Planning Your Future

Gotta Get Back To School

August 13, 1991

Veronica's POV

I sit on the side of the road. "Great time to break down." JD sighs. "Yep. I can't believe our luck." I put my hands over my face. "Looks like I'm going to have to go into town." I stand up. "Not by yourself." JD argues. "Well you need to stay with the car." I argue back. "Fine. Take this." He hands me a whistle. "A rape whistle?" I scoff. "You never know." I roll my eyes, "Whatever. I'll be back soon."

Luckily we aren't that far from a town so I only have to walk for about twenty minutes. I look around for a car maintenance place. I walk until I find a towing place. I go inside and approach the front desk. "Hello, can I help you?" The man asks. "Hi, my car broke down a few miles that way." I point to the direction I came from.

I drive out with him to the location. I see JD stand up. He climbs into the truck and sits beside me, holding Slushy's cage. The man hooks up the car and gets back in.

We sit in the shop, waiting for the car to be fixed. JD has Slushy's cage in his lap. I lay my head on his shoulder. We wait hours for them to fix it. "I'm going to get us something to eat. I think I saw a McDonald's down the street." I stand up. "Okay. Just get me my usual." JD nods. "And take the whistle," He adds. I roll my eyes, "Whatever."

I walk down to the McDonald's and order our food. I am about to order a salad but the cashier laughs. "You're going to come to Mickey D's and order a salad? That's like going to 7/11 and ordering a Big Gulp." His name tag said Jared. "Sorry. I'm just not that hungry." I shrug. He snickers, eying my hand. I look where his eyes are and see my whistle. "Is that a rape whistle?" He asks quietly. "Yeah. My boyfriend is just a little extra sometimes." I put it in my pocket. "Oh, a boyfriend? Should've figured." He nods. "Well can I get my food?" I ask. "Alright," He sighs.

My food gets made. I take the food and start walking back to the car place. Jared the cashier pulls up beside me in his car. "Hey, you need a ride?" He asks. I want to say no, but I'm honestly not feeling the safest in this town and I feel like something bad could happen either way. "Sure." I give in and climb into his car. "So how old are you?" He gives me a kind of gross smile. "Nineteen." I subtly scoot towards the door. "Oh. So are you in college?" He glances at me and then the road. "Yeah. Harvard." I nod. "Harvard. You must be smart." He smirks. I see the car place and am relieved. "You can drop me off here." I point. "A car repair shop?" He pulls in. "Yeah. My car broke down." I tell him. "Well nice meeting you... Wait I didn't catch your name." He looks at me, clearly wanting my name. "I didn't throw it." I open the door and get out.

I come into the store and hand JD his food. "Hey, who just dropped you off?" JD asks. "Oh this guy who works at McDonald's." I sit beside him and start eating. "You got in a guy's car?" JD turns his head towards me. "JD, I had a chance of being murdered either way. We're not exactly in the safest town." He gives up the argument so he can eat.

Finally the car is finished after another two hours. "Thank God." We both get up. Now we gotta get back to school. Once all the business is handled, we're back on the road. "Well we just lost three hours of our trip. We're going to have to unload everything ourselves." I sigh. "It shouldn't be too hard." JD says.

We get to the dorms and sign in. The Resident Assistant, Elle is confused about us being late. "What happened?" She asks. We tell her the situation and she understands.

I unlock the door to my dorm and Erika comes flying out. "Where were you two?" She hugs me. "Our car broke down." JD tells her. "Oh. Well do you need help with stuff?" She asks. We both nod.

We get Kyle and he comes to help us. We get all of my stuff into Erika and I's room, then we do Kyle and JD's. Once everything is in, we go to our separate dorms.

Erika and I talk while we fix our room. "So tell me all about camp." She says. I tell her about the kids, especially Hannah. I also tell her about Alyssa and the other counselors. "Aw! Alyssa sounds great! I wish she could come out and keep her job. But unfortunately this is the world we live in." She sighs. "Yeah... So how was your summer?" I want to change the subject as quick as I can. "Good. Grey and I hung out a lot. Kyle's mom got him plane tickets for his birthday so he could come see me. He met my parents and they loved him." She had a cute grin on her face. "You two are so cute." I smirk. "So are you and JD." She nudges me. "Whatever. So what did you two do in Moraga?" I ask. "We just visited all my favorite places." She still had the grin. "Fun! Was Grey a fan of him?" I know he's met Kyle, but who knows how he felt about Kyle being in his house. "He likes him. He kept saying we're a perfect match." She rolls her eyes at the thought of it.

"Oh!" Erika shoots up and goes to one of her boxes. She opens it and pulls out a record player. "My dad bought me one of these along with a few records. I have Mariah Carey, Madonna, Celine Dion, and a few others." She put one of them on. "Now we have music to play while we get our stuff unpacked." She says. I laugh. Man am I glad to be back here!