There's a Playground

I sighed as I sat in my bathroom. Skye was tugging at my hair with my brush, pulling it into some complicated style. I could feel the weight of the hairspray she was using on my head and it disgusted me. I wished that she could have just let me leave my hair down instead of having to put it up in some complicated style. But that was asking for too much, apparently. I was sitting on the toilet, my knees in my chest as I faced the back of it. Skye was hovering around behind me. Switching from messing with various hair products on the counter and standing behind me to mess with my hair.

Currently, half of my hair was up and curled around my head. The other half was hanging loose as Skye tried to figure out what to do with it. “I think I like it down better…” Skye said from behind me. Sighing, I frowned.

“Damn it, Skye. Would you make up your damn mind already?” This was the third time that she’d decided on a different hairstyle. She’d been doing this ever since the movie got out. Craig stopped by her place, which turned out to be the apartments that I’d grown up in, so that she could grab her dress. And after that, he dropped us off at my place. I had been sitting here for the last hour and a half. It was currently five and I was hungry as hell. We had another two hours before the dance started, but only another hour and a half until Craig came to pick us up. “If you keep this up, we’re going to be late as fuck…”

“Ugh. Fine. Lemme just curl the bottom half of your hair and then we’ll let it down.”

“Damn it, Skye…” I sighed, nodding quietly. “Alright…fine. Can you just make it quick, though? You still have to do your hair and then I have to do my make up…”

“Can I make it quick? Of course I can, baby face.”

It turned out that ‘make it quick’ meant about fifteen more minutes of having my hair curled and another five minutes of having all the bobby pins in the top half of my head pulled out and another five minutes of some hair-spray “therapy.”

Which gave us roughly an hour before we had to be ready. I could get ready, easily, in ten minutes. Skye, however? I wasn’t so sure. So, as soon as I saw my hair curled to what Skye had called “soft wavy ringlets of perfection,” I was out of the bathroom to let my friend mess with her hair.

I showed my mother my hair before heading back into my room to change. I had this notorious thing with my hair that it never liked to stay styled longer than an hour if I moved my head at all. And considering the fact that I’d be changing and eating in the next hour, I didn’t think it would last very long. Despite the amount of hairspray that it had been plastered with.

I stripped down from my t-shirt and jeans, mindful of my hair, and went over to my closet to get my dress. I pulled it out, smiling, and removed it from it’s hanger. With that, I pulled it over my head, still being careful with my hair. I managed to get it over my body without any mishap. Now I just had to tie it up…

I walked out of my bedroom to the bathroom, smiling as I saw Skye juggling a bottle of hairspray, a straight iron, and two combs. “Hey Skye, when you get a minute could you help tie me up?” I asked and the girl nodded, reaching back to hand me the flat iron.

Fifteen minutes later, Skye’s hair was finished. Crimped and teased to a cute little scene style that fit her well. I stood still as she attacked my head with more hair spray before finally tying up the back of my dress for me. I returned to my room with Skye in tow. And as she got her dress on, I worked on getting my boots onto my feet.

“You sure your hair is going to stay tonight, Wendy?” Skye asked me as she sat next to me on my bed, she had one of my curled locks in her fingers and was twisting it around her fingers as I finished lacing up my boots. I nodded quietly.

“Um…not really. My hair doesn’t like staying styled for very long.”

“We should have done that last, then…damn. Oh well. I guess we can survive, it’s not like it’s that big a deal anyway.”

“Minus the fact that you spent almost an hour on it?”

“Yeah, I’ll get over it. Don’t worry.” Skye grinned at me reassuringly and dropped my hair as I sat up. “I’m hungry now. What can we have for dinner?”

“Umm…I don’t know. Let’s go check?” And with that, Skye looped arms with me and began skipping, in heels, down the hall. All while I stumbled after her. How the hell she managed to have enough grace to do that was beyond me…

Forty-five minutes later, with a half hour to go until the dance started, Craig was knocking on my front door and both my mother and Skye were shoving me back to my room so that I could “make an entrance.” I frowned as Skye kept my door barred from me going out.

“Hey Craig!” she called. I sighed, rolling my eyes and shaking my head uncomfortably. My arms crossed over my chest as I waited for that jerk friend of mine to move so that I could make this unwanted entrance that everyone else wanted me to make. Did that make sense at all? Probably not…

“Hey Skye!” I heard Craig’s voice and smirked impatiently as my friend slowly walked into the hall in front of me.

“Wendy! No! You have to stay!” she said as I tried to follow her out.

“Skye, I swear to god, if you don’t let me leave my fucking bedroom right now, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that my hair doesn’t stay like this as long as possible. That’s two hours of your life that you will never get back. Destroyed. In like…thirty seconds.” With that threat, Skye rolled her eyes and then grabbed my hand, looping arms with me as she dragged me out to the living room.

I have to admit, Craig looked damn fine in his tux. He was really, really…cute. I would totally have jumped on dating him had I felt anything for him more than just friendship. He grinned at me and I grinned back, giving a little wave as he walked over to me and gave me a hug.

“You look…wow, Wendy.”

“Wow? Nice word choice, Craig,” I joked, grinning as he pulled away. He was blushing slightly, and that kind of made me feel guilty and awkward all in one. “Well we should probably get going, yeah?” I said, looping arms with Craig as I started to drag him towards the door.

I didn’t really want to have to deal with my mom taking thousands of pictures. “Wednesday! Wait! Let me take some pictures!” Damn. Too late. I sighed, pausing in dragging Craig out the door and turning around to face my mother.

“Mom…” I whined, she merely frowned at me and nodded, pointing to the wall that separated our kitchen from the rest of the house. Sighing, followed Skye and Craig to stand over there.

Twenty minutes later, we were finally at the school waiting for the doors to open. Ten more minutes…

“Mabbitt! Where’d your date go!?” A familiar voice sounded and Skye and I both turned to see Ronnie, Max, Omar, Bryan, and Robert all walking towards us. I sighed, frowning at Ronnie. He seemed to take a double take at Skye. Oh yeah…he was very easily devouring her with his eyes. Max seemed to stop in his tracks and I smirked as his mouth opened in a surprised look. Omar had this goofy grin on his face that made me want to hug him even more than usual. Robert was with his girlfriend, who looked absolutely gorgeous as usual. And Bryan had his arm around a girl’s waist that I didn’t know. Which didn’t surprise me, that kid was pretty secretive…

Max, however. Max’s expression just threw me for a loop and I couldn’t help but to smirk at him. Craig’s arm was around my waist in a heartbeat and I smirked as I saw Max’s eyes narrow. So he was jealous of Craig for having me as a date then?

“Right here, Radke.” Craig replied, grinning. I felt almost like an object of…I don’t even know. I just felt a little awkward right now. The guys all gathered round, and Skye submerged herself in flirting with Ronnie.

Ten minutes later, I was dancing with Craig towards the back of the gym. After explaining to him my dislike for large crowds, he agreed to not be in the middle. And it’s not like we’d really be welcome in the middle or the front of the gym, anyway. Everyone up there was pretty much the whores. Minus Max and Ronnie, because they were back here with us losers.

Worked for me.

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Max’s pov

Holy shit. Wednesday was gorgeous. Yeah. When I first saw her next to Craig, I had absolutely no idea who the hell it was. I was about to smack Craig for standing Wendy up like that, but then she turned around after Ronnie shouted at him and my jaw dropped.

I’ll admit it. My jaw dropped to the floor and I’m pretty sure I haven’t stopped drooling over her since. Watching Mabbitt dance with her was about to tear me apart. It had been an hour and a half since the dance started and so far I’d pretty much danced with every cheerleading whore in the school. But the one girl that I wanted to dance with most was still attached to that kid that I was so fucking envious of right now…

I watched as Skye and Ronnie flirted together near the back of the gym, sitting on the bleachers. Ronnie had a lock of her hair in his fingers and I wondered if he was going to sleep with her tonight or actually try for a relationship. I was really hoping it was the latter. Because Skye was a really, really sweet girl.

I looked over to where Wednesday and Craig had last been dancing together. Wendy was moving to the doors, smiling that pretty smile of hers softly. Craig headed over to the bleachers and sat his ass down to Bryan and his girlfriend. Now was my chance. With a mischievous grin, I took off after my childhood friend out into the hallway, hoping to get her away from the younger boy almost permanently.

“Wendy!” I called after her, grinning as she turned around. The curls in her hair had loosened, though the ends were still in little ringlets. Her gray-green eyes met mine with a happy sparkle and I couldn’t help myself as I bent down and hugged her.

“Hey, Max. You look good in a tux,” she commented, a smirk on her face as she pulled away.

“Thanks. You look even better in a dress. You’re fucking gorgeous.” I smiled at the blush that compliment of mine caused. She was so pretty…

“Thanks, Max. What’re you doing?”

“Um…I actually wanted to talk to you about something…”

“Oh. Well could you hold on a second? I’m like…yeah, I’ll be back in like…a minute, okay?” I nodded quietly, watching as she abandoned me to head up the hall to the bathroom. I smirked, rolling my eyes and leaning against the wall as I waited for her to return.

“Okay, Max. What did you want to talk about?” Wendy’s voice startled me as she appeared out of nowhere beside me. But I couldn’t help but to smile at her. She was looking at me expectantly, but in a patient way. There was a soft smile on her face and I leaned forward to grab her in a hug. I wasn’t really sure, honestly, what it was that I wanted to tell her. But…oh well, let’s just dive right in and try for something?

She hugged me back before pulling back and looking up at me with a rather confused look on her face. “Um…is everything okay, Max? You aren’t…” She leaned forward and stood on her tip toes to peer at me. “You aren’t fucked up, are you?” she asked in a hushed tone. I shook my head and then decided to take a leap off the deep end for once in my life and lean down towards her.

I pressed my lips to hers.

And let me tell you. Sparks flew like mad.