Best Days We'll Never Know

Letting it Out vs. Letting Go

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"Holy cow."

"I know."

"You sure we're at the right place?"

"Not at all. Let's go home."

"March."

Luigi grabs Mario's hand and pulls him towards the house, which is already in full swing for the reunion party.

"Looks just like grad night." Luigi says cheerfully. "Think I have a chance of winning Most Successful?"

"It's not our actual reunion, Lu!" Mario protests. "Just someone's funny idea."

"Right." Luigi replies. "That's why it's at someone's house."

Mario rolls his eyes affectionately, but just lets Luigi pull him into the backyard.

"Wow, this place is huge." Mario tells the person throwing the party, Nicki.

"Right?" She agrees. "Yeah, guess leaving high school really agreed with me. I'm unstoppable!"

Mario nods as he sips his champagne.

"Why? You want one for yourself too?"

That almost makes Mario choke on his drink, before shaking his head.

"Nah, I'm all the way in Ithaca. I can barely afford our apartment, and I just got fired from my internship."

"Oh no." Nicki says sympathetically. "Well, there's always the next one."

"Next one." Mario echoes, so Jill changes the subject.

"How's Pauline? I saw your pictures. You look so cute together."

Mario sighs, "We broke up. Not too long ago, now that you mention it."

"Oof." Nicki winces. "Always the next one?"

"Of course." Mario pretends to agree.

"How about saving Brooklyn?" Nicki's clearly running out of things to ask about. "You any closer to doing that? I still have the newspaper article for that irrigation system you were a part of."

"Nope, that's done too." Mario shrugs. "At least for me."

Then he leaves before Jill can make excuses, going to find his brother.

Who appears to be talking to a very pretty girl as he walks up and says,

"Hey, Weeg, I'm sorry, but I'm going home. I can't stay here."

"What?" Luigi looks at the girl. "Sorry, I'll be right back.", and follows Mario as he demands, "We just showed up, why are you leaving?"

"Because I was an idiot to think I could sit through all this." Mario gestures behind them. "My life just went up in smoke and I really don't feel like admitting to all these people that I lied to them. I'm leaving."

"Then talk about how amazing it's been!" Luigi tries.

"What exactly has been amazing?" Mario throws his hands up in the air.

"We set our sights on Cornell the moment we set foot on campus, years ago when Pauline invited us to take a campus tour with her." Luigi points out. "We said no to all other schools because we knew Cornell was it for us. And we were right! "

"And look where that got me." Mario retorts. "I probably will have no choice but to drop out and move back home before my debt gets any higher, because hey, this just in, I no longer have a paid internship. I don't even have the way-out-of-my-league girlfriend that stuck her neck out for us so I could get that internship. I'm no closer to saving Brooklyn than I was when I started. Please just let me go home."