Buzzed Hearts

55: senior lock-in

"AM I EVEN ALLOWED in here?" Camila whispers. They're in the boy's locker room and the only light in the room is the ebbing sunlight beating through the frosted glass panels.

    "No one's even in here," Laurent mutters.

    "Yeah, chill," Elle says.

    Jeremy finally opens his locker and they each grab their overnight bags from it. Pulling out an old jersey from the depths of it, Laurent pulls a face. Grabbing his soccer jersey back, Jeremy flings it at Laurent's head—who ducks away laughing.

    "Can we calm down?" Roma opens up her bag to pull out a soft sweater and she pulls it over her head. The temperature drops considerably as dusk settles.

    Elle, though keeping her distance, smiles. "It's not senior lock-in without some noise."

    "Amen," Laurent agrees.

    "What are we doing about our senior trip?" Elle asks. "Unless we're doing something special and exclusive, we should join the rest of our friends. I wanna go to an island. Hands up if we're doing some island."

    Camila looks around in the dark and sees that no one makes an effort to raise their arms. She would personally go somewhere more metropolitan and she doesn't even know if she can go, with all the master classes she'll be at over the summer.

    "I don't know about you guys but I'm going on a road tour with the band. We're really picking up gigs now," Jeremy says, leaning against his locker door.

    "It's the last time we'll be seeing each other in a while. And it's only a week. Tops," Roma puts in.

    Jeremy shrugs and raises his hand, along with Roma.

    "Majority rule. Is Andrew coming?" Elle asks Camila.

    "Maybe. I'll have to ask."

    "Is he even here tonight? I haven't seen him at all."

    "He's home with the flu. I brought him some snacks this morning and he's gotten worse."

    "We need him for the intramural game next week," Jeremy groans.

    "Wow, you really care for your teammates." Elle rolls her eyes.

    "He's a valuable asset," Jeremy protests.

    "No doubt," Elle says and slyly winks at Camila.

    In these past few minutes, Laurent's hardly made a sound and Camila catches it—she's always been observing towards her group members and she's usually the one to carry on the conversation if someone gets interrupted.

    "Are we going back to the cafeteria or?" Laurent motions with his head.

    "Is senior lock-in even really worth it? All these bonding activities?" Jeremy rolls his eyes.

    "Dude this is the last time." Elle smacks his arm.

    "Whatever."

    "Oh my gosh."

    "What, Jer?"

    "You know what we could do?"

    "Anal?" Elle leans agains Jeremy.

    "Satanic sacrifice to upgrade ol' Mr. Heck to Mr. Hell?" Laurent grins cockily.

    "Disneyland."

    "Disneyland."

    "Disneyland?"

    "DISNEYLAND."

    The idea resonates across every group member and each of their faces light up, one after the other. All previous mischief they were going to direct towards the senior prank suddenly veers towards a new prospect: Disneyland.

    "How are we going to get off campus?" Camila asks.

    "Fake an injury. Roma, you take lead. You have the most innocent eyes," Jeremy says.