At Least for Tonight

"Get your fatass up and help me get the last few boxes." Lauren yelled at Morgan, her voice strained from the weight of the brown box she was currently carrying.

Morgan hopped down from the kitchen counter which she had been sitting on and followed Lauren into the living room. "Lo, we're twins. You just basically called yourself fat."

Lauren scoffed and set the box down, "You and I both know we're not twins." Morgan shrugged her shoulders in agreement.

It was true. Well, technically speaking they were twins. They both had the same bone structure, nose, naturally puffy pink lips, 5'7 height. The easiest way to tell them apart was by their clothes, eyes, and hair.

Lauren had their natural dirty blonde hair, a more laid-back sense of style, and her eyes were a yellowish brown.

Morgan, on the other hand, had dyed her hair dark brown because she was annoyed when people mistook her for her sister, her style was more outgoing and ready for anything, and her eyes were a cold blue.

"Don't hate me 'cause you ain't me", Morgan joked as she jogged over to the back of the U-Haul truck that was in their driveway. There was one box left that she took in her arms before walking back into the house.

Lauren rolled her eyes and sat down on the porch swing that was right beside their front door. She stared out into the street until she felt a body sit down beside her.

"Can you believe we're actually away from everyone? No more hate...we're free." Lauren repeated out loud what was on replay in her mind. Her tone was almost a whisper.

"I told you this day would come! We don't need to think about all that shit anymore. Now it's just you, me, and Rachel." Morgan spoke and Lauren turned her head to face her sister.

"Where is she anyways? She barely helped move any boxes." Lauren added. They were speaking about their eccentric foster mom. She was always disappearing and going on adventures. It wasn't a bad thing - they could take care of themselves. They kind of liked the private time more.

"I'm not sure...I remember her saying something about exploring."

"Should we be worried? We should go look for her."

"I doubt she's in trouble. By now, she's probably in another state with some hippies."

Lauren let out a laugh, "You're probably right. So now what?"

Morgan stood up and shoved her hands in her pockets. She pulled out a rumpled bill of money. " I got...$5," She examined the green slip of paper. "Let's go see what we could do in Baltimore."

Lauren nodded and locked the front door with her new house key. She checked her phone to see if Rachel had informed them of her current location but there was nothing. The girls closed the back of the U-Haul truck and walked the streets of the suburb.

The town seemed nice. Kids whizzed by them on bikes and skateboards. Nobody stared at them which was weird for the girls. They were so used to whispers about them and people pointing but there was nothing here. They were just two regular girls.

The "downtown" area of Lutherville had quite a few people wandering the streets. The girls walked past boutiques, coffeeshops, restaurants but stopped at what seemed to be a pizza place called Gino's. They wanted to taste some east-coast pizza.

Inside Gino's, they were greeted by a long line that started at the door and ended at the counter where you ordered.

"You wait here and I'm gonna go play some of those arcade games." Morgan told Lauren, skipping away before Lauren could protest. Morgan landed in front of an old Pac-Man arcade game.

She put her game face on as the little yellow cheese looking thing began making its way towards the pixel ghosts. The noises of Pac-Man gulping down the pellets rang through her ears. She quickly glanced at the score which was getting up in the thousands.

The score got higher and higher as the ghosts kept getting eaten. Her sweaty palms caused her to make a left instead of a right and Pac-Man was dead. GAME OVER appeared in bright blue letters before the screen flashed into the high score board.

She typed in 'MOMO' when it asked for her 4 initials. She was in second place after someone named 'JAGK'.

"Next time, you gotta go up so that way you can avoid them both." A voice said from behind her. She was leaning over into the game so her butt was sticking in the stranger's face.

She whirled around and saw a tall, lanky dude standing before her. He had on black skinny jeans and a Blink 182 shirt.

"Nice shirt." She muttered. She didn't really want to get into arcade game strategies with a stranger. She walked over to the other games which all had the High Score page flashing. 'JAGK' was at the top of every single one.

She noticed that the tall guy had followed her. "Who is this JAGK guy?" She asked him. He smirked at her and ran a hand through his black fohawk.

"He's this gorgeous man who is a sex machine. He's basically the hottest guy at Dulany High. His eyes are this sexy shade of brown and his pants compliment his ass very well." He explained, a smile never leaving his face.

Morgan's face lit up, "Awwh that's adorable! How long have you guys been together?"

The lanky boy's eyes widened as someone burst out into hysterics behind him. She looked over lanky's shoulder and saw a boy who had a buzzcut dying of laughter.

"I'm JAGK or just Jack." Lanky spoke up quickly. Buzzcut guy walked over to them and slung his arm over Jack's shoulder.

"I'm Rian Dawson." She smiled at him. His teeth were extremely white.

"Morgan. I'm totally sorry Jack...about thinking you were-" She ran a hand through her hair.

Jack had a grin on his face, "It's cool. You must be new..."

She nodded. Was it that obvious? "Yeah, me and my sister just moved here from the west coast."

"Sister? Is she here?" Rian asked. Morgan looked over to see Lauren grabbing the pizza box from the cashier. Perfect timing.

"Yeah! Come, you guys can meet her." The two boys followed Morgan over to her sister.

Lauren smiled at the two boys, "Who are they?"

"Lauren, this is Jack and Rian." Morgan announced as she eyeballed the pizza. She was hungry.

"LETS EAT SOME PIZZA!!!!" Jack yelled, his voice echoing through the building. At least three people shushed him and he responded by slapping his ass.

The 2 girls followed the 2 boys to a table that was already occupied by another 2 boys and a girl.

"Guys, this is Lauren and Morgan. Morgan and Lauren, this is Zack, Alex, and Cassadee" Rian said while scooting in the booth next to Cassadee.

Jack signaled for the girls to sit first so Lauren had to slide next to Alex and Morgan was plopped between Zack and Jack.

"So where from the west coast are you from?" Rian asked as he took a slice of the pizza that his own group of friends had bought.

"California." Lauren responded. Alex's fingers kept tapping against the table and she couldn't help but listen to the steady beat.

He stopped once she mentioned California. "Los Angeles must be intense. We really want to go over there." He added.

"Sightseeing?" Morgan assumed. LA was pretty big with the tourists.

"More for music. We have a band called All Time Low and we're trying to make it big." Alex explained. You could see it in his eyes that he was extremely passionate about his music.

"I wanna surf." Zack finally spoke up. The girls had nothing against him but he was just always quiet.

"The waves are pretty cool. So what type of music is it?" Morgan asked.

"Like Blink 182 and Green Day.." Jack said. His slice of pizza had so much cheese on it.

"They're amazing." Cassadee said, resting her head on Rian's shoulder. They were in a relationship.

"What high school are you guys going to be at?" Rian asked.

"Dulany?" Lauren answered. She remembered Rachel mentioning that. Jack, Rian, Cassadee, and Alex all smiled widely.

"That's where we go! YAY!" Jack exclaimed while throwing and waving his hands in the air.

Zack stayed quiet, "I go to Towson."

Morgan nodded. Zack seemed cool to her. He seemed mysterious.

Lauren's phone buzzed in her back pocket. There was a text from Rachel:

went on a shopping road trip. i got some hot clothes for your first day of skewl!

Lauren winced at Rachel's spelling of school. She looked up and saw Jack playfully biting Morgan's shoulder as she giggled.

School would be tough but not as bad as back in Cali. Luckily, here, they had made some new friends already!