Baby Just Say Yes

"Coslov, come here." The same police officer that arrested Rayleigh the night before called over to her. She slowly woke up from Brian's chest, and glared over at the police officer.

"Shut up. I'm sleepin' over here if you couldn't tell."

"Rayleigh Anne Coslov, watch your language!" She heard her mother say in a disgusted tone, as if she had just discovered that her daughter had a second head. Rayleigh's eyes snapped open.

"Mom?!" She asked. "What are you here for?"

"To get you out of here." She snapped back. "And you have some explaining to do."

"I don't have to explain a damn thing to you."

"Respect your mother, young lady." Her father said angrily. She felt a headache coming on. The events of last night were starting to come back to her, and she should have realized then that her parents would eventually find out what she'd done. She was a minor; the police couldn't very well keep her here without them knowing.

"Shut up, Dad." She said irately. She didn't feel like dealing with her mother right now, much less her father, a well known business tycoon.

"That's it! I've had about enough of your attitude!" Her mother said, stomping her Gucci-shoed foot on the concrete floor. Rayleigh smiled at her mother's temper tantrum, and she felt Brian shift under her head, slowly starting to wake up. She nudged him, to let him know to keep pretending to be asleep. Apparently, he listened, because she heard a light snore she knew to be fake a few minutes later. She'd known Brian since she was a little girl, and she knew he didn't snore. She smiled at the thought of Brian sleeping beneath her, and she looked back at her parents.

"Just go away." She told them.

"No. We're taking you home where you belong. You're going to shower, and change into some decent clothes. And then you're going to come with us church." Your mother tells you. "Now get your body off of that vile boy."

"He's not vile, mom." She argued.

"I'm not having this!" Her father said. "Listen to your mother right now!"

"I'm not coming out there willingly." She stated to her parents.

"Can't you do something? That's our baby in there." Her mother asked the female cop pleadingly. The cop smiled, as if it were a private joke, and nodded. She opened the cage up, and walked over to her. She grabbed Rayleigh's arm, and jerked her up, and dragged her across the floor.

"Let me go! This is police brutality!" Rayleigh told the police officer.

"It's nothing compared to a real night in jail, toots." The cop said coldly. "Believe me. I'm doing you a favor."

"I don't want to go home with them!" She argued.

"Are you eighteen yet?"

"No. But that--"

"Then you have no say. They are your parents, and you have to go with them. Your night's up." The cop said. "And the weed isn't on your record, your father dealt with it. I'd thank him if I were you; for a girl like you, that could have serious consequences."

"Don't you dare!" She yelled at her father.

"We're going home, Rayleigh. Now." Her mother said as her father grabbed her arm, guiding her out of the cop shop. She took one fleeting glance at her friends, who were now looking sadly after her. Jimmy flipped her parents off, grinning the entire time, and Brian's eyes seemed much sadder than she'd ever seen them before. She felt the tears burning her eyes before she reached the doors.

-x-

"I'm not going to church. You can try and make me, but I am not going." Rayleigh told her mother a few hours later as her mother was trying to force a prim and proper white dress on her daughter. She sighed irrately.

"Yes, you are, Rayleigh. Because I am your mother, you must listen to me. I know what's best for you, not you. Do you understand me?"

"No, I know what's best for me. And what's best for me is being with my friends!" Rayleigh screamed at her mother.

"They aren't your friends. Look what they got you into. Drugs. In my own daughter's possession. Weed, of all drugs!" Her mother said exasperatedly.

"What if it had been heroin?" She challenged her mother. "Or meth? How about ecstacy? Maybe cocaine?"

"How do you know about these things? It sure as hell isn't from your father and I." Her mother told her. Rayleigh rolled her eyes.

"I'm not exactly innocent, mother. You of all people should know that." Rayleigh said. Her mother's hand slapped her across the face, and Rayleigh glared at her.

"Don't you ever speak like that again! Do you understand me?" Her mother asked, her hand over her own mouth now. Before now, she'd never punished her daughter in any way, much less hit her.

"I'll speak how I want to speak. And I'm not going to church. You can shove that up your high society ass."

"Rayleigh Anne!" Her mother said. "You will not speak like that in this household. Do you realize how many sacrifices your father and I have made for you over the years?"

"What? Skipping out on a dinner party here and there to see one of my concerts at school? Not spending a vacation in Bermuda so I wasn't left home alone?"

"Rayleigh." Her mother sighed. "Get into the damn dress, or I'm taking you there naked."

"I'm sure the priest would appreciate that." Rayleigh told her mother sarcastically.

"Now."

Rayleigh sighed, and knew she wasn't going to win this one. Her mother walked out of the room, and Rayleigh pulled the dress on. She smirked to herself though, deciding she was going to fix the dress. She walked to her bureau, and pulled out a small exacto knife. She cut a slit on the side of the dress that reached up to her thigh, and she made another small cut from the shoulder down the entire side of the sleeve. She tattered the hem of the dress a little, and finally, satisfied with the dress, made more adjustments. She walked over to her closet, and pulled on some hot pink and black leg warmers, and wrapped a blue bandana with white stars around her left wrist. She'd gotten it from Brian a couple of years ago when she'd fallen off of a stage she'd been helping to set up and cut her elbow. He'd given it to her to stop the bloodflow. He didn't know it, but it was her most prized possession. She messed up her hair a little bit, and carefully applied some red eyeliner and grey eye shadow. She put on a little bit of clear lipgloss, and checked her fingernails, making sure the black and lime green nail polish was not chipped. It was perfect. She smiled. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it her way. She walked out of her bedroom, hiding her cell phone in her Jack Skellington purse along with her black Zune. Her mother, who had been walking to Rayleigh's room, stared at her daughter in horror.

"What happened to the dress?" She asked, her voice sounding as if she was in pain.

"I fixed it." Rayleigh told her, smiling. "It just needed a few minor adjustments, nothing to worry about."

"You're not going to church looking like that." Her mother told her.

"Then I'm not going to church."

"Rayleigh, stop fighting me!" Her mother told her. "I've about had it with this new attitude!"

"Get used to it, because until you'll let me see my friends again, the new me is here to stay." Rayleigh announced. Her mother sighed, and looked at her watch.

"You don't have time to change. I guess you'll just have to deal with the repercussions."

"Big deal." Rayleigh scoffed. "I've handled worse."

-x-

At the church, all eyes were on Rayleigh and her parents, who were blushing in embarassment. They sat at the back of the church, hoping to divert attention, but it didn't work. During the entire one and a half hour sermon, people kept whispering about the Coslov's Satanic daughter and their inability to properly care for her. She felt the phone vibrate in her purse, but because she didn't want to risk her parents finding it, she didn't open it to see who had texted her. She was pretty sure it was Brian or one of the guys, but she couldn't be sure. She scanned the church, and was shocked to see Holly, Jimmy's drug dealer, sitting with her parents in the fourth row from the front, looking completely different. After the sermon an older woman and her husband walked up, a boy about Rayleigh's age in between them, a smug smile on his face. Rayleigh studied him, and decided in her head that he was a jock. He was wearing perfectly pressed black slacks, black dress shoes, and a button up blue and white stripped shirt with a black tie. His hair was neatly trimmed, and on his hand was a school ring with a red ruby in the middle. She rolled her eyes, automatically not liking him. He studied her as well, and apparently liked what he saw.

"Mrs. Coslov, this is our nephew Herald." The woman said, as if this were a fact to be proud of. Rayleigh kept a giggle inside herself. What kind of person in this day and age named their son Herald?

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Herald. This is our daughter Rayleigh. Perhaps you can knock some sense into her." Her father told them, shaking Herald's hand firmly.

"I'm sure I could." Herald agreed. "It's amazing what a little bit of coverup and a trip to American Eagle could do for a girl."

"I hate American Eagle. And Aeropostale. And while I'm at it, Christopher and Banks and Calvin Klein too." Rayleigh announced. Herald looked at her.

"Well then where do you shop?"

"Hot Topic, Pac Sun, and Spencer's." She announced happily. She wished she had a camera; the look on their faces was priceless.

"Mr. Coslov, if you'd let Rayleigh and I grow a friendship, perhaps I could get her into some more Christian stores." Herald offered. Rayleigh's parents brimmed.

"Absolutely."