sunsets with jude

chapter eleven- the party girls

Emilia 

"Happy last day of school, y'all!" Eva's accent takes me from England to wherever in the South her family is from. "And...happy early birthday to me." She throws envelopes at Tori and I, most likely her birthday party invites.

I love summer. The tanning, the swimming, putting on a bikini that gets skimpier every year. Oh, and the parties. There's the end of the year celebration tomorrow night, then kicking off June with Eva's birthday, followed by celebrating Tori in early July.

I don't even have to rip open the envelope. "I'll be there."

"You excited for the softball party?"

"Yes ma'am!" We high five.

Eva rolls her eyes. "Great day to be a cheerleader."

"We'll see you tomorrow night, Eves." I reassure her.

Eva's anger is replaced with her bubbly personality. "Let's go get yearbooks, girls!" We head over to a table with the book with the memories from this year. 

It's heavier than it looks. Silver Palms has about 800 kids total, but I know for a fact the sports section takes up a lot of it. I flip to some pictures of yours truly squatting behind home.

"Look at my star catcher!" Eva smacks my butt. "I don't know shit about softball, but twenty-four has a cute butt."

"Evangeline Belle Hamilton!" I shout. "You're gross."

Tori clears her throat. "Can we see if the photographers did us dirty?"

"On it." My thumb discovers the three or four pages of people in our grade. Victoria Butler comes first, looking beautiful as usual. 

"Not too shabby."

"What do you mean, sweetie? You're gorgeous as always, V." Eva has a disgusted look on her face. "I look like an obese Cheeto. The place I got my spray tan shit should've banned me." She isn't wrong. Her face is an orange highlighter with a lot of makeup. She definitely looks like a stereotypical bully, but she's far from it. 

"My turn." I turn to the next page. "Hold up. Eva, get me a Sharpie."

After the marker is in my hands, I scribble out a certain someone's face. That's one way to heal a wound. 

"Anyways." My finger travels across the page. Roberts, Ryan, Sanders, Schwartz, and finally, Emilia Shapiro. As expected, the picture doesn't do me justice, but it isn't terrible. My hair is straight and my cheeks look a little round, but it's nice to look at. A lot happened between September and today, but most of it wouldn't have surprised me eight months ago. Other than Jude, of course.

Eva looks over my shoulder. "Awww. Look at my beautiful best friend. No wonder that guy loves you so much."

"Strike two." I say sternly. 

"Sheesh."

~

"To surviving tenth grade and...whatever shenanigans us wild party girls will get into as juniors." It was Eva's idea to raise our cartons of spoiled milk in honor of school being over. 

The milk doesn't even enter Tori's lips before her nose wrinkles. "Can I throw this away?"

It registers to Eva and I why it's being thrown away. "You can't get sick on the last day, babe."

"Yeah. What would Mommy Helena say if her beautiful baby got sick?" Eva says. Tori then chucks it in the trash, the carton barely missing a teacher's head. 

"Sickness is the least of my worries." Tori winces. "I better not get caught."

Eva bursts out laughing. "Did you?"