Chapter 33: I Really Didn't Ask to Be Here
Lauren's House
"It's not raining, so let's go!"
Jennifer grabbed Lauren's hand and pulled her toward the door, a flicker of barely concealed excitement in her eyes.
"Jennifer, if we're actually going, at least let me change first!"
Lauren planted her feet.
"Fine." Jennifer released her hand, glanced at Lauren's outfit with the critical eye of someone who took these things seriously, and turned back toward the mirror. "I'll change too. This one isn't quite right anyway. Dress cute, okay?"
"Sure."
After Jennifer left, Lauren went to her closet and thought carefully about what "dress cute" actually meant coming from Jennifer.
It had a specific definition. Too plain and she'd embarrass Jennifer by association. Too striking and she'd create the wrong dynamic — Jennifer was the one who made entrances, and Lauren understood her role in that arrangement without needing it spelled out.
There was a comfortable middle ground. She found it, changed, and checked herself in the mirror.
They'd been best friends since they were little. Back at their old school, Jennifer had been the one everyone noticed — cheerleader, the kind of girl who owned whatever room she walked into — and Lauren had been comfortably invisible by comparison. Jennifer could have drifted toward the more socially useful friendships that came with her position. She hadn't. They'd stayed close through everything, which meant more to Lauren than she usually said out loud.
Some girls had made comments over the years. Called Lauren Jennifer's sidekick, said she just went along with whatever Jennifer wanted. That wasn't true. It was just that their interests happened to line up almost perfectly, which made decisions easy.
Lauren reached up and touched the small pendant at her collarbone. A heart shape. BFF engraved on the back.
She heard the front door.
"She's here."
She headed downstairs. Jennifer had already let herself in, wearing something different from twenty minutes ago and somehow even more put-together.
This was another thing about them — Lauren could usually sense when Jennifer was about to appear. Jennifer claimed it was reciprocal and that she could predict the weather with the same accuracy. She said it as a joke, but she was also, inexplicably, almost always right.
"Good," Jennifer said, examining Lauren with a satisfied nod. "Let's go."
The Cooper Family Home
Meanwhile
"George, come look at this."
"What?"
"Our baby. Look how handsome he is!"
Mary stood back from Sheldon, who was adjusting his bow tie in front of the hallway mirror in a black suit, with the expression of someone conducting a precise calibration.
George Sr. leaned in the doorway with his arms crossed. "He's got my bone structure. I looked like that at his age."
"You absolutely did not," Mary said. She turned back to Sheldon. "Baby, you look wonderful."
"I know," Sheldon said.
He said it without ego, just as a statement of available information.
"Missy! Are you ready?"
"Do I have to go?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Shelly is your twin brother and this is an important night for him and you will be there."
A pause. Then Missy appeared in the hallway in a pale pink dress, looking like she'd rather be anywhere on earth.
"Look at my little girl," Mary breathed.
"I was found in a dumpster," Missy said.
She was, objectively, stunning. In a few years, when she visited Sheldon at Caltech, Leonard and the others would lose their minds entirely, which Sheldon would find both logical and mildly inconvenient — logical because they were twins and shared genetic material, inconvenient because it disrupted the established social order of the apartment.
George Sr. decided enough discussion had happened and announced it was time to leave. He took George Jr. in his truck. Mary drove Sheldon, Missy, and their grandmother to school.
Galveston County High SchoolClass of 1991 Graduation Party
"Hi, any chance we could get in?"
Jennifer smiled at the door staff with the specific confidence of someone who had never seriously considered the possibility of being told no.
They went in.
"There he is." Jennifer grabbed Lauren's arm and turned her toward the stage. "Adam Duncan. Hard Candy. Lead singer." She studied him for a moment. "Good looking, right?"
"He's fine," Lauren said.
"What about the drummer?" Jennifer pointed at Emmett, who was setting up his kit with characteristic enthusiasm.
"I'm good," Lauren said.
Her eyes had moved to Juno, who was standing at the side of the stage with a bass guitar, completely relaxed, like performing in front of a gymnasium full of people was the most natural thing in the world. Lauren watched her for a moment.
"Come on, let's introduce ourselves." Jennifer was already moving toward the stage, Lauren's wrist in her hand.
"Jennifer—"
"They're just people. Come on."
Lauren stumbled slightly, found her footing, and let herself be pulled along.
"Hi!" Jennifer stepped up to the edge of the stage with a full smile, looking directly at Adam. "I'm Jennifer. This is Lauren. We just moved here. Thought we'd say hi."
Adam looked up from his guitar.
He went completely still.
He had not expected this at all.
Of all the ways this night could have gone, of all the variables he'd been tracking and managing and quietly navigating for the past two years — Jennifer and Lauren showing up at the graduation party had not been anywhere on his list.
He looked at Jennifer. He looked at Lauren.
He looked back at his guitar like it might offer some guidance.
It did not.
End of Chapter 33
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