𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚗 𝚀𝚞𝚎𝚎𝚗 ⚓ 𝙹𝙹 𝙼𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚔

02

“This is disgusting,” Kiara looked at herself in the mirror. The silk, purple dress wrapped around her body wanted to make her gag. She wasn’t the type to dress up, not like Malia anyway. She left the polka-dot dresses and cute color-coordinated outfits to her best friend while she rolled in with cut off jeans and simple tees with minimal design.

“I know. It's just horrible,” Her mother teased as she walked into the room, “I’m asking you to relax and go to a fun party,”

“I look like a bourgeoisie pig,”

“Will you please not worry about socioeconomic injustice for one night?” Mrs. Carrera begged as she fixed her earring.

Kiara rolled her eyes at her mother's request, “Mom, people not three miles from here have no power, no running water, and we’re going to Midsummers. That's so tone-deaf,”

“Honey, do you know how hard we had to work to get into the Island club?” the older woman asked, putting a stop to her child's rant.

“Yeah, mom. How could I forget?” The teen quipped with an eye roll, “You had to grovel for, like, ten years-”

“Twelve, and we had to cough up a huge chunk of dough, and do you know why we did that?”

“To keep up with the Joneses?”

“No. So you could have the same experiences that I had as a child,” Mrs. Carrera spoke softly, “Honey, do you know what the Island club is?”

“A factory farm for debutants,”

“It is a nice place, with nice people, where you can do fun stuff,”

“With out-of-touch rich people while the island sinks slowly into the ocean,”

Annoyed with her daughter's snarky remarks, Mrs. Carrera patted Kiara on the arm with a small smile, “Okay, I want you to put on your party face, Kie, if you wanna live” she glared before walking out of the bedroom, leaving Kiara alone with her thoughts. 

「 ₊˚.༄ 」

“Excuse me, sir. Do we have to shuck these ourselves?” Kiara asked Pope in a fake English accent, “‘Cause it might mess up my costume,” she smiled as he turned away from the grill.

The two shared a smile before high-fiving one another.

“Well, we wouldn't want that now, would we?” he played along, “That accent was bad,”

“Yeah, it was. I was gonna let it go,” Kiara agreed as she looked around, “You ever seen this many kooks in one place?”

“Yeah. Last year,”

Kiara scanned the crowd for her favorite kook, a frown forming when she couldn't find her, “Have you seen Mal?”

Pope shook his head, the last time he saw the girl was back at the Heywards, before the whole thing with Officer Shoupe, “No. Do you think she’s mad at me?” he asked quietly, a guilt knot forming in the pit of his stomach.

Kiara turned to face him, “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

He just shrugged his shoulders, tending to the grill, “I dunno, I guess I just thought she might be,” he wiped his gloved hands on his working apron, “How about JJ, you hear from him?”

“No,” Kiara answered, assuming that his absence was the reason for Malia’s silence, “He’ll be alright. He’s got the survival instinct of a cockroach,” she joked, easing the tension.

Pope looked down at his shoes, kicking at the perfectly mowed grass, “Its all my fault,”

“Come on, don't say that. You didn’t do this, Pope,” Kiara held the boy's arm, “Topper almost killed you, remember?”