FALL

SIX

TWO HOURS BEFORE THE GET TOGETHER, Adrienne came over to Edenne's place to get ready. The floor was filled with unwanted clothes and accessories and it was frantic. Music was blasted and could be heard two blocks down, and Aria was annoyed.

"Can you shut the fuck up please?" She hollered from the other room. "Some people actually want to get some rest."

"Or maybe it's 3 in the afternoon, and you still have a hangover." Edenne shouted back, but she still turned the volume down the minimum. She groaned, shuffling and kicking the clothes on the floor away from her tiny circle where she could actually see the carpet and her feet. "It's just hanging out at the beach, we're taking most of our clothes off anyway, why am I so stressed out?"

Adrienne rolled her eyes and smirked, taking a candy cigarette out from between her lips, "Maybe because Dylan is there? You look fine, by the way. I'd suggest not wearing so many necklaces though, you might lose it in the water." She touched the gold charm on Edenne's chest.

Edenne shrugged away, holding onto it. "I want to keep this one on."

Adrienne shrugged and crossed her arms, tapping on her phone. "Whatever, babe. If you lose it..."

"I won't." Edenne bit her lip. She dragged herself to the full body mirror she had attached to the white closet door. She had a dark blue one piece on with a light see-through tee with the same grey sweatshorts she had on the day she bumped into Dylan at the supermarket. It wasn't much, but it didn't feel like she was wearing enough either. "Do you have everything ready in the car?"

Adrienne ruffled up her messy short pixie cut. "Depends what you mean by 'ready'." She smirked and looked up. "I have sunblock and two towels?"

Edenne rolled her eyes, laughing and smacked her shoulder. "Oh god, I thought you'd have more things. Are we having a picnic kind of a thing or are we buying food there?"

"You know that if there was a picnic, Dylan wouldn't have come. If Dylan didn't come, Markus wouldn't come either. And there's no way I would've let you go if it was only Alyssa and the other girls."

"True, he's always hated picnics. I wonder why..." With a sly eye, she peered at Adrienne and they both exploded with laughter.

Adrienne wiped her eyes. "Remember in freshman year when Alyssa tried to get us all to have a picnic in front of the school? That big ass lawn with hella bugs that was always wet?"

Edenne wheezed and fell on the floor, well, the clothes on the floor anyway. "Oh god, and she asked you to text Dylan to ask if he wanted to come with you guys and he said he'd think about it until he heard the word picnic. I still can't believe you lied to her saying that he invited me and wouldn't go unless I went."

"It was barely a lie ok? He would've done that." Adrienne winked, her dimple showing through her wide smile. "She got so mad he invited you because she hated you so much. And then I flipped the entire scenario around and said he wanted to go hiking because I knew she didn't want to go."

"She got so mad she actually said we could go by ourselves and I thought 'god bless'. I swear, I don't know what I would've done if it had to be me, Dylan, and Lyssa always sticking her ass in between us."

"True! And remember how her picnic sucked? I actually went to be nice and hear her talk some shit and she had two other people there and they got gummy bears. That lasted five minutes, and we were all just sitting on our phones."

"Oh yeah, you texted me and told me that she was trying to liven things up by playing music on her phone. That went well."

"Totally, there were howling winds and cars racing past us, what was she thinking?"

Edenne chuckled and pat her friend's back. "Let's go, it's about time. Isn't the beach an hour away?"

"Nah, you just haven't gone back in a long time. It's only about half an hour." Adrienne grabbed the keys and they took off.