Two high school misfits who hate each other. One music competition where they have to work together. Can their love of classic 80s rock unite them?
************************************************************************************************
High...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Side A: Mitzi
"Ew, what's that?" Shawna asks, pointing at my hand.
I turn my hand over and look at it. We're sitting in voice class, waiting for it to start. Miss Burgess isn't here yet. "What's what?" I ask, staring at my hand.
"That!" Shawna jabs her finger at my thumbnail.
There's a bit of black grease. Not much, barely enough to notice.
"Oh, nothing," I say, and slide my hands under my legs so that I'm sitting on them. "I was... helping my dad in the garage yesterday."
"And you didn't wash your hands?" Casey says. "Gross."
I did wash my hands. I scrubbed at them with the special soap Mom buys me. But I don't say anything, because Shawna and Casey are already annoyed with me about the sleepover.
We snuck out, like they wanted. But once we got to the party, they started drinking—this on top of the little bottles they each drank before we left my house, which I found in the bathroom trash under some tissues later. At the party they started doing shots. I had never done shots, but I've seen people do them in movies. Only in movies they barely seem fazed by it. In real life, it's like swallowing a mouthful of fire that smells like rubbing alcohol. I took one shot and started coughing and then my heart was pounding hard and my whole chest burned. By the time I recovered, they had already poured me another. "I can't," I croaked, and they smirked at each other and one of the guys said, "Virgin," and everyone laughed and I stumbled out of the room just in the time to puke in a potted plant.
And none of my friends followed me. I sat alone for a while, then went back to try to find them. "They went upstairs," someone said when I asked, and I knew what that meant. They were upstairs, hooking up with guys. I didn't want to sit downstairs by myself, so I got my coat and left. The cold air felt good. I remembered, as I walked home, how we had bumped into Oz on the way to the party, and how I had wished to be out walking alone like he was.
I waited up for hours for them to come back to my house. I thought about going back to the party to find them, worried that something had happened to them, but then I thought they must have decided I was a total loser and gone to sleep somewhere else, even though all their stuff was still in my room.
On Sunday morning, Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen when I got up—she'd finally let me sleep in, a first clue at how pissed she was. "Are the other girls coming down?" she asked shortly. Behind her I could see all the ingredients for Belgian waffles, ready to go.
"They snuck out," I mumbled. "To a party."
"And you didn't go with them?" Mom had asked.
Like I should have. Like I did.
I couldn't figure out if I'd get in trouble for sneaking out and drinking, or if I shouldn't mention the drinking, but then how else would I explain coming home without them? I can't ever figure Mom out. I went with the opposite of my instincts (which was to say I hadn't snuck out at all, and most definitely hadn't been drinking) and told her what I did.
