Lena

I can literally not get off of the stage fast enough, ready to go ask Beck if it was as bad as I think it was.

I can't believe I laughed at the theme. I mean, I can because it is so blatantly stupid. But still those girls on the dance committee already don't like me. I certainly didn't do myself any favors by pretty much laughing in their faces.

I look around backstage, peeking around the dark corners and even in the props room but I don't see Beck anywhere.

"Hey, Chris?" I call to the guy working the curtain. "Have you seen Beckham?"

He gives me a quick once over and then shrugs his narrow shoulders. "Ran off with Weston." He says, turning back to the curtain's rope. "Seemed like they were in a pretty big hurry to get out of here."

I don't hide my groan. Of course he ran off with him. So much for his promise to be right in the wings for me.

Weston freaking Ford strikes again!

I don't debate long on waiting. He clearly bailed on me so I might as well head to Trig.

I walk alone to my locker, going over the whole speech ordeal in my mind. Of course now it has stopped raining. I guess I'm just relieved that the whole thing is finally over. There are only a few more weeks of the school year and then I can avoid this place and these people like the plague for three glorious months before I have to come back for one more final year before I break out of this town.

I'm tired of living in the bubble.

Terrace Park, North Carolina. It sounds more like the name of an old folks home than a pretentious town too far away from the coast to be fun. Technically Beck and me aren't from Terrace Park. We live in Green Bay, the old working class neighborhood that skirts between Terrace Park and the rougher downtown area.

The bell rings over head and I sigh, I'd just pulled out my Trig textbook and closed my locker and now that class is over. Admittedly I'm not that upset about missing that class. I swivel back and pull out my English book instead. I linger for a moment staring at the picture of me, Beck, and our parents that is the only decoration inside of my otherwise completely boring locker.

We were all smiling and happy. One of the last times we were together as a family. I reach out to touch the corner of the picture, wishing I could go back. It's been just over three years since they died, but the twist in my stomach hasn't weakened a bit.

I jump when someone plants a kiss on my cheek.

"Yasmine, you lunatic, I just had a heart attack." I shake my head at her grinning face. Her smile falters though when she sees where my hand still touches the picture.

"You ok?" She says gently, her warm face open and caring.

"I'm fine." I nod, slamming the locker shut and turning to walk with her up the hallway.

My old clunky flip phone buzzes in my pocket and I flip it open and then shut it just as quick.

Sorry I had to split. West has an emergency and needed me. You did great today sis! Luv u!

"So..." Yasmin's prompts. "How awful was it?"

"Pretty bad, I think I'm mostly blacking it all out though." I try to smile but it comes off forced. "I'm glad it's over. Beckham and Weston are both up for King." I smile for real now. "Barbie King." I whisper and we both go into a fit of laughter as I tell her all about the new theme. We talk the whole way to class about the way I laughed on stage and then about how Beck and West disappeared before I was even off stage.

"Really?" She furrows her brow as she settles into the desk beside mine. "That's weird. He seemed so excited to come watch your speech and everything."

I chew on the tip of my pen like always and prop one foot up on the book basket in front of me. "Well, apparently, Weston had some sort of emergency that required Becks." I tell her, not bothering to hide my suspicion that it was in fact probably not an emergency.

"Emergency?"

"That's all the text said." I shrug. "Weston probably needed someone to help him read a milk carton or hold his hand while he got some STD results."

Yas snorts, covering her mouth with her hand and a couple of students on the other side of the room give her strange looks. She pulls it together and then leans over towards me. "You know to be such a nice girl you sure are a little savage when it comes to Weston." She smiles. "Seriously, why do the two of you hate each other so much?"

"I don't have the energy to hate him." I lie. "I've just never been able to stand him. He's loud and arrogant and such a man whore."

She starts to agree but then she pauses. "But aren't- sorry, weren't your families close? I mean, he's the reason you and Beckham go here, right?"

I know she isn't trying to upset me but her statement grinds my nerves nonetheless. "Actually I'm here because I got a scholarship." I remind her. "And either way, its with his parent's help that we got to go here, not Weston's."

My mom and Weston's mom were really close before she passed away. We used to always do Friday night dinners at their ginormous house. It was always fancy four course meals and then the men would excuse themselves to go smoke and drink on the back deck while the moms sat and gossiped for hours leaving us kids to 'bond'. Too bad they didn't know that Weston always locked me out of his room and I had to entertain myself playing with the old snake game on the old barbaric Nokia cell phone I'd find in one of the guest room junk drawers.

After my parents died in an accident, Marla, Weston's mom, still insisted on Beckham and I coming to eat with them on Fridays and they even payed in full for Beck and I to attend Plexer Prep until we graduate to give us a better shot at getting into a good college. It didn't take long for my grades to pick up enough for me to secure a scholarship and no longer need the help.

Thankfully once the boys turned sixteen and they had too many better things to do on Friday nights so we stopped doing the dinners. Now the Fords just call once a month to talk to me. They see Beckham pretty regularly since he and Weston are attached at the fricking hip.

"Right, sorry, didn't mean to strike a cord." She smiles at me. "I was just curious about you and your hate feud, but it's cool. So...to more important questions, what are we doing tonight? Want to hit the game?"

The game.

Every year the highest ranked Prep schools in the state do a special charity football game where the loser has to donate $100,000 to that year's charity that is drawn at random. Last year it went to the conservation of whales, the year before to orphanages in the state. It's for a good cause, if you don't think too hard about the fact that it's a bunch of schools playing as hard as they can to not be the one who has to give money to a charity, and I do kind of like football, but I shake my head.

"I should stay home with Uncle Terry." I tell her.

She frowns. "How's he doing?"

"Not great." I admit. "He's back at work now, but I don't like to leave him at home alone too much."

It's only been a couple of months since Aunt Lauren passed away. She fought long and hard but eventually her body couldn't take anymore of the radiation or pain. Once they sent her home she only lasted three days before slipping away in her sleep. Even though we all knew it was coming, Uncle Terry has still had a really hard time getting by. It's a lot of loss for one person to handle, first his brother and then his wife, leaving him with two teens to raise on his own.

"Ok, then let's both keep him company." She squares her shoulders meaning she is inviting herself over and there will be no telling her no. "We will have pizza and rent the new Ryan Gossling movie. It shall be a fabulous Friday night."

I hold my pen to my chin and narrow my eyes, pretending to weigh my options. "Hmm, I'll tell you what," I whisper as class begins. "Make it a slumber party and add ice cream and we've got a deal."

"Yes!" She pumps a fist into the air, getting a glare from Mr. Reiny from the front of the room as we both giggle.

***

Hours later we lay sprawled across my bed and staring up while we try to find faces hidden in with the popcorn ceiling.

With full bellies, and a sugar high from a whole pint each of Ben and Jerrys mint chocolate chip, we giggle endlessly about anything and everything.

I jump up on the bed and start jumping up and down, making my sheets kink up and Yas laughs before joining. "When I was little I used to jump on my bed and imagine I was practicing for when I go into real astronaut training."

Yas throws her head back. "You wanted to be an astronaut?" She giggles. "That's so ambitious for a kid. I wanted to be a pony with pink hair."

I jump down and walk over to my radio to check the score of the game. "Yeah well when you have a brother so close to the same age you tend to follow their lead. I was a bit of a tomboy."

Yasmine bounces back down and lays on her back again, "What about now?"

I grin, flipping through the stations. "Ha, well Beck wants to be a pro football player and since I have the athletic ability of a Twinkie wrapper I will have to go my own way." I laugh. "I'm a pretty good arguer, I've thought about maybe doing law school or something like that."

She puckers her lips and purrs. "District Attorney Lena Proper, out for justice." She says seriously. "I can totally see it. You'd make a hot lawyer."

I roll my eyes and turn up the radio. We stomped the other team and the cancer research charity won the drawing. I smile, thinking of my Aunt. Maybe this dumb game will actually help others who struggled like her.

As it starts the run down of the plays I shut off the radio in time to hear a door slam into the wall out in the hallway and then the sounds of someone throwing up.

Nothing will kill your sugar high faster than an uncle in mourning. "I'll go check on him." I tell Yasmine and rush out into the hall.

"Oh, shit man." Beckham's laugh rings out.

I walk down to the bathroom and find Beckham standing in the bathroom behind Weston who is gagging and hugging the disgusting toilet as his stomach shovels up more bile. "Fuck!" He cusses into it, spitting.

"What the hell, Beck?" I smack his shoulder and he turns to give me an impish grin but then he stumbles into the doorframe and starts laughing too.

Weston looks back to glare at me. "Both of you get out!"

Beck pulls me into the hallway and I narrow my eyes at him. "This was his big emergency he needed you for? A drinking partner?"

Beckham is obviously wasted, unable to stand still. "Nah, for real sis, he needed me bad. Some shit let me tell you." He shakes his head, and smiles to himself. "'Xcept I can't tell you cos this it's secret." He shrugs and then leans against the wall.

I just walk away and stalk to the kitchen to grab two bottles of water from the fridge and the bottle of Tylenol from the cabinet and then rush  back upstairs but as I turn the corner I smack into Weston.

"Woah." He laughs and then grabs the water from my hand. "Good idea." He nods at the bottle and not me then heads for the door.

I stall, but then rush after him and grab his arm, easily throwing him off balance and he tumbles onto the couch. "You can't leave like that." I tell him, crossing my arms.

"Cute how you think you can tell me what to do." He groans, holding a hand to his head and then pushing back up. "I've got to go though."

I push him back down the second he pops up and he starts laughing. "You know what, fine!" He says gruffly, a slightly green tint creeping into his complexion. He grabs a pillow and covers his face with it while I run to the kitchen to pull the trash can over to him. "Thanks." He murmurs into the pillow.

He stills and I'm pretty sure he's passed out but then Beckham bounds back downstairs and starts yelling for Weston. "Hush, he's sleeping it off." I whisper yell to him but Beckham ignores me.

"Bro!" He yells loudly, snagging the pillow from Weston's face and throwing it across the room. They're both still in their game jerseys. "You can't quit this early on a Friday night! We've got hell to raise! Plus you just found-." Weston bolts upright and glares at Beck, shutting him up fast. "Come on, party at Wheeler's." He says instead, grinning at him like a little kid. He always gets like this when he's been drinking.

I love my brother, but he's not perfect. He's flawed just like the rest of us. "A party?" Weston doesn't sound excited about it, which is weird because the two of them are always at every party. "You think that's a good idea?"

"Yeah," I agree. "Neither of you needs to be going anywhere right now."

"For once I agree with your annoying ass sister."

I glare at him but Beckham pulls him up by the arm, putting aside the bottle of water and drags him towards the door. "Party time!" He chants as he pulls the door open.

I run out to the yard in my flannel pajamas. "Beckham please! You're both drunk and probably high too. Don't go out like this!"

He runs back to me, pushing Weston on ahead. "Lena, I love you, but please stop worrying so much. You're going to have gray hair by the time you're twenty if you keep this up." He kisses my forehead and then jogs away, jumping into the driver's seat of Weston's car and peeling out up the damp road.

I stand there for what feels like ages.

When I can no longer hear the sound of their tires on the pavement I have no choice but to go inside and go back to my room after fixing the living room back up.

"Couldn't stop them?" Yas asks when I walk back into my room and slam the door.

I shake my head. "Please distract me?"

She hops off of the bed and runs across my room to turn on my PlayStation. "I've got just the thing." She assures me. "The Carrie Diaries marathon and popcorn with skittles!" She gets the show pulled up and then runs down to get popcorn.

A half hour later and four swoony moments in the show gone by Yas nudges me with her shoulder and passes me her phone. "He's fine." She tells me. On the phone is a Snapchat story that shows Weston, Beckham, and a couple of other guys running and jumping into the Wheeler's pool, coming up laughing.

Good. They'll likely be there well past two and end up passing out in the pool house like usual.

With an eased mind I finally throw myself into watching the show with Yas and having a good time.

We call it a night a little after midnight and I dream about being a fashion loving young girl working in the city just like Carrie Bradshaw. In the dream I have big curls and hot pink pumps and I'm ruling at everything I do except my phone won't stop ringing, no matter how many times I try to answer it. I try to ignore it, shoving it further and further down into my Prada bag, but it just won't stop.

"Lena." Yas groans in the bed beside me, waking me from my strange dream. Except that it hasn't all been a dream.

My phone really is ringing.

I slide it off of the table, seeing that it's after three in the morning. "Yeah." I mumble into the mouthpiece still in a fog.

"I'm Detective Rhoma, I'm looking for Lena Proper." I jolt upright, my mind instantly going to bad places. Did they get pulled over? No, surely not, last time they just threw them into the drunk tank and let them go in the morning. He's talking still but I'm focusing on the fact that the house phone is ringing too. I freeze when I hear a piece of what he says.

"Stop, wait, did you just say body?" My voice shrieks and I feel like I'm going to vomit. I jump up, screaming for Uncle Terry and shaking Yasmine as the detective goes on to tell me they need me to come to identity the body.

This can't be happening. It's still a dream.

It has to be a dream. This can't be real life right now. Identity the body? Like what is this? An episode of Law and Order? This doesn't happen in real life. You don't just get a phone call that shatters your entire existence.

I force my eyes shut hard, willing myself to wake up.

Wake up wake up wake up wake up

But nothing happens. The phone is still on my hand, he's still asking me questions. I'm not hearing a word though. It's like I'm underwater and I can hear the voices but I can't make sense of anything.

I'm drowning.

It's like an icy iron fist clenches my chest and won't let me breathe. My brother was just here. He was drunk and high but he was fine. My throat is caught on words I can't get out.

I never should have let them leave. I knew they were too drunk. I should have tried harder. "W-was anyone else injured in the accident?" I cry, Yas holding my shoulders.

"Accident?" The detective repeats. "There was no accident, ma'am. There was an altercation. The body we have here is a gunshot victim."

The body.

Just like that, my whole world changes again.

So much for Proper over everything.

So much for Beckham and I always having each other's back.

Now there's just me.