High School Has Its Perks

Karolina ran inside of the house. "GUYS!" she yells. "RANDY!" Sean watched as she ran over to Randy. He turned the music off and now everyone was looking their way. "There's been an accident" she said but Sean was unsure what she said last. Did she say accident?

"What?" Randy asked.

"Like two blocks away on West Main Street" Sean heard that. West Main Street was the busiest street in their town, car accidents happen their all the time.

"Do you know who it is?" Matt asked.

"I don't know, but I saw our school parking ticket on the car and panicked" Sean could see the horror on Randy's face. Leena turned to Bryan who shrugged.

"Fuck" Randy quickly grabbed his keys and ran out of the house. Matt stood frozen, his face was was pure white.

"Ok Party's over" he finally said. "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here" He left the house as well.

Sean looked around. "Where's Dakota?" Bryan asked.

"I don't know"

"Oh No" Leena darted up. "let's go!" the four of them ran outside.

"Let's take my car" Bryan said.

"It'll be easier on foot" Sean said. The four started running. They've grown up in the same town their entire lives, they knew the area well. They ran into the woods and kept running until they started to hear cars. Ross caught up with them.They saw the flashing of red and blue lights and followed it out of the woods. They ran down a street not caring if cars would come by. They reached the scene. Randy and Matt were standing behind yellow caution tape.

They stared at the massive car wreck. They all knew that whoever was in that car was no longer living. Sean spotted the school's sticker, you needed that to park without being towed.

"That's Dakota's car" Randy's voice cracked. He turned away and covered his mouth. Matt tried to console Randy. Leena fell to the ground, Bryan couldn't even believe it.

...

Sean slowly opened his eyes. He looked at his clock. 4:56 AM. He started to cry.

...

"Hey Ross" Sean walked into school and saw Ross immediately at his locker. "Can we talk, bro to bro?" he asked.

"Dude you look sickly" he said. "Have you been sleeping?" he shook his head. "What's up?"

"I keep having these nightmares" he said. "About the night Dakota died" Ross sighed. Dakota's 19th birthday would have been yesterday, so it made sense to him.

"You need to get closure, dude" he said. "You can't keep thinking its your fault"

"It is my fault" he said softly. "I didn't protect him" Ross had to turn around and face away from Sean, it just broke his heart seeing him like this. Ross got his composure and turned to look at Sean again. Those eyes, those sad blue eyes just stared into his soul.

"I don't know what to say" he said. "You just need to get over it" Sean nodded. Ross saw Bryan heading their way. He flagged him down and Bryan walked over.

"What's up?"

"Nothing" Sean quickly walked away sniffling and wiping his eyes.

"What's his problem?" Bryan asked. "Are Leena and Sean having a thing?"

"No it's about Dakota" Bryan sighed as he looked down.

"It was his birthday yesterday" Bryan said. "I can see this is really hurting him. All year he seemed fine"

"Dakota died four months ago and Sean is still messed up about it. If Joe dies...what happens?" he asked. Bryan shrugged.

"We never recover"

...

Stephen stood in line getting lunch. Deanna passed by him. He smirked and followed her, eyeing her up and down. She got a spoon then passed Stephen again.

"Hey" he called. Deanna turned around. "Deanna, right?" she nodded. "You're cute" he said. She blushed, smiled and kept walking.

She sat down with a few of her friends. "Is that Stephen Waters?" Deanna asked her friend Katie.

"Yeah, why?"

"He called me cute" Katie wasn't impressed, neither were her other friends Becca and Bella were not impressed.

"You could do better" Bella said.

"He's a druggie loser" Becca added. "You had Zack Moore, you can't be with someone who's not better than him"

"You have a point..."

...

Leena sat down with her gang at lunch. Joe was still in the hospital. "Ok I'm so swamped. Haggerty thinks its okay to give us two essays and a project due on the same day"

"Haggerty's a bitch" Bryan said.

"That's why her last name's Haggerty" Ross started. "She's a hag" they laughed.

"Bro's night at the hospital, right?" Sean asked.

"Yeah, my mom baked a ton of super healthy cookies for him" Bryan said. "She said she dropped them off this morning. He's doing well, his mom seems confident he'll be fine"

"I'm sure it's nothing" Leena said. "He knows what's wrong but he won't tell me..."

"What?" Ross asked. "So he has a diagnosis and shit?"

"Yeah, he's known for days" Leena said. "But he won't tell me" Leena got up. She went over to the food lines and grabbed a fork.

"LEENA, GRAB ME A SPOON!" Ross exclaimed. Leena smirked. She grabbed Ross a spoon and took a spoon for Sean too, she noticed he had pudding but no spoon with it.

Carly walked over and picked up a few napkins. "So how's your boyfriend, Joe?" she asked with a cheeky little smirk. Leena ignored her. She started to walk back to her table. "Is he dead yet?" she asked. Leena dropped the utensils, grabbed Carly's collar and punched her in the face. Carly fell to the ground.

"What the fuck did you say?" she asked. "What the fuck did you just say to me maggot?" Carly laid on the ground, holding her face. Honestly, she wasn't expecting that. With Karolina, you kind of expect for her to use physical violence, she has nothing to lose. But with Leena, especially with all the scholarships she could get, it wasn't in her best interest to hit a 14 year old when she's legal. "Wanna say that again?" Leena moved Carly's arms and pinned them to the floor, she straddled Carly's hips and continuously punched Carly in the face.

People started snickering and huddling around the fight. Bryan and the gang got up and ran over to them. Mackenzie ran over to Leena and attempted to pull her off of Carly. "LEENA STOP!" she cried. "STOP IT'S NOT WORTH IT" Bryan and Ross together pulled Leena off of Carly, she was crying.

"Why would she say that?" Leena cried. "YOU BITCH!" she made an attempt to attack Carly again but Ross held her back.

"It's not worth it!" Ross said. "Chill out" Leena, furiously left the cafeteria in tears.

"Sean, Brook, go after her" Bryan said. Ross and Brook left the cafeteria. Bryan walked over to Carly as she laid on the floor completely traumatized. "I don't know what you said" he started. "But you deserved it" Bryan turned to Ross.

"What the fuck do we do?" Ross asked.

"We don't tell Joe...let's find Leena"

...

"We see the movie and then I'm going to the hospital" Sean said. Dillon sighed. Sean bought two tickets to see the movie Gravity.

"I was looking forward to bonding with you, but I see I'm second on your list..." Sean turned to Dillon.

"That's not true" he said. "I'm dealing with a lot"

"Talk to me about it" Dillon said.

"Well" Sean handed Dillon his ticket stub. "Joe's sick, I'm failing math, Leena's having some serious emotional issues...mom and dad are fighting"

"Joe will be fine" Dillon said. "Math is math, I can tutor you...Leena will pull through and mom and dad...they got a divorce for a reason" Sean smirked.

"Have I ever told you that you are my favorite brother?" Dillon chuckled.

"I'm your only brother" they walked over to the snack stand. "I have to pee, bee arr bee" Dillon strayed from Sean as he got their usual movie treats.

Dillon walked over to the bathrooms, on the way he saw Nick Van Buren. How peculiar, Nick usually gets high all the time. He stalked him as he waited around in the lobby. And then Dillon saw Sydney walking into the theatre. Is there any correlation? Nick and Sydney are both freshman, yes, but do they know each other?

Sydney walked right up to Nick and the two looked pretty flirty. Dillon turned around and walked back to Sean.

"That was fast" Sean said.

"I can't pee, I'm witnessing betrayal" Sean was confused. "One of my friends is here with my friends ex-boyfriend"

"That's some serious shit" he said. "Girl or boy?"

"My friend is a girl"

"Ooh, tell me if there's a cat fight" Dillon rolled his eyes. "What? if someone broke the girl code they're going to sissy fight it out"

"Do you know someone who's broken the code?" he asked. "And what did you do?"

"Well Bryan dated Sohee after Joe did..." Sean started. "He lied to Joe about it for a while until he finally came clean"

"How did that go?"

"Joe was pretty pissed but he didn't lose it" Dillon looked over to Sydney and Nick, they looked pretty flirty. "Just tell your friend that your other friend is being a ho"

"But I like her" Dillon said.

"Obviously she likes someone else..."

...

Right after the movie, Sean was at the hospital with Joe. "Finally!" Joe exclaimed when Sean arrived. "We've been talking about Lil Wayne but no one knows him like you do" Sean smiled.

"What song do you need to know?"

"What album was How to Love on?" Ross asked.

"Tha Carter four" Sean said. "Why?"

"We wanted to know" Leena said. "I thought he only had three Carter albums...anyways, how was the movie?"

"Pretty great, we should all go see it sometime and by that I mean we should find it illegally online" Joe smiled.

"I get out tomorrow but I can't go back to school until Monday" Joe said. "So I say we have a movie night tomorrow night at my place"

"I'll bring the Taco Bell" Bryan said.

"I'll bring the porn" Leena said.

"I'll bring the alcohol!"

"Not surprised" Joe joked. "I'll bring the things we'll use to watch the movies on!"

"That leaves me with movies?" Sean asked. "Hopefully I'll find some awesome ones online...so what's going on?"

"We were just talking about Taylor Swift and then Kanye and then Lil Wayne and now we're having a battle on who's better, Kanye or Lil Wayne" Bryan explained.

"Awesome, who's winning?"

"Well..." Ross started. "Kanye is winning" Sean was flabbergasted.

"How could he be winning that arrogant narcissistic bastard!"

"Well Kanye's flow is awesome and his beats are fresh" Bryan said.

"all of Lil Wayne's songs sound the same minus How to Love and Prom Queen, which are a lot different" Leena said. Sean was disgusted. He pulled up a chair by Joe's bed.

"I can't believe I'm friends with you losers!"