“I can’t believe our little girl is done with high school!” Roger said as he folded the newspaper and glanced at his phone. “Feels like just yesterday you were running around in diapers.”
“Always running, always on her way to somewhere.” Jodie added.
Meg shook her head. She could probably predict this conversation word-for-word. Her parents were great, and more loving than she could ever feel like she deserved, but they definitely had a penchant for reminiscing on her childhood days, and sometimes she felt like they still looked at her like a little girl and had trouble recognizing that she had matured far beyond that.
Jodie finished the last dish and turned around, drying her hands with a dish towel and leaning back on the counter. “And you were always the sweetest child. Sensitive, smart, hardly ever angry.”
“We know she’s the favorite,” Anna cut in as she filled her breakfast bowl. “No need to rub it in.”
Jodie gave her daughter a wan smile, “You’re all my favorites. Alright, I’m off to work. Meg, you’re parked behind me, honey. Can you move your car?”
“We have to leave anyway.” Meg said, standing.
“Mmph,” Anna protested through a mouthful of hot oatmeal.
“Just bring it to the car, slowpoke.”
“Remember your father and I are driving up to your grandparents’ for the weekend.” Her mom said, “I’m sure we’ll be gone by the time you three are back from practice today, and we’ll be back Sunday evening.”
“Of course I remember, mom.” Meg said, “I specifically used the opportunity to schedule a wild party here tonight.”
Roger chuckled at that, then his phone started ringing. He frowned and squinted at it for a second, then sighed, said “Work. Have a good days at school, girls,” and walked out of the room to answer.
A few short minutes of hectic activity later, the three sisters were rolling down their almost humorously stereotypical middle-class suburban street in Meg’s used Honda Civic.
“So, party tonight, eh?” Anna said, wriggling her eyebrows at Meg.
“Yeah, you know me: party animal. Think you can bum some booze from somebody?”
Amelia scoffed from the backseat, “I feel like that should be your job, Miss Senior.” – She paused, her voice getting a little more serious – “I bet Brian could get some. His parents are chill with him drinking.”
Brian was a classmate and friend of Meg’s, also on the track team. Anna grunted “Yeah, he would do it in a heartbeat if you asked him to.”
Meg glared over at her, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
It was Anna’s turn to roll her eyes at Meg, “The dude’s madly in love with you, Meg. He chose his college just so he would be in the same place as you.”
“That’s not true! He’s never even asked me out.” Meg exclaimed, but it fell a little flat and she knew it. Meg wasn’t blind, she knew Brian had a thing for her; he was cutely bad at hiding it. But it was also true he had never gathered the courage and taken the step of asking her out, so Meg followed suit. Her thoughts were jumbled in that area, but it basically boiled down to an aversion to risk. She didn’t NEED a boyfriend, and she didn’t want to lose a friend, so it was just easier to leave things as-is.
“A party WOULD be a great send-off to high school…” Amelia said leadingly.
Meg glared at her through the rear-view mirror. “I’ve made it four years being a good kid, not about to ruin it now.”
The conversation lulled, and to her surprise the thought nagged at her. Amelia was right, it DID sort of seem like an appropriate capstone for her high school years. Visible proof that she was old enough to take things into her own hands, do what she wanted to do, and be okay. But still… ‘don’t be stupid,’ she chided herself. How many times had her friends gotten in trouble for this exact same thing? Secret, illicit parties while their parents were away. The drinking, the sex, it was all so… rebellious. And Meg was not rebellious…
But what if she could be? Just once? It might be fun to try a little rebellion… She shook her head very slightly, trying to silence the nagging voice.
One of Meg’s favorite Taylor Swift anthems started playing from her playlist. There was still an early-morning chill in the air, but to give her mind a distraction, Meg opened the windows anyway and blasted the music. Her two sisters joined her in scream-shouting the lyrics. By the time they got to school, their faces were flushed from the wind and singing, and they jumped out of the car laughing.
—
Meg sat down in her homeroom just as the first bell rang. Her best friend, Sophie, walked in a minute later with an apologetic nod to their teacher. She sat right next to Meg and whispered a hello.
Sophie was a tiny brunette often mistaken for a freshman or even junior high-schooler. She stood under 5 feet tall and weighed notably less than her family’s big Saint Bernard. Meg and Sophie had been fast friends when they started high school, and Sophie’s inherently carefree, mischievous nature made a good contrast to Meg’s staid propriety.
“Alright class,” said their teacher, Mr. Burnstaff, a mousy early-30’s man who tried his absolute best to incorporate Star Trek references into math lessons, “I’ve got you for one more day, so let’s get started.” The whole class groaned as he pulled up a lesson plan slide show. Then he moved to the next slide, which just said ‘WHATEVER’ in big block letters.
“Kidding. I don’t want to do any more work than you all do.”
He spent the rest of class talking and saying goodbye to each student individually, which left them plenty of time to just socialize.
“Ugh, is this going to be how this entire day goes?” Sophie moaned, leaning back in her chair. “Why did I even come in? Could have been sitting at home watching TV and not wearing a bra.”
Meg glanced down at her friend’s chest, which was mostly flat, matching the rest of her slim frame. There was no way her bras were particularly uncomfortable, like some of the push-ups Meg sometimes subjected her C-cups to.
But she obviously wasn’t going to say that out loud; she knew Sophie already felt self-conscious about her body, and tried hard to help her feel beautiful when she could.
“I knoww… I guess we shoulda known that the last day of high school would be just as much of a slog as the rest of it.”
Sophie sighed and slouched further in her seat. “I guess I can take comfort in the fact that after this, there’s nothing but blue skies and college frat parties ahead. I can’t wait to meet some new boys that even MIGHT not be utter buffoons.”
Her friend shared Meg’s lack of relationship experience, but unlike Meg, Sophie was completely boy-crazy in a purely window-shopping manner. Her favorite conversation topics were “Can you believe HE is dating HER?” and “Who do you think is hotter, Boy 1 or Boy 2?”
“Frat parties, huh? Jumping right into the deep end, there.”
Sophie smirked. “I suppose I’ll have to. The craziest party we ever went to in the past four years included all of 4 people sharing a single bottle of my mom’s red wine.”
“Don’t look at me, I made sure we graduated without a criminal record.”
“It should be criminal to have so little fun,” Sophie muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, O perfect one.”
Meg narrowed her eyes. “Okay, listen.” She leaned over and took on a conspiratorial tone. “What if we had a party this weekend? Like, tonight?”
Sophie just looked at her blankly. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said, dope. My parents are out of town for the weekend, and I was sort of thinking… maybe it’s time to do something a little wild. It could be fun.”
A huge smile was growing on Sophie’s face. “Fun? Girl, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this. We are going to COLLEGE in a few months, it’s about time we broke the mold and figured out what not being the ‘good girls’ is like.”
“Shhhh keep your voice down!” Meg hissed. “I still don’t want to do anything too crazy. Let’s invite a COUPLE people, maybe have a FEW drinks, and send off high school in style.”
“Okay, Party Meg has entered the chat. Hey Tracy.” She said, leaning over to another girl in their class. “Meg’s having a party tonight. 7 pm.”
“Wait, wait, wait, I…” Meg started, but stopped herself as her mistake dawned on her. “I probably shouldn’t have told you anything, huh. You don’t really do small and subtle.”
“Girl, I do nothing BUT small.” the petite girl said, gesturing at herself. They both laughed at that, and spent the rest of class furtively planning.
Meg’s classes went by at a comfortable crawl. None of her teachers wanted to really do anything on the last day, so most of their time was just spent on meaningless small group assignments (read: excuses to hang out with your friends all class) or just “What are each of you doing after graduation” discussions.
Over the course of the day, Meg and Sophie invited all their closer friends, though Meg suspected Sophie’s definition of ‘close’ was a lot more generous than her own.
By the end of the day, Meg had worked herself up to be pretty excited. She was actually doing it: a secret party, while her parents were out of town. It seemed almost like a rite of passage.
To make the day even better, their coach cancelled track practice after school, and Meg met Anna and Amelia at her car right after the closing bell rang.
“Is it true?” Anna immediately asked her, excitement evident in her voice.
“You’re having a party?” Amelia addded.
“At our house?”
“Tonight?”
“Uh, did you guys practice that?”
“Come on, come on, tell us! Everybody is talking about good-girl Meg hosting a rager tonight! Is it true??”
“Um… ‘rager’ is very misleading, but… yeah, I guess it’s mostly true.”
The twins squealed in harmony and literally jumped up and down, peppering her with questions.
“We can come, right?”
“Of course we can, it’s our house, where else would we go? Will there be alcohol?”
“Wouldn’t be a very good party if there wasn’t. What about boys?”
“I mean, we all know Meg might not know much about throwing a good party. But will there be boys?”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Get in the car, we have some stops to make and I’ll fill you in.”
They stopped at a Meijer on their way home to pick up some light decor, disposable cups, two bags of ice, and a few two-liters of various sodas that Sophie had assured her mixed well with alcohol. The booze itself would be coming from Sophie (her older brother owed her a favor worth about two big bottles of vodka, apparently) and Brian (his parents would be willing to buy him some cheap beer for graduation).
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