Aven polished the medal that hung around her neck with her elbow and smiled.
"You're a glutton for punishment, you know that?"
It was the day following the Xcelle competition and Shiloh and Aven were setting up room 134 for the afternoon's SWIM meeting. The Oreos were in its regular position, adjacent to the punch, and the buttercup yellow walls radiated a sense of warmth.
"I like to call it a glutton for success." Aven replies, staring at her reflection in the back of the medal.
"I like to call it a load of crap." Shiloh fires back.
"I like to call it will you guys shut up and help me with this." Terri grunted as she lugged the whiteboard and a box of dry erase markers into the room. Aven carried the box to the couch and pulled out a magenta marker.
She turned to the board and in big capital letters she wrote 'SWIM's FIRST ANNUAL CHARADES BATTLE ROYALE'
"Too much?" Aven asks, drawing a border of flowers around the edges of the board and underneath the title.
Terri swipes a cupcake from its container. "Not enough if you ask me."
Shiloh is digging out an ancient speaker system from her bag and hooking it up to her iPod. After some cussing and agravated assault against the machine, an old Tupac song starts playing. Terri whoops and Aven bumps her hip.
The two thirty bell rang and David swung the door open, walking in on the girls' impromptu dance party.
He stiffled a snicker. "Am I inturrupting somnething here?"
"Um, yeah, the vibes." Shiloh says. "Make yourself useful and set up the chairs, will you?
David picks up a stack of chairs and begins distributing them evenly into a semi-circle. "And how many bodies am I setting this circle up for?"
"Fifteen. Possibly more."
"Hold up, we are talking about the same club right?" Aven inquires. "You meen to tell me you got that many people to join yesterday?"
Shiloh clicks her tongue approvingly. "What can I say? Y'all can thank my amazing people and persuasion skills."
And Aven had to admit that it wasn't. Sure, the snacks were stale and the people were far from normal but Aven saw that as a blessing now. After all that she'd been through, it would've sucked to go through it with a bunch of stiffs by her side.
Arms wrapped around her waist from behind. "So, Shiloh's decided to make me an honorary member of SWIM." Aven instantly recognized David's whisper.
"I wonder why. It's not because we value your good looks and dry humor." Aven says, laying her head back on his chest.
"Really? And here I was thinking that those were my best qualities."
Aven turned to David and grabbed his face pulling it closer to her own. "Shut up." And then they kissed.
"Gross and unnecessary, thanks." Thomas trotted into the room with his new freshman boyfriend in tow.
"Just like your lip, Thomas." Aven sneered.
"God, will you two just kiss and get it over with already?" Terri barked, through mouthfuls of cupcake. Both parties shouted a string of 'as ifs' and 'not in a million years'. Thomas' boyfriend looked genuinely scared.
As time went by, more and more people filled into the room. At twenty Aven stopped counting, convinced that that was it but sure enough - the people kept coming.
When Brooklyn walked into the room, there was a collective sound of every jaw in an eight mile radius dropping to the floor. She spotted Aven's shellchocked face first.
"Bullimia. Long ass story." She quipped before taking a seat.
At two-fifty, Shiloh had to close the door on two extra late freshman, to start the meeting. She looked around the now cramped room, the teens that were either in the circle or on the couch - even leaned up against the wall - and smiled. She grabbed her notebook and trusty pen and made her way to the center of the room.
"Welcome to SWIM everyone! Thank you for willingly choosing to spend time in this shithole..."
✖
a/n: and we're done!
thank you for willingly choosing to read this shit, i appreciate it and you and everything!!!! im literally so glad that ive finished this story which wasn't originally going to take up so much of my life/time, but in the end took nearly a year to complete (even though we didn't even get to 20 chapters, thats how lazy i am)
but yaassss, im outttt boi
-herexcellence
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The Imperfect Whistles of the Wind
Dla nastolatkówAven Scott's name has been besmirched. Her golden girl status, relationships, even her hopes and dreams have been tainted by the events of the last three months, and she's desperate to forget all of it. That's until she finds herself at a meeting fo...
