Paperclips and Final Exams (Legend High AU)

Chapter 4: The Beach

Day

It's Saturday. June and I are planning to go to the beach today. I walk into the kitchen and see my parents running frantically around.

"Day. There you are we need to borrow your car." My mom says.

"Why would you want to borrow it? You said it's a piece of crap."

"That's why. We have to go to a really bad part of town today for a meeting and we don't want any of the nice cars stolen." She says.

"Well I need to be at the beach in like one minute."

"You can walk." My dad says.

"Can't I just take a nice car?"

"Don't be ridiculous." They say.

I spend the next five minutes trying to find my car keys and then run to the beach. I see June sitting alone drawing in the sand with a stick.

"Sorry June. My parents made me run because they needed my car. I don't know why, they think that thing's a piece of crap." I say.

"Okay but why couldn't you drive another one of the twenty cars at your house?" She asks.

"My parents don't trust me with those."

"Seems like if they have so much money the least they could do is spend some on their kids."

"I've told you so many times before. My parents don't care-"

"About you. Yeah I got it but why do you think that?"

"When I was a little kid I used to mess around a lot. We always had a nanny that I'd pull stupid pranks on to try to get my parents to notice. They just stopped caring. I guess I never grew out of the misbehaving bit."

"That's silly. You should be more grateful for what you have. I'm sure it's not true that your parents don't care. I'm sure they love you. Mine are gone Day." She says angrily.

"June I'm sorry you don't have parents but I don't either. They don't care about me. They don't love me like your brother loves you."

"I get what you're saying Day. But your parents are like millionaires. You live in a mansion and go to a prep school. I had to get in off of good grades and if I did half what you do I'd be expelled in a heartbeat."

"June I'm sorry you don't understand why I do this."

"Just. Please stop." She says. "My parents died in a car crash years ago and I don't want to hear about how your parents don't care about you. At least you have parents Day."

"Sorry." I say. She nods.

"What happened?" I ask a few seconds later.

"They got hit by a drunk driver." She says angrily.

I pull her into an awkward hug. "You didn't have to do that." She says.

"I know. But I wanted to."

"Thank you." She pulls back. "For all the things people at our school say about you they're wrong about one thing. You do care." I smile.

"What else have they told you?" I ask curiously.

"I've heard many things. Examples include you being careless, you hating our school, and you being a player." I laugh at the last one.

"Yeah right. I bet they just say that because I've flirted with some of the girls in my grade. Never actually kissed them or anything."

"Yeah right." She says.

"It's true. I've only ever kissed one girl. I was in like seventh grade."

A/N: so sorry this is really short but I'm trying to get to the next chapter sooner 😂 I'm going to mention it now in case I forget later but wink_me_m9 and Allyheart1014 both helped me with the idea for parts of the next chapter. Thanks for reading! Vote and comment!

-Ava