Warning: mild foul language!!
After a gas station stop for snacks and an hour on the road, the two girls were finally to their destination: it was a somewhat old skatepark that had nobody else there. There was coloful graffiti all over the ramps and there were a few other cars there, which likely belonged to Kim and some others. From a slight distance, Lauren and Alicia could see some of their friends huddled together. They got out of the car and grabbed the snack bags.
Lauren went to grab her backpack.
"Just leave it. As long as there's no electronics in there to heat up it should be fine," Alicia said.
Lauren just grabbed a couple photos out of the front pocket and put her backpack down.
"What are those?" Alicia pointed at the photos, which were Rex and Lauren's prom pictures from last year.
"Oh, haha! Not me STILL missing Rex!" Lauren put the photos in her pocket and kept her hands in there as her and Alicia walked over to the girls.
"Lauren. You know, it's okay to still miss Rex. You two did make a lot of memories together. But I just want you to know that he's not worth your time anymore. And whether you have a man or not doesn't define your worth. Trust me, I learned that the hard way when me and Diego broke up. I thought I was nothing without him, but now I know I'm better without a man." Alicia finished off with wrapping an arm around Lauren as they walked.
When they got there, Mina, Ramona, Kim, Bianca, Jia, Sofia, Jenny, and Rin were there huddled together under a skating ramp: Mina and Rin were watching YouTube on a laptop with earbuds in. Ramona was brushing Sofia's hair. Jia and Jenny were talking to Kim and Bianca and Bianca was sitting on Kim's lap as Kim played with her hoodie strings.
"Oh hi, guys," Kim stopped what she was doing and her and Bianca stood up.
"What's in that bag?" Bianca took her attention to the bags Alicia and Lauren had.
"Oh, these? They're just some snacks and drinks we got when we made a quick stop."
"Oh, can we open them?"
Lauren and Alicia dumped all the contents out of both bags, shaking the sodas that were in the bags. Kim took a bag of gummy bears and a cherry Pepsi. Bianca took a bag of hot Cheetos, Kit Kats, and a Sprite. Alicia took a bag of Takis and a Mountain Dew.
Alicia then turned to Lauren, "Lauren, aren't you going to have something? After all, you contributed money into buying all these."
"No, I'm good," Lauren sat down next to Rin and Mina and pulled the photos from her pocket. She just stared at them for a quiet moment.
"Lauren, what happened?" Kim got closer to her and looked at the prom photos. "And why do you have those?"
Lauren got teary-eyed again. Fuck, Lauren, please don't cry again. Remember, he's not worth it anymore. But Lauren didn't listen to her inner voice. She buried her face into Kim's chest and started crying.
"Aaawe, honey! What happened between you and Rex?" Kim hugged Lauren tight and Mina and Rin took out their earbuds, turning their attention to the two. Mina hugged Lauren from behind and started rubbing her back. Rin seemed like she didn't know what to do, so she just stared at the group.
"Lauren, you can tell us anything. We're your friends," Mina whispered to her.
"What's wrong, Lauren?" Rin finally asked, just as concerned.
"Rex and I... cut ties."
"You mean-?"
"Y-yes. We broke up. And f... for good this time." Lauren cried even harder after saying this.
"Sorry, Lauren. Is there anything we can do?" Bianca also had her attention to the group hug and was side-hugging Lauren.
"I don't think so. I wish... there was. But thanks anyway."
By now, the whole group had their attention to Lauren and were all hugging her as she vented and they offered validations and advice.
A few minutes later, Kim looked down at her phone. The time read 11:49. Third period was almost over by now!
"Hey, guys!" Kim broke the group huddle as she sat up. They all looked up at her and Lauren wiped away her tears and blew her nose.
"It's way past the time we said we were going back to school."
"Oh shit! What are we gonna do?" Lauren quickly sat up and looked around at everyone else for a plan.
"I don't know! We need a plan!"
Everyone thought for a moment. Then Alicia blurted, "Just saying, since we accidentally skipped third period, we COULD skip the whole day!"
Lauren and the others thought about this for a few minutes. What if we all get caught? It could get us all in serious trouble! The only time I've ditched is for a whole day, with my sister! And we went to an amusement park. It was fun but I still should've been at school! Lauren dwelled on this.
But before she could say anything, Mina said, "Yeah we might as well. But I'll have to text my boyfriend about it first or else he'll worry about me."
Then Kim added, "Yeah we should all get ahold of our other friends so they're not worried."
Lauren went to text Rex, but she remembered that Rex could no longer care where she's at. Her heart was full of so much sadness. She at least texted her sister and told her not to snitch on her. Lauren could trust her sister to not tell their parents about her ditching again.
"Okay, y'all! We'll be migrating to the park closer to here! Let's roll!" Then Kim, Bianca, and Sofia grabbed their stuff and walked to Kim's car. The others followed along with them, including Lauren and Alicia to Alicia's car. In just a few minutes, the crew was at a park with a metal slide and a swing set with four swings. There was also a merry-go-round and a set of red monkey bars. Mina and Rin raced to the swings and Mina gracefully jumped onto one of them. Rin tried to do the same but fell over. All the girls and Jia laughed at this, including Lauren. Her and Bianca got onto the remaining two swings and all four girls started swinging. Then Lauren saw someone else in the distance. Her heart skipped a beat.
"What the hell?" She muttered under her breath. She leaned over to look closer at the anonymous figure.
"What's wrong, Lauren?" Rin took notice of Lauren's staring.
"I think someone else is with us."
"Wait what??" Mina stopped swinging as her voice got shaky.
Bianca stopped swinging on cue. She was oblivious to what the other girls were looking at. "What's going on guys?" She looked nervously at them. Then looked in the same direction. The figure was clearly walking towards the group. Then three other silhouettes popped up behind.
Lauren's heart skipped another beat. She could see the person more clearly. It was a tall, thin man. He had shiny black hair that was combed in an Elvis-like style. He was wearing a blue jean-jacket and darker blue skinny jeans. Lauren immediately jumped off her swing.
"Guys, we've got to go!" Lauren fumbled in Alicia's jacket on the ground in order to get her keys.
"What's going on Lauren?" Alicia took the jacket from Lauren.
"I-I think R...Rex is here with us! And he's with a few others!"
"What are you talking about, love?"
"I... I said that I... I-"
"'I' what???" A deep male voice popped up from behind Lauren. She jumped back into Alicia like a frog. Lauren and the others couldn't believe their eyes at what they saw.