"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter One-Hundred-And-Twenty-Seven: First Dates, New Jobs And Goodbyes
(The Battle Of Starcourt Mall, Pt. 8)
***
"What about this one?"
As one, the four girls Rowan had enlisted for help lifted their heads from what they had been doing—Chrissy flipping through the latest Cosmo, Robin from where she'd been eating Twizzlers and not-so-subtly reading over Chrissy's shoulder, Nancy and Valerie from where the girls had been preparing an army of makeup soldiers on Rowan's vanity next to the stereo blaring Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'N' Roll album—and looked at the outfit Rowan had picked out.
Chrissy's nose immediately creased and she shook her head, loose strawberry blonde waves following the movement. "No."
"Is it too dark?" Rowan questioned, looking at the outfit in question—a short-sleeved dark grey shirt with a pair of denim shorts Rowan had found in a thrift store three years ago.
"You're going on a date, not to a funeral," Robin quipped over the piece of Twizzler in her mouth, Chrissy nodding in vehement agreement as she placed her hands on her hips.
Rowan did the same, glaring at her friends. "Well, sorry, but that's one of the lightest-coloured shirts in my closet. And you already said no to my band shirts, Buckley, because, and I quote, 'have to wear something more special than a band shirt'."
"In my defence, you have too! You practically live in those shirts everyday, Rowan. This is a date, a first date, you have to wear something special!" Robin argued, waving about her Twizzler and almost whacking Valerie. The curly-haired girl gave her crush a death glare as Robin looked at her sheepishly.
"Robin has a point. He probably won't care, but you should wear something a little more different than what you usually wear," Nancy reasoned.
"What about that striped shirt? That would look nice," Chrissy suggested. Immediately Rowan, Valerie, Robin and Nancy froze.
"No. I... lost it," Rowan lied. The truth was it was buried in the farthest corner of her closet, never to see the light of day again. Not when she couldn't bear looking at that shirt and see the hours trapped underneath Starcourt. The spots of her brother's blood still on it.
Chrissy frowned, but didn't question it. "Okay, then. What about anything else?"
"No, that's uh... that's it. Unless you want me to wear one of my band shirts or my Hellfire shirt, then there's nothing," Rowan revealed. At that, her face crumpled. "Fuck, this is gonna be ruined."
"Hey, don't give up, okay? We're not gonna let you leave until you leave him speechless the moment he sees you, okay?" Chrissy said, hands on her hips and holding a determined look that would make a drill sergeant quake in his boots. Behind her, Valerie snorted and muttered, "Like he doesn't look like that every day," Robin nodding in agreement and concurring, "Looks like a bamboozled fish."
