jesse ranier

Paige turned as she heard a voice shouting. “Not mine!” she retorted, trying to match his enthusiasm, “why are we playing this game?” she asked.

“Yeah no I just mean that it’s- c’mon, it’s mean girls. You’re not catering to fans of musicals you’re pandering to fans of the source material. But I have been known to dip into that ‘I’m not like other girls’ complex so this could just be some warped sense of superiority thing.” Aubrey decides it’s best not to comment on how fetch or not fetch he is, and certainly doesn’t even consider any kind of ‘your hair looks sexy pushed back’ reference. 

She puts her hands up in mock surrender. “I never said Great Comet was bad. Hello I take creative writing, I love Tolstoy.” Ah- so he has a challenge to rise too? Well, Aubrey gets that. “And lemme guess, you’re gonna be one of the few to nail that note.”

“Do not try to take away my dream of some hot girl telling me my hair looks sexy pushed back, because I’m up for Aaron if we do it, and I want to be told by some hot girl that my hair looks sexy pushed back,” he says, all in one breath. Fucking theater majors with their stupidly practiced lungs. “Also, who’s to say that fans of mean girls aren’t fans of musical theater? I’m a fan of mean girls and musical theater.”

She hated to admit it, but he had a good point. The school was terrible at holding students to the code of conduct, so why should the students do any better? “The police let him go because he didn’t do it, though,” Sadie said, thinking back. At least that’s what the school had said. That’s what the police had said. “Why would they let him go if he did it?”

“Pasta that fucking bad?” Kendall asked, eyes wandering to the bowl resting in their hands. It wasn’t too late to turn around, to switch out their bowl with something better. Something like a grilled cheese, or even mashed potatoes. They hadn’t seen the kid a day in their life, but honestly, they felt like they could trust his opinion on something like this. They blamed being let down at this school one-too-many times.

“I’ll have you know the nurses said I was a ten when I came out the womb,” Ian said, puffing his chest out as the corners of his lips twitched upwards. It was the truth and Ian’s mother had written it very proudly in his baby book. That was besides the point, however. Ian surveyed the page in front of him, nodding his head in approval. “Blackmail- I like it. With a page as convincing as this, how could they say no, though? Maybe we should photoshop some of the faculties faces onto donkeys to solidify our point.”

“All babies are fat and ugly out of the womb,” Jesse informs him. “If the nurses told your mother that, then they were lying and I wouldn’t trust them to take care of a pet rock.”

Her eyes widened a little at his mention of blackmail, an edge of distrust creeping up around her chest. Did he send her that text? Did he know what she was doing at night?

She was so distracted thinking about it that his last question thoroughly surprised her. “Death Valley?” She drew back, concerned before the idea really dawned on her. “Because of… Last year? Don’t you think that’s a little insensitive?”

“That’s how we do it here in the Valley,” Sadie said with a disgusted smile. That aftertaste was never going to go away. She was pretty sure her tongue would be bright green pretty soon too. She felt more comfortable as Jesse took another sip, shrugging. “I’m 21, so I’m not going to worry about anyone else.”

“Mean Girls.” Aubrey’s eyebrows popped up, and she did not hide her distaste a second time. “How predictable. Great Comet as in the adaptation from a segment of War and Peace, though? That hasn’t been over-done, guess depends on how much your director care about having the theatre totally packed with people who think you’re ‘so fetch’ though.” She grins- Jesse knows she’s in cheer?? “Yeah, I am. Hey- more likely than you think, back when I was a freshman we had this one event where the pyramid formation was changed last minute and everyone flipped out. I get it, having no direction is totally frustrating.” 

“You know Mean Girls wasn’t on Broadway until last year, right? Please, tell me you know that. It’s not even a year old, it can’t be overdone yet,” he says, and this time he actually turns to look at her, fingers paused over the keys on his keyboard. “And a whole theater thinking I’m fetch doesn’t sound too bad, actually.”

“Solid fucking yikes,” Ian jokes, a hearty laugh falling from his lips. This was what he liked, what he needed. The banter and the teasing was just what made him feel like he wasn’t dying again. Like he was normal- like his body wasn’t decaying as he spoke. “We all start somewhere, I have faith that by the end of the year, we’ll be attending Death Valley University.”

“It’s mostly vodka, I’m pretty sure. But maybe a good disaster?” she suggests, trying to convince him to be her wingman tonight. It doesn’t need to be spoken. She just needs someone to watch her back and it can’t be Taylor cause she can’t tell her that she’s forsaking all her values and getting wasted with strangers.

Taylor would just worry. But Sadie was tired of worrying. She tasted some and her nose wrinkled immediately, but she managed to swallow a decent mouthful. “Gosh, that’s disgusting.”

“Petition a no-go?” Ian joked, setting his water on the table before sitting in front of Jesse. He hadn’t ate much yet, his stomach too violent to keep anything down at the moment. A perk of all his medication, really. He’d lost ten pounds over the summer alone and it was only time before someone started to wonder. “Or did you just see my face reflected on the computer?”