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"—I just got so angry and the next thing you know I was right in front of him and I just aimed for the dick and—Gah! It was the coolest thing I've ever done!" Rosalie cried, throwing her arms up and collapsing onto her mother's chaise lounge in the office. She turned her eyes over to her mother, who had her hands steepled beneath her chin. "You aren't mad, are you?"

Her mother blinked, startled. "What? Of course not. That boy had it coming. But perhaps next time, think it through a bit more."

"Agreed. As exhilarating as it was, I don't think I'd kick another guy in the balls. That's just as bad as punching a girl in the boobs, which I would never do." Despite having it done to me on too many occasions, she thought, worriedly rubbing her boob where Ray had punched her that one day before class.

Her mother grimaced at the thought. "So you and Jamie, then? Going to Homecoming?"

"I think so? I hope I didn't ruin it by kicking Lennie in the balls," she confessed, biting her thumbnail. She waved her freehand dismissively. "I dunno. If anything I hope I dismantled their dictatorial patriarchy."

"That's a great start, honey."

"Thank you."

"What do you want for dinner to celebrate the rebellion?" she asked, and Rosalie thought on it before coming up with Chinese food. "I'll order that then. Do you think Sami would pick it up for us?"

"Absolutely. But only if he gets a little," she said, and her mother approved it.

Rosalie's phone buzzed, and she squinted at the notification. It was from the Welcome Back Party group chat.

___

Sami invited Jamie-Lee Berry to Welcome Back Party

SAMI: GIRL GANG OF BALL-KICKERS IS OFFICIALLY THE MOST ACCURATE GROUP CHAT NAME EVER TO BE PREDICTED IN THE HISTORY OF HISTORY

JAMIE: O my God

BRYNN: hOLLA

JOANNA: 🗣

ALYSSA: 🗣

RAY: 🗣

JULIANA: 🗣

ISAIAH: 🗣

MARK: 🗣

JADE: 🗣

LU: 🗣

ROSALIE: sTAHP oh my god it was just oNE TIME

JOANNA: make iT A THIIIING

BRYNN: kick ALL OF THE BALLS IN THE TWELFTH GRADE

JOANNA: LEAVE NO BALL UN-KICKED

ROSALIE: What happened to being cIVIL

Alyssa changed Welcome Back Party to Ball-Kicking Extravaganza

___

"Oh no," Rosalie moaned, slapping a hand to her face.

About an hour later, Sami came knocking on their front door, and together the three of them ate at the kitchen table. Sami cast knowing looks to Rosalie throughout the entire meal every time one of their phones buzzed. Rosalie scowled at him for starting the trend, and for even making the group chat a success for that matter. She turned off her notifications after a while and watched as her mother picked up a carton of rice and dumped the remaining bits onto her plate.

"Sami started a group chat of forty people just to discuss what happened today at practice," Rosalie said, and Sami slapped his chopsticks down and cried, "Don't make me seem like a fiend!"

Rosalie stuck her tongue out at him, chewed up chow mien and all. Sami fake-gagged.

"Forty people? Wow, I didn't know you had that many friends, Samuel," her mother said.

Rosalie's jaw dropped, and she laughed so hard she didn't make a sound. Sami was out of his seat, throwing his arms up, and preparing to dig his own grave.

"What does this Lennie Pittmen look like anyways?" her mother asked. "I hear so much about him, yet I still don't have a face to put to the name."

"Just picture Hollister model on a black and white clothing bag," Rosalie said with a sweep of her hands.

"Oh, like the one you cut out and pinned to your door when you were twelve?" she said, and immediately Sami was back at the table jabbing his chopsticks in Rosalie's direction. He slammed his fist on the table, and Rosalie crossed her arms, pouting.

"We don't talk about that," Rosalie declared. "And anyways, Lennie is officially on my no-go list so we can stop talking about him now."

"I can't believe I never knew he was doing that—" Sami started, only to stop when Rosalie glared at him hard enough. "Right. Sorry. Not talking about it."

"Thank you," she said, and went back to stabbing sesame chicken with her chopsticks.

Rosalie's phone buzzed, and she turned it over to find a chat from—

"Speak of the devil and he shall appear," Rosalie hummed, holding her phone up for Sami to see. "It's Lennie."

Sami's eyes widened, and her mother put a hand to her hair. "Why are we just now having boy issues? I wasn't equipped to deal with boy issues," she said, exasperated.

"What's it say?" Sami demanded, and then pointed a chopstick at her mother. "Hey, this is my entertainment of the year. I am living."

"That's because you live for drama, smart ass," Rosalie said, and her mom shrugged in agreement. Rosalie cleared her throat and read the message aloud. "'I'd like to talk to you if that's alright. Maybe tomorrow before school?' As if I'm getting up early for that dick."

"But- but- I wanna know what he has to say!" Sami whined.

"Then go in my stead," Rosalie said. "By all means."

"Can I?" he asked, and Rosalie shared a look with her mother, who raised her hands off the table in a show of I'm-not-getting-involved-whatsoever.

The next morning Rosalie kicked her feet up onto the dash of Sami's car and reclined her seat back as far as it would go without obstructing her view of the front steps of Bradshaw. Pittmen's familiar blue Maserati sat on the opposite side of the school parking lot, but just as obvious as all the other expensive vehicles from affluent, over-enthusiastic parents. Rosalie had on a Knights baseball cap and tipped the visor forward, only to lift it to meet Sami's eye as he headed for the school, and the statue where Pittmen stood.

She was hardly there for five minutes watching Sami and Pittmen when a knock on her window startled her soul to the Heaven and back. She had to do a double-take to realize that none other than Ray was standing there, gesturing for her to roll down her window. The instant she had it open a crack, Ray was leaning in, looking petrified.

"So I heard you and Pittmen are facing off," she said.

"You- I- What? Where did you hear that?"

"All over."

"I'm serious, Ray, I only told Sami," Rosalie insisted, and Ray gave her an unimpressed, bland stare. Rosalie winced. "Right. Probably not a smart idea. But I didn't want to talk to Lennie myself!"

Ray leaned in further to check the driver's seat, and swiftly put two-and-two together. She stared at Rosalie in horror, and then promptly unlocked Rosalie's door for her. Despite Rosalie's protests, Ray climbed in over her and took a seat behind the wheel after thoroughly ruffling Rosalie with a knee to the thigh, an elbow to the collarbone, and a hand to the boob. Rosalie straightened her shirt with a huff, and glared in Ray's direction.

The two of them peered through the windshield, only to scream at the sight of Lennie Pittmen far too close for comfort. He was making a beeline across the parking lot, staring straight at Sami's car. Sami was on the ground at the base of the Bradshaw steps. Rosalie shrieked and slapped Ray hard on the thigh.

"Drivedrivedrivedrive—" she screamed, and Ray slammed her foot on the break and started up the engine with a roar.

Lennie started running, looking panicked but no less guilty of a man. As Ray put the car in drive and surged forward, Lennie threw up his arms, yelling, "Wait! Wait, Rosalie—!"

"You massive sack of COW LARD!" Ray screamed, pressing forward with a jolt. Lennie narrowly missed getting his toe crushed, only to wind up on Rosalie's side, clutching at the window. Ray was screaming, swinging the car around in a half-circle before booking it around the front of the school with Lennie running alongside the car.

"Sweet Christian Baby Jesus—!" Rosalie yelled, trying frantically to shut the window on Lennie. Lennie's fingers pinched at the top.

Ray slammed the car to a halt, and Rosalie swung forward, slamming her forearm on the dashboard. When she recovered, Sami was in front of the car, looking perfectly fine, and more or less worried for the sake of his car. He came around to the driver's side and leaned in Ray's window.

"Who told you you were allowed to drive my car?" he said sweetly to Ray, who crossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air.

"Survival instincts," she said.

"Wait, Sami, you're okay. I thought you died," Rosalie said.

"What? No, I just tripped," he said, and Rosalie lowered her forehead to the dashboard, sighing in relief.

"Can you please release my fingers now?" Lennie asked, and Ray looked at him as if he'd just asked the stupidest no-brainer in the world. The answer was certainly no.

Rosalie looked over at Sami for backup, and Sami didn't seem all that worried, and so she unlocked the passenger door and stepped out, pointedly leaving the window the way it was. Lennie staggered to the side. Lennie (perfect, perfect Lennie) looked like he was prepared to get down on his knees and beg for mercy, but his fingers were trapped in the window, and Rosalie had no intentions of forgiving him at that moment.

She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, knowing full well she looked like a disapproving mother. "Well?" she said.

Lennie looked in through the window, catching Ray's eyes. Ray gave him the same, disapproving look. With a sigh, he turned back to Rosalie and said, "I didn't mean for it to get this far or even last this long—"

"What, your little crush on Our Dear Rosie?" Ray snapped, and Lennie pegged her with a glare.

"It's not a crush, okay? Not anymore, anyways," he added with a grumble, unable to look Rosalie in the eye. "After... what happened at soccer camp, I still really liked you, and with everything about the... name-calling and making fun of you I just didn't want the guys to hold that over your head. If you'd hear what they talk about in the locker room, you'd get what I mean."

"What, about me or just the female population in general," Rosalie deadpanned, rolling her eyes.

"Both. And I just felt... obligated to watch your back after what happened at soccer camp, and after telling the guys to shut up about you for so long they just sort of got the hint that you were off-limits in that sort of way."

"Then why are you pissed at Jamie for asking me to Homecoming?" she demanded.

He put a hand to his hear, looking just as exasperated as Rosalie felt. "Look, Rosalie, you're super cool and you're like a little sister to me. After getting over myself about crushing on you, I just thought it was shitty for the guys to talk about you like that."

"You're not some knight in shining armor, Lennie," she said. "And we've barely talked aside from, like... I don't know! Group projects and sporting events!"

"I'm sorry, Rosalie," he said. "Please don't be mad at me. I just—I hate seeing the guys break girls' hearts. I don't want Jamie to be your first broken heart."

"Aw!" Sami cooed from over the hood, and Rosalie pegged him with a glare. "Rose, ya gotta admit: The soccer boys are a bunch of heartbreakers."

Rosalie looked at Ray, who shrugged. "Jamie, not so much. He doesn't have the emotional capacity for it."

"But you see what I mean?" Lennie went on, and Rosalie scowled at the ground, scuffing her shoe against a pebble. "We don't have to be friends or whatever, but I don't want to be on bad terms with you. Especially since being on bad terms means getting my ass kicked regularly."

She pursed her lips, trying not to smile. She squinted at him skeptically before looking off to the statue in front of Bradshaw. After pulling off her baseball cap, she slapped it against her palm and said, "Not on bad terms, but I am not your little sister. We're literally the same age."

"Right. Agreed."

"And what you did was wrong, and if I catch you doing that to other girls, I will literally pound your face into next Thursday," she threatened, snapping her cap at him. He nodded fast. "And I may not know how to throw a punch, but I'm willing to break a hand over it. Got that?"

"Yes. It won't happen again," he promised, and she slapped her hand down on the window button to release him from his charges.

He rubbed his fingers and stopped to watch Rosalie as she threw her baseball cap into the back seat of Sami's car. She ran a hand over her ponytail and sighed, only to throw both hands in the air and whine, "My mom's right! Why am I have all this boy trouble now?!"

"It's 'cause you're downright irresistible, babe," Sami said, and made a kissy face at her and winked. Ray opened her door and slammed it into Sami's hip. "Ouchie!"

"Are we okay now?" Lennie asked, biting his lip, eyes wide with hope.

Curse him for constantly looking like a Hollister model, Rosalie whined internally. Of course she couldn't say no to that face. "Yes. We're okay now," she sighed in defeat, and couldn't help but smile when Lennie perked up.

"Perfect. Then I'll see you in French class," he said, about to walk away, only to stop and turn back with a firm point in her direction. "And I'll lay off Berry if you really are okay going with him to Homecoming."

"Yes! Yes, definitely. Totally okay with it," Rosalie said, and flashed him a pair of finger guns before he ran off back to Bradshaw. Rosalie slumped, staring betrayed at her hands. Finger guns? Why did I do that?