The cool, rough stone scratched at Kiara's skin, snagging on the fabric of her cropped tank top. She held herself up by her trembling arms, her head just hovering over the wall surrounding the Cameron residence as she spied on the scene in front of her.
When Sarah said she didn't have plans to celebrate her birthday, Kiara began devising plans immediately. She bought boxed brownie mix, dug up every separating bottle of nail polish she had and every old DVD copy she'd once scratched up of Sleepover, A Cinderella Story, and other staples from their childhoods they'd once laughed about. They now weighed heavy in her bag as Kiara watched as virtually every student at Kook Academy walked up to the house, each donning semi-formal cocktail dresses and suits.
The walkway was lined with multi-colored stringed lanterns and twinkling lights seemingly embedded in the cement. Caterers handed out hors d'oeuvres and champagne flutes on silver plates, and a live cover band crooned classic Beyoncé hits. Sarah stood beneath a silver and lilac balloon arch with Topper on her arm, greeting the people she typically barely spoke to with a wide grin.
Kiara's arms gave out, and she fell back into the grass, the brownie mix and her tattered copy of The Princess Bride tumbling from her bag. Her tears flowed freely, falling onto her jeans in dark blue spots. She knew she should be concerned about trespassing charges, but her fear of getting caught hadn't yet broken through her fury.
Fuck her parents for making her go to Kook Academy.
After elementary and middle school happily skipping alongside the John B. JJ, and Pope, her parents had insisted on her moving to a superior, private education. Grades didn't matter in middle school, but they did in high school, and becoming a freshman meant her marks were finally going to carry weight in college admissions. The time fucking around with the Pogues was over. It was time to get serious. Her refusals fell on deaf ears, and she'd spent her first year of high school trudging through the halls in a depressive haze in uncomfortable khaki skirts. It was misery. Misery until Sarah. Their friendship felt closer than anything she'd ever experienced before, and as Sarah's birthday marked the beginning of the new school year, the second year at Kook Academy seemed far more bearable an idea than the first had. Maybe she could do it after all.
The guys tried at first, and Kiara could admit her fault; friendships don't dissipate on their own. Their bonds were more or less surviving until she befriended Sarah and practically moved into the Cameron house for the better part of a year. The guys found this disappearance deeper into Figure Eight a betrayal, and this only gave Kiara further license to sink deeper into the new friendship, swapping clothes and falling asleep to CW dramas and saving turtles together.
Sarah's house became a warm escape. She was so angry with her parents for twisting her arm about private school that her own home had become unbearable. The Camerons weren't perfect, but it was still better than home, and she was able to overlook their passive aggressive moments and Rose's rigid and frequent sipping on wine if it meant a little escapism.
She'd only suffered one unfortunate episode there, late one night when Sarah was passed out and Kiara went downstairs for water. She'd found her older brother swallowing some late-night munchies. Rafe had been a senior during her first year at Kook Academy, and from what she'd seen both from the Pogue side and in the Kook Academy walls, his his reputation for cruelty preceded him. Since her friendship with Sarah began, he'd taken to ignoring her. He never engaged in small talk with her across the table or glanced at her in the hallways; nobody would know they slept under the same roof more nights than not. That late night, however, feeling emboldened by his stoned, red eyes and the eerie difference of being alone with him, Kiara demanded he acknowledge her when she entered a room.
"Why are you even here?" he'd asked. "Don't you miss your boys?"
"You don't know anything about it," she'd said.
