Song For Chapter- Feels Like Summer by Weezer and Heaven Knows by The Pretty Reckless

It was actually really really cold, and I hated myself for not bringing a jacket.

Cor was standing close to me, providing as much heat as he could, but it wasn't helping that much.

The only one who seemed warm was Pi, who was wearing a sweater. She was smart enough to look at the weather.

She had been giving me a lot of side glances all night, and some awfully mean glares at Ancer.

Li's headlights pulled into the parking lot and we all gasped with relief.

Li had driven Virlon back to Virlon's dorm that way he could grab the keys to the Rolling Rink.

Aria had groaned and moaned about how the good kids stripped the fun out of everything.

"Someone call Leo and Taria." Capri said, pulling out her phone. "I don't have any bars out here."

I looked at my phone and sighed. "I have bars, but barely. And I'm not calling Taria. I'm pretty sure she's blocked on my phone anyways."

Aria smiled a devilish smile. "Someone please call her. I dare them."

Everyone quickly put their phones away, including the guys who in their own way were scared of Aria.

"I'm not in the mood for Leo, either." Aris says, kicking a rock on the dirt road.

Cor scoffed, and hugged me from behind, draping his arms off of my shoulders. "Are you ever in the mood for anyone?" Cor mutters into my hair.

Aris rolls his eyes, and faces Li and Virlon as they stroll up to the doors.

"Finally." Capri mutters, shivering in the cold breeze.

Virlon opens up the doors and we all rush in, turning on lights and Aria slides over the desk to get to the skates.

"What size, Gem?" She asks, laughing.

I tap my chin and shrug. "Give me a size nine." She winks and turns around to grab a pair of size nine skates.

She hands them to me and I sit on top of the counter to put them on.

Cor smirks at me as he gets his own skates. "No no no, let me do it." He moves his hand down my leg and takes off my shoes. "Point your foot?" He asks. I point my foot and he slides on the skate, smiling. "Alright, the other one."

He slides it on the other foot, and ties them tightly on.

He tucks in the loose laces, because we all know they make the laces too long.

I look down, blushing and moving my hair behind my ear. "Wanna help me down?" I ask, raising one eyebrow.

He laughs, showing off his bright smile. He walks to me and I wrap my arms around his neck and he slowly lowers me to the ground.

When he backs away, I still loose my footing and he has to hold me so I don't fall.

"You do know how to skate, right?" He asks.

I shrug. "It's been a while."

He nods, staring at me like I was his universe. Like I held every answer and every key.

"It's so funny how I feel this way after the weeks I've spent with you." He whispers to me. "I'm so sorry, Gem."

I give him a small smile and shake my head. "Forget about everything, Cor. Focus on tonight."

He nods and puts on his own skates.

Aria skates up to us, skidding to a stop. "He can't skate!" She throws up her arms.

I bring my eyebrows together and tilt my head, studying her. She didn't look angry, but she sounded mad. "What do you mean?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes. "Sage doesn't know how to roller skate." She says.

I laugh, shaking my head at her. "Teach him, then."

Aria narrows her eyes at me. "Won't that take long? I mean... he's Sage."

I scoff, chuckling and grabbing at my side. "Aria!" I lightly slap her shoulder and shake my head at her. "That was mean."

She shrugs. "Only if you took it that way." She winks at me.

But as she says this Cor starts laughing hysterically, "Look," he says, and points behind Aria.

Sage stands in the middle of the rink and waves to Aria. "This is for you!" He yells.

Aris kneels on one knee next Sage.

"What is he—" Aria starts talking but stops midway as Sage lifts one leg and puts it in Aris's hand.

"Sage!" She yells, skating out to the rink. "What the hell do you—"

Aris lifts up and Sage bounces off doing an actual backflip.

He lands on his feet and skates backwards to Aria.

"Scared, Babe?" He asks, smirking at her. "No no, I said I couldn't roller blade. But roller skate? Hell yeah."

Aria slaps his shoulder repeatedly and huffs out a breath. "Jerk." She mutters, roller-skating away.

I look at Cor, frowning. "Why don't you do dumb stuff to impress me?" I ask, joking.

He mocks offense, and overs his heart with one hand. "Did I not just put your shoes on for you. I call that classy and much more romantic then trying to break my neck."

I sigh happily and lean into his chest. "You ready, Cor? You're about to eat my dust."

I turn around and skate away, rolling onto the floor and smiling as the bright lights turn off, and disco light turn on.

I smile up at Ric who works on the music, probably deciding that skating isn't his forté.

Everyone is on the floor now, laughing and chatting as we skate.

"And this one is for letting loose." Ric says into the mic.

A school bell goes off as a steady beat plays over the speaker. I perk up when I realize what song it is.

Heaven Knows. A good song to dance too. It has a steady beat and the chorus is the type of chorus that makes you want to get up.

Cor grabs my hand and smiles at me. "When did you learn to skate?" He asks.

"Aquaria taught me." I say, looking around the rink to see her skating with Minley. Well, more like racing him and winning.

"Really!?" He exclaims, picking up pace just a little bit.

I nod, picking up my pace too. "Yeah. We learned together."

He tilts his head, gesturing for me to explain.

"Well... after I got to the dorm, our dorm instructor, Drew, wasn't there yet." We may start living in dorms at the age of five, but we weren't completely free of adults. This world isn't that crazy.

A teacher lived with us until sixth grade, teaching us regular things. Every day things.

"Drew was running late, can't remember why. But Aquaria was there. We're both social butterflies so it didn't take long for us to become friends. We talked about a bunch of little kid things, when we both came to the conclusion that we wanted to do something fun. So... we decided to learn how to roller skate." I smile at the memory. At how simple things used to. "Why do you seem so shocked?" I ask.

Cor laughs, smiling at me. His eyes hold light in them and... embarrassment? Is he embarrassed?

"Well... Aquaria and Li taught me." He spits out, grinning. "I asked Cance to go on a date with me... to go skating because she was saying how she loves going. And then I realized later that I had no idea how to skate. This was back in middle school. Aquaria walked up to me afterwords when I started panicking and asked if I even knew how to skate. When I said no, her and Li taught me."

I widen my eyes, leaning forward. "So they taught you to roller skate!?" I let out a long breath, beaming at him. "Small world." I mutter.

He shrugs. "It is when you only know twenty three other kids your age."

I nod along to him, agreeing. "That is... sadly very true. Do you remember when Li asked Aquaria out!?"

Cor looks up to the ceiling, moaning. "Oh my god, yes! Sadly. I still get second hand embarrassment from that. Like, reading a book and the main character makes a—"

"Stupid decision!" We say at the same time, pointing to each other. "Agh. That was the best."

Li had bought flowers (this is fifth grade) and walked up to her, sweating like a pig.

I remember standing next to her as Li held out his hand, introducing himself.

Of course, we already knew who he was. Aquaria had told him this and Li just stood there like an idiot, stuttering.

He thrusted the flowers to her, telling her that she should go out with herself.

I remember him widening his eyes and shaking his head. He palmed his face and stuttered again, trying to talk to this pretty girl.

She had laughed and nodded her head, filling in the missing pieces.

He was fine after that, but that one moment was probably life-scarring.

"Do you remember when Leo had his first party and the cops got called on us? And we all scattered, leaving Sage passed out on the couch with a mustache drawn on his upper lip?" He asks, nodding to the concession stand.

I follow him up to the stand, nodding. "Yes. And the police, for the life of them, couldn't get the marker off!? They had tried to ask him if there were any drugs or alcohol and he was just so wasted."

"It was one time!" Sage says behind us, causing both me and Cor to jump. "And your forgetting the fact that I was only in my boxers. And I had whip cream all over my face." He smirks at us, grabbing a bag of sour patch kids off the stand. "I'm not the only one who's done stupid things." He gives Cor a pointed look.

Cor rolls his eyes. "And what have I done?"

"Must I remind you of News Years Eve? Hmmm." Sage widens his eyes at Cor.

Cor shakes his head madly at Sage. "Don't."

"What happened New Years Eve?" I ask, looking at Cor's worried face.

Sage looked up. "Cor snuck into Principal Anderson's office drunk."

I shrug. "So..."

Sage face palms himself and laughs uncontrollably. "He— he—" He can't even finish his sentence as we stand at the concession stand. "Oh Elders." He doubles over, trying to catch his breath. "Cor– oh my god." He clutches the counter. "So this dumbass decides to play Brittney Spears on his phone. He climbs up onto Anderson's desk and he drunkenly dances while basically stripping to Brittney Spears."

We laugh as Cor shakes his head, glaring at Sage.

I lean into Cor's chest, crying with laughter.

"Brittney Spears!" I laugh out. "Why!?"

Cor spits out a laugh, struggling to contain the rest. "I freaking love Baby One More Time."

Sage throws a fist up. "Yes! Class bad boy admits to listening to Britney Spears!"

Cor glares hard at Sage while I just imagine Cor dancing to Britney Spears, on top of the principal's desk, drunk.

"Hit me baby one more time!" Sage sings out, slapping his hand to his chest along to the beat.

"You guys are ridiculous." I say, turning around to grab a snickers bar.

"But you love us." Sage says.

I look at Cor. "I think I only love one of you guys."

Sage's face falls and he looks so... sad.

I don't understand why he's so upset, I was only joking. "Sage, I—"

"No no, it's okay. I'd say I love you too and we could run off in the sunset, but I am fully dedicated to Aria. Sorry to break it to you, Gem." He sets a hand on my shoulder. "I'm a taken man."

I let out a breath of relief and narrow my eyes at him. "I hate you. I thought you were serious."

Sage skates backwards, shaking his head. "Me? Serious? Heaven's no." He taps his chin. "Although, that would be a great April Fool's joke. Just spend that day being serious. Boom! Ultimate prank."

"How, how is that a prank?" I ask.

But before I could my answer, every single phone except for a few went off at once. I skated to my phone and noticed that mine wasn't one of the ones to go off.

"What is it!?" Cor asks, checking his phone.

I shrug. "Don't know, didn't get a message."

I look over Cor's shoulder to see that Taura sent a video. "Should we watch it?" I ask.

Cor shrugs. "Whatever it is, it can wait. Right now, we're having fun."

And we skate back to the floor.

"Okay okay, I have a song, I wanna sing." Li stands at the microphone, walking down to stand at one end of the rink. "Since school is over in a couple months... and probably earlier to be honest with the way things are going... I say that it feels like summer already."

Ric started playing the karaoke version of "Feels Like Summer" by Weezer.

And Li was surprisingly really good at singing.

It was almost funny how good he was.

It was like he had practiced this hundreds of times before, and took singing lessons all through his life.

His voice was so... natural though. It didn't sound like he needed to put forth any effort at all.

I think I like his version more than I liked the original song. And that's saying something because I hate covers.

But his voice was almost angelic.

Everyone was skating and dancing around the rink as music blared, and Li's sweet sweet voice ringing through the place.

"He can sing." Cor mutters. "Why do the people around me set such high standards. Backflips and vocals."

I don't think I was supposed to hear what he said, but I did.

I kissed the corner of his lips and put my hand on his cheek. "Cor, you have something no other guy here has."

"And what's that?"

"My heart." I kiss him chastely and pull back.

We stay like that, just laughing with the class and sharing fond (and not so fond) stories about each other.

I had no idea Pi was allergic to cats. But even though she was allergic to them, they were still her favorite animal.

I quote her on this, and I think it's something I'll remember till the day I die. "Why let limits limit you? Why not go above and beyond? Why let something hold you back, when you can do and be more?"

In the end we were talking about cats, but I still found that quote quotable. Sounds like something off of tumblr.

I was catching up with Tori, our class's girl Taurus, about whether or not pineapple belonged on pizza (it does), when Cance tapped my shoulder, fear pouring off of her in waves.

She was angry, and fearful. She wasn't crying but god the look in her eyes wasn't happy.

"Gem. You need to see this." She hands me her phone.

It was the video Taria sent out.

Tori leans over me to watch with me.

"Turn off the music!" Tori yells to Ric.

Ric shrugs and turns off the music.

I turn the volume up all the way on Cance's phone.

The video was shot through a metal fence at a place I know all too well. The Car Dealership.

She was on the side where the pond was.

I watch as Lucas gets out of the car with a young teen behind him. Ginny.

Leona follows after.

They walk to a van where men step out.

Taria is close enough to where if you listen real close, you can kind of make out what they're saying.

Something about giving Ginny up to these Officers.

I feel Cor tense behind me. "No. No." He mutters over and over again.

Ginny tries to run, but doesn't make it very far.

They continue arguing and conversing. Lucas is talking about how Cor and Leona will be safe from everything.

Leona brings me up. Saying that Cor isn't safe. Because I'm around.

"You can't have a relationship with a dead person, Leona. And trust me... Gem isn't going to be there for much longer." Lucas looks to the men and nods. "Take em' away."

Ginny knees Lucas hard in a sacred spot and tries to run again.

Lucas grabs her, and backhands her, sending her crashing to the floor.

Leona is trying to run to her, but her dad pushes her back into his car as the men take Ginny.

The video cuts off and everyone looks at me like they're seeing a ghost.

Who knows. Maybe they will in the future.

~~~~

THIS IS NOT EDITED! JUST A LITTLE NOTE

agh! Guys! The cat is out of the bag, I repeat, the cat is out of the bag.

This is frustrating. I keep trying to advance the plot line to wrap up the first book but like— ugh it's so hard because I don't want it to end just yet.

School is starting back up, and it's killing me. But I update more over the school year? I guess? I don't know. I have more free time during the school year.

You all have an amazing day and...

As always, stay happy, stay gold
-Dani_Kail