Just Revenge

Chapter Seven: Speedway

I feel like the responsible thing would be to tell the story of how driving to Speedway in a car full of my enemy and her friends was torture and I only got through it by reminding myself of why I was there. But that was so not the case.

We had a blast. Harper picked the music for the ride there, so I wasn't expecting much, but – as it turned out – it's really hard to screw up loud music in a car full of teenagers. Mostly we just listened to Mama Mia because we're theater kids and what else would you expect? The only bad part of the ride there was being squished between Cortland and Max because, if we're being honest, the only thing teenage girls like more than teenage boys is personal space. I didn't get any of that.

To make it worse, Cortland and Max developed a game as we rode. Every time they saw a red car driving down the road, they'd squish into me. At first, they did it by accident, but when I shot Cortland a dirty look as he did it, the game quickly became permanent. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it a little bit though. It was kind of nice to be accepted by this group.

At Speedway, we all piled out of the car in a leap, the only ones exiting gracefully were Harper and Aurora.

"I gotta fill up the car, but can you get me a cherry one?"

We all nodded at Aurora and walked inside the shop. Max reached the doors first and stopped to hold it open for the rest of us.

"Suck-up." Cortland threw over his shoulder as he passed through.

"Oh, shut up. The world needs more good manners in it." I cut Cortland off and headed straight to the back of the store for the Slurpees.

"Whose got Ror's?"

"I'll grab it for her" Harper grabbed a glass and filled it with a cherry freeze. I grabbed a 44 oz cup and mixed my half cherry, half coke.

"Thirsty?" I turned to see Harper holding her 22 oz glass Strawberry with a very judgmental look on her face.

"No." I replied bluntly, "Just cheap"

I heard Max laugh, "Hell yeah. Let's check out."

We walked to the register and paid for our drinks and I tried not to judge everyone on their drinks. But – in a totally non-judgy way – I noticed that Harper and Cortland got smaller sized drinks and just happened to be bougier of the two. Max and I both got the largest size still available for 99 cents and also just happen to be less bougie. Aurora's was the biggest size, but only three-quarters full, because she'd naturally find a compromise. Not to make assumptions or anything, though.

When we climbed back into the car, Max stole aux cord from Harper and plugged it into his phone. To be honest, I'm not sure his music was better, but it was definitely different. It was typical rich, white boy music – almost trap, but just a little too privileged sounding to really be trap. Embarrassingly enough, I knew a good portion of the songs though.

"Who am I dropping off first?" Aurora's voice cut through the blaring music.

"I'm not ready to go home yet." Harper whined from the front seat.

"Me neither." Max chimed in.

"Speak for yourselves, some of us need to get away from you people." Cortland's voice grated into the conversation.

Aurora's voice called his bluff from the front seat, "I could always drop you off first and then we'll hang out."

Cortland shot her a glare through the middle mirror but shut up. My eyes drifted out the window and caught on the dock. It was a fishing spot during most summer days, but by now most of the fisherman would be gone and the dock looked empty.

"We could stop at the dock?" I suggested.

"Oooooh, that. Definitely that." I was kinda surprised Harper was on board.

"I'm not sure things this hot mix well with water" Max tugged on his shirt with his hands to gesture to himself.

Aurora turned the car to the side of the road and started to pull off.

She smiled at me through the car's mirror, "Looks like the dock it is."