Lie Until You Laugh

46- Celebrations

“Okay, so is it just me, or do you guys feel like total celebrities too?” Stella wonders as we walk into the big field that usually holds Friday night bonfires but right now, it’s holding a barbeque-like party for all students and family/friends to celebrate the end of the summer which is apparently, doubling as our celebration for winning the biggest competition of the year. Everyone is looking at us and clapping excitedly, some people are even cheering.

“It’s not just you,” Mason shakes her head. “I feel like we’re the Spice Girls or something.”

“But there were five of them,” Stella reminds her.

“That is so not my point,” She laughs as we walk into the large group of people that actually part for us like a biblical representation of Moses and the Red Sea. “Maybe Destiny’s Child then, Stell.”

“I am definitely Beyoncé,” Stella chirps with a small giggle and I just roll my eyes at her joke.

“This is kind of so cool,” I breathe, taking in all of the attention that, most of the time, I’d cringe at but right now, it kind of feels really amazing. I mean, a few days ago, we won the most important competition in this school that is the most prestigious dance school in the country. That is pretty cool.

Not to mention the fact that Gianna won’t be here to celebrate with us considering she’s back home in Texas with her dad or wherever it is that she’s from because of the explosion. She’s lucky that the school didn’t press charges because she could have spent time in jail for that. Anyway, she got 100% expelled along with Ava, Darren, and Taylor because they were all caught on camera stuffing our makeup bag with the firecracker. None of them are coming back for senior year which is really amazing news for everybody else. They deserved to get expelled way earlier than this but I’m not complaining because at least they’re finally gone and we won’t have to deal with them for our senior year.

“Do you think somebody will ask us for our autograph?” Stella asks. “I have a really adorable signature.”

“I hope not,” Mason decides. “My autograph is absolutely terrible.”

“Oh, there they are!” I hear a familiar voice coming from in front of us. Looking up through the crowd, I see Liam pointing at us from somewhere above the crowd. He’s twice as tall as anybody else in the crowd and as we approach him, I realize that he’s so tall because he’s on Andrew’s shoulders.

Andrew basically throws his friend off of him when he sees Stella and Liam lands not-so-gracefully on his back in the luscious grass, so he’s fine and gets up to greet us with Andrew, Brian, and Anthony. I think Stella’s forgiving him now so Andrew and Brian are trying to tolerate him as well. I’ve been civil towards him for a while but I’m not going to ever be friends with him or like him at all. I’m happy for Stella though and I totally support her having a relationship with her brother, I’m just not going to have any type of relationship with him myself. Maybe I’m just holding a grudge but I can’t help it.

“Congratulations,” Andrew grins as he hugs his girlfriend tightly and then Brian does the same with Mason, hugging her while congratulating her.

“You’ve congratulated us about seven hundred times since Saturday,” Mason laughs into her boyfriend’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Stella pipes. “We don’t mind it at all.”

Liam is standing there and I don’t see Penn anywhere around us so I just laugh and, in the high spirit of the energetic party, I wrap him in a friendly hug.

“Congrats, Sienna,” He laughs.

“Why, thank you,” I chuckle softly, pulling away from him. “Hey, how come Stella never tries to play matchmaker with you? She’s done it with literally everybody else here.”