See Dot Smile

The Drama Club

If waiting for Joshua to get his "head straight" was the only thing I had going on in my life, I'd probably be in more trouble than a nightly round of fantasy driven self-gratification could solve. 

Lucky for me, I've chosen to throw in with a group of highly passionate individuals that couldn't avoid stepping in shit if they had GPS guided directions around it implanted in their brains.

Drama is thick among friends like these. And as the person with the least discernible amount of tragedy in her life, I'm usually the one left picking up the pieces when something (or someone) blows up.

* * * * *

"You look like shit," Kendall says as Lilliana plops down next to him at lunch, looking, arguably, like shit.

She glares at him over her forty-ounce iced coffee. "Want to say that to me again?"

"Yeah," he says. "You look like shit. Did you sleep under a bridge last night?"

She rolls her eyes, too tired to lash out at him. "I was up late finishing my admissions essay for Stanford," she says.

"The essay you finished in July?!" Kendall half yells, causing Lilliana to wince like she's hungover. "Why are you writing it again? It was fucking perfect already!"

"If it was perfect, I wouldn't be rewriting it," she growls at him.

Kendall scoffs and punches his empty soda can flat.

"When's the deadline for early decision?" I ask.

"November first," she says over a yawn.

"You still have a few weeks, then," I say, trying to be helpful but really poking the bear that is Kendall.

"She doesn't need a few weeks. She needs to send in the first essay she wrote. I read it. It's fucking perfect. She's wasting her time."

"Stop talking about me in the third person. I'm right here," Lilliana spits.

"ARE YOU?" Kendall bellows at her. "Jesus fucking Christ, Lilly. Just send the damn thing in and let it go. It's one school."

Lilliana tenses up like she wants to argue but channels her frustration into guzzling a third of her coffee instead. 

Everyone knows how important getting into Stanford is to her. If she gets into college at all, she'll be the first of her five siblings to do it. It's a really big deal for her and Kendall knows that. He just doesn't like to see her like this. None of us do.

"Are you still applying early to MIT?" I ask Tom, hoping to shift the focus off Lilliana and give Kendall a chance to defuse.

"I did already," he says. "It's my reach school, so I'm working on applications to fallback schools now and helping Marcus with his."

"Awesome. Where do you want to go?" Joshua asks Marcus.

"With him," Marcus says. "I'll go anywhere with him."

"You'll be with me." Tom smiles at him. "I promise. Okay?"

Marcus gazes into Tom's eyes like he's admiring a piece of art. "Okay," he says.

Joshua and I exchange a worried look across the table. Tom is a math genius, and it's unlikely he won't get into MIT and anywhere else he applies. Marcus is facing a lot of challenges. His grades aren't the best, not because he doesn't try, he just learns differently. And his family sucks. Well, his dad and his brother do. They've always expected Marcus to fit where he doesn't, and it's held him back for years.