Saving Scott

13. "I'm friends with you because you're pretty to look at."

Junior year was different.

Lakyn and I didn't do any of the pre-school activities, Kaitlynn went to a few, but Matt and Juliet usually chose to hang out with us. We wasted the last of our summer in pools and laying around the James house watching horror movies.

Matt hated them, and after throwing one too many fits we somehow found something he hated even more: mini golf. Well, a version of it that Lakyn, Juliet, and myself came up with anyway.

The problem was that Matt and Kaitlynn took the game way too seriously, they knew rules that could have only been in a manual somewhere, and really it was just mini golf. Any sport that had the word 'mini' in the title wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

It was Juliet who started it, ironically enough. By deciding that she could redirect Lakyn's shot by just ... kicking it out of the way.

Unsurprisingly, that started an all out war.

It ended with a bruise on Juliet's hip the size of a basketball, and Lakyn's knuckles bleeding, and me laughing so hard I thought I might actually piss my pants.

We lost Matt and Kaitlynn somewhere. They were busy pretending not to know us. But personally, I thought it was a great way to end the summer.

***

"Did you know I had a baby?"

We all looked up at Juliet as she angrily plopped herself onto the ground. Her tray nearly fell over, but Lakyn grabbed it just in time. She either didn't notice, or didn't care, because she picked up a fish stick and threw it at the wall anyway.

"But..." Kaitlynn said slowly. "You're a lesbian."

Juliet threw her hands up angrily, and Lakyn snorted. "Shit, first day of school and the rumor mill is already working."

"Ooohhh," Kaitlynn said, realization drawing. "They're trying to decide why you were missing for so long."

"I fucking guess," Juliet muttered bitterly.

"It'll pass," Matt said. "Don't worry about it."

"It'll pass?" Juliet repeated. She looked around at our little group of friends, then towards the tree that Matt and I used to sit under. It was still full of people, and those people still technically liked me, but I didn't have the energy to put up with them these days.

Lakyn said it was because I was tired of pretenses. That I was becoming a more authentic person, and authentic people tend to be allergic to bullshit.

"Maybe it won't, so what, why do you care what these people think?" I asked.

She didn't answer right away, but Lakyn was watching her with interest while he ate. Finally, she said, "I don't."

"Cool," Matt said. "When people ask, can it be my baby?"

We all cracked up laughing and Juliet said. "Okay, okay, what else are people talking about other than me?"

"Not me, for once," I said. "I think I'm finally old news."

"Me either," Lakyn said. "Which is a nice change of pace."

Juliet sighed deeply. "You two are supposed to be the screw ups. Get to work. Do something dramatic."

We didn't, we liked not being the talk of the school, but unfortunately the rumors about Juliet continued to spin. In response to the pregnancy rumor was abortion, which somehow spun into the idea that Juliet had run off to become a porn star, but had quit when she'd gotten pregnant, and she'd had to sell the baby in order to move back home. At some point someone mentioned that she was a lesbian, which created a whole debate about if Juliet was actually gay, or if she just liked to play around.