. Soon they hear footsteps padding towards the room.

It's his parents, ready for bed in their pajamas.

"Thank you, Lucy," his mother says. "You did a beautiful job on the party."

Dallas is stunned for a moment, and it takes him some time to find out why. It isn't that his parents are in pajamas that feels strange. "Strange" is even the wrong word though, it's the opposite of strange, which would be "comfortable." And comfortable is unusual in this family, who are never comfortable around strangers. It takes him a moment to realize, Lucy is the farthest thing from a stranger around here.

And it isn't the pajamas at all. It's that his father isn't wearing his sunglasses, and he never does, when he's home, with family.

"What?" Lucy says after his parents leave the room for bed. "You look terrified, or something."

This realization is something like terror as it hits him. Dallas knows a lot of things, and he knows this: that she is it for him, forever, and forever, and forever.

But she's still so young, not even seventeen yet. He's barely even a man himself, but he knows, and he thinks she does too. He wants to say it, but he can hardly even piece the words together. He can hardly form it into one coherent thought, since it's everything he knows.

Instead his hands go clammy and he starts to laugh.

She takes hold of one, so slick from nerves that she almost loses it. She asks him, "What is it?"

"It's nothing," he says.

They stop laughing and she asks again, "What is it?"

"It's nothing," he says again.

"Well you've got a few weeks week to decide if you want to tell me or not."

"Don't worry," he says. "It's okay. It's nothing." But she always knows.

And she's right, what he's feeling right now, it's not nothing. It's definitely, positively, something.

*******

notes: so again, I had so many good outtakes that I'll post them in another entry following this one. (ETA: outtakes and gameplay notes here.)

Sarah has her high school makeover, by the way, in case you didn't recognize her. She'll be a high school freshman in the fall. *sigh* They grow up so fast!

And like with college graduation, I'll post the teen to YA transitions in their May graduation update. They still don't start classes until August, so we'll consider this as something of college orientation day...

Welcome to the real world: Summer, Dallas, and Vicky!