Carry On

One

There was a girl in her room: a girl combing through her messy blonde hair like she always did.

Katie clicked on her phone so it would display the time. 3:00, it said. It was only 3:00.

She smiled. "Shay?"

Shay grinned at Katie. It was her wide, familiar grin that displayed her pearly whites and brightened her eyes.

"Katie!" she yelled, running across the room to greet her friend.

"I thought you weren't coming back until later?" Shay was away for two months over the summer visiting family in Europe. It left no time to talk or even text.

"I thought I would surprise you." she smiled even wider. They hugged for a long time, as if they would never see each other again, as if they were the only two people in the world at that very moment.

"Okay," they finally let go of each other, "there's a little get together at Toby's place tonight, and--"

"Already back in the swing of things, are we?" Katie laughed.

Shay nodded and laughed and turned around to pick up her purse that was sitting at the foot of Katie's bed. She pulled out her phone and displayed Toby's text message. "He said we should be there by 8, and I was hoping that you could maybe come with?"

"Wait, by 'get-together' you mean party, right? No. I refuse." Katie shook her head and collapsed onto her bed in exhaustion.

"Please, for me? It'll be fun, I promise."

"Maybe," she retored, feeling a little panicky in her stomach. There was nothing about Toby Allen that was partiuclarly interesting. He didn't scream "Look how interesting and fabulous I am!" to her.

Her mom would be arriving any minute, and to see Shay home so early and already raving about some boy's party would probably be a surprise to her too.

Toby was a jock, he was a stereotype. It was like everyone's world was filled with the one and only Toby Allen. Shay, being pretty popular at the high school, was close to Toby. She went to almost every one of his parties, and there was a lot of them.

Of course, no matter how many times Shay practically begged on her knees, there was no reason for Katie to go. It wasn't like there was anything fantastic about a Toby Allen party.