Sorry for the obscene hiatus! The full thing's been on tumblr for a while so i forgot to update here, sorry!
....
PREVIOUSLY (bc it's been a while and I'm sorry!)
"Most of us got community service, some through the summer, and Calum's not walking at graduation because of the whole distribution thing, but he'll still get his diploma. And we're on probation, again. No more parties for the rest of the year." Penny scoffed at my dejected tone, but not being able to throw and end of year bash was probably the biggest upset for most of the guys, so I had every right to be sad about it.
Penny apologized and rubbed my back when she saw how upset I really was, and tried to console me, which I appreciated, though it didn't really work. "Well, that's not so bad. I mean, at my sister's college, there was this one house that had to shut down for good," she said, trying for optimism. "What about you? They can't just not let you graduate or something, I mean, you're our valedictorian," she laughed weakly as we walked back across campus yet again. "What?" She questioned warily when I didn't respond.
I took a deep breath and squinted up at the sky. "Yeah about that," I said after a moment. "They're revoking my title, too."
.AND NOW, CHAPTER 9 (dun dun dunnnnnn)
.
Penny's P.O.V.
*two weeks later*
I'd tried everything to get Luke his title back, thinking on more than one occasion how flip-flopped this whole situation had become. The days whizzed by; I was so wrapped up in looking into school policies and, of course, studying for my impending finals that I barely realized it had already been two weeks since the cops broke up Calum's party. I finally gave up on trying to help Luke; he seemed to have come to terms with his punishment from what I could gather, and there was nothing else to be done. Plus, now I had to alter the salutatorian speech I'd planned out, on top of packing up my dorm and settling all my accounts. Graduation was drawing closer by the second, and I'd only ever felt this excited and this sick to my stomach once before, in the days leading up to high school commencement. Luke seemed to be evading me; I'd barely seen him at all the past week.
"Penny, hey!" I jumped about a foot out of my chair as Claire opened the door to our dorm room. "What about this one?" She produced a white dress from inside a shopping bag and held it up to her body, twirling in the full length mirror.
"It's cute," I said, as I had for the last five potential graduation dresses she'd shown me. Claire spun around one more time, and upon seeing me focused on the computer screen once more, she frowned and hurled a pillow at me. "Ow!" I let my shoulders slump at her pouty expression. "Alright, let's see it on you, then," I said.
She changed in record time, and I assured her that yes, it did make her boobs look great and no, it wouldn't show through the gown. "It's so weird, that we're graduating already, isn't it?" I nodded and returned to my laptop. "You okay?"
"Yeah, sorry, I'm just...speech," I said sheepishly, indicating the half-written load of crap I'd been working on for the last hour. When had it gotten dark out?
"Right," Claire said, sitting on her bed. "Remind me again what happened?"
I laughed dryly. "Luke's frat got in trouble and they took being valedictorian away from him as punishment and gave it back to me."
"You deserve it more," Claire said automatically. "Didn't he give you all sorts of grief?"
"He did, but it turns out he's not such a bad guy," I reasoned. Claire didn't know everything about the night of the busted-up party. "He's a prick, but he's got enough redeeming qualities." Yeah, like being fucking incredible in bed. "I've actually been meaning to tell you about—" Claire's phone buzzed and cut me off.
