Don't Forget Me

Chapter 21

"Why did you make me change my plans with Oliver today?" I ask Grace, one of my many questions as she and Hannah follow me into my room a few days later.

"Lunch, Roseanne? Really? Lunch is what you get with your great-aunt so she keeps giving you fifty bucks on your birthday, not something you get with the guy you're trying to bone."

"Grace, shut up," I whisper. "That's not what I'm trying to... I'm not..." I shake my head, at a loss for words.

"My point is, you need to take him somewhere fun. Somewhere you can look hot."

As if on cue, both of them unzip their jackets to reveal matching American flag bras and booty shorts.

Oh. No, no, please no. They are really going full tilt into this.

"I'm not sure Oliver would exactly consider Truck Night fun." I wouldn't even consider it fun, and I grew up here.

"Well, he agreed to go, didn't he?" she presses.

"I guess," I reply, but it doesn't do anything to reassure me.

Truck Night takes place after dark the second Friday of every month through the summer at Creed Lake, which actually isn't a lake at all. It's a town with a population of under a hundred people, and their claim to fame is literally just a giant pit of mud, and if you're real lucky, it's slightly filled with water from a recent rain. Even more shocking, people travel from all over the tricounty area to drive their pickup trucks around in it. People like Hannah's boyfriend, Carter, and all his friends. And inexplicably, they apparently all dress like the flag even though there's nothing particularly patriotic about it.

"Let's get you dressed," Hannah says as she dumps out a duffel bag of red, white, and blue clothes onto my bed.

"I love you guys. I do. But please tell me you are not expecting me to match you," I say.

"Excuse you, we look hot as fuck," Grace says, giving me an overly dramatic offended look. "It's Truck Night, girl. You gotta dress the part... but no. I do know you better than that, Roseanne."

It puts a smile on my face to hear that. Despite how off things have felt among the three of us, they do still know me. Maybe our friendship can really get back on the right track tonight. After all, I didn't switch my date with Oliver because I thought he'd find me hotter there or something. I did it for them.

"How about these jean shorts and this red-white-and-blue tank top?" Grace asks, holding them both up.

I let out a big sigh. I feel like my butt cheeks are still going to be hanging out the bottom of the shorts, but at least the tank top has a high neckline.

Suck it up, Roseanne. For your friends. This is how you fix this.

.........

Hannah pulls up right next to Oliver in the gravel parking lot, and I'm already embarrassed before I even step out of the car.

What am I getting myself into?

We all get out and Hannah and Grace greet Oliver before the two of them run ahead to find Carter and his friends, including a guy Carter is setting Grace up with who graduated a few years ahead of us, which honestly doesn't feel that promising.

Oliver steps up to walk alongside me as we head toward the stadium lights and the sounds of country music blasting through oversized speakers. He hasn't said anything, but I saw him look me up and down and not in the way Hannah and Grace were intending. He's had a smirk on his face ever since.