perfect? - montgomery de la cruz

Peer Pressure

Ashley was laying in her bed, looking at a picture of Jeff. The picture had been taken by Justin when Ashley was sitting on Jeff's shoulders and both of them were laughing. It almost looked like they were a couple but Ashley and Jeff had never been more than best friends. Justin gave her the photo at Jeff's funeral.

You loved him, I get it and it was wrong by me to bring him up so soon but that doesn't excuse the fact that you made everyone turn against me. Even more than before. Now when the boys were being assholes, you just looked and laughed at me. The only time you came to help me was when Monty was humping me on prom night. It took your boyfriend sexually harassing me for you to intervene.

Ashley snapped back into the real world when she heard a knock on her window and saw Monty outside.

She quickly put away the photograph, closed the door to her room and opened her window.

"Hey babe", Monty said while jumped into her room and kissed her.

"Hey", she answered and smiled at her boyfriend.

He layed down on her bed and dragged Ashley onto the bed.

"What did you talk about yesterday?", he asked and turned on her tv.

"We were just talking about how to deal with Clay and Justin seriously said that we could kill him and try to make it look like a suicide", she answered and shook her head.

Monty silently laughed and recieved a hit on the shoulder in return.

"Marcus also said that Tony took care of him", Ashley continued.

"Tony? That faggot? Nah, Bryce and I took care of it", he said and checked his phone.

"Took care of it? In what kind of way?", she asked, knowing that her boyfriend and his best friend were not a good duo when it came to doing stuff peacefully.

"Calm down Ash, we just ran him off the road", he answered and clearly was annoyed that his girlfriend cared about Clay Jensen.

"You ran him off the road? That's why his cut on his forhead was bleeding again at school", Ashley said and looked at her boyfriend with a shocked face.

"Yeah, so?", Monty said, still looking at his phone

"Hey, Bryce asked if we wanted to go with him, Zach, Justin and Alex outside", he continued and walked up from the bed, not even asking if Ashley actually felt like going out which she didn't.

The group were outside the local store and were waiting on Bryce to buy beer. Monty was sitting on the hood of his jeep with Ashley on his lap and the other boys were standing and talking.

Bryce got out of the store and laughed.

"Clay was in there"

And after Bryce said that sentence, Clay walked out of the store and looked at them.

"There he is! Jensen!", Justin hollered and walked up to the nervous boy.

"Come drink with us, buddy!", he continued.

"I, uh... Thanks, but I gotta get home for dinner.", Clay answered nervously since Justin never talked to him ever.

"Oh, that's cute. Come on", Justin said and pulled up his sunglasses.

"You come all the way out to Blue Spot. You let Bryce-y buy you a beer", Justin said, taunting the scrawny boy.

Justin put his arm around Clay and forcefully made him come closer to the group.

"No, I really gotta....", Clay said while he tried to walk away but Justin had a firm grip around his neck.

"No, at least you can do is drink with us", Justin said while ignoring Clay's nervousness.

"Come on. Drink your 40. Alex, you're up, man!", Justin hollered.

This is plain peer pressure, Ashley thought to herself. This is a try for power and it's working.

"Oh, yes, I love it, I love it.", Bryce said and grabbed for a beer.

"Freak versus geek! Time trial. Forty ounces", Bryce announced like he was hosting a fighting show.

He gave both Alex and Clay two beer bottles. Ashley was nervously laughing along with the boys but was still ready to help Clay any second.

"Let's do it", Alex said, giving in to the peer pressure.

"Don't you have a concert?", Clay asked Alex with a surprised and concerned face.

"I did, yeah, but.... actually, I quit jazz band.", Alex answered.

"It's just pointless", he added.

They heard a engine rev and saw a red car stopping. Tony.

"Oh, look! Your boyfriends's waiting for you", Bryce said and laughed.

Ashley kicked his arm while still sitting on the car.

"What? It's true", he said, still laughing and grabbed Ashley's foot.

"The record is 18 seconds", Zach said and patted Bryce's shoulder.

"Whassup!", Bryce screamed proudly.

"Wait, to drink it all?", Clay asked with a shocked face.

"Yes. To drink it all", Bryce chuckled and everyone else nodded.

"There's two ways you leave, Jensen: buzzed or beat down", Justin said while laughing but Ashley could see right through the laughing boy and figured out pretty fast that it was a threat.

"Come on, Jensen, don't be a biiiiiitch", Zach said and made the boys laugh.

"Alright, here we go, you ready?", Bryce said and started counting down.

Monty put his arms around Ashley and hugged her tight.

"You think he's gonna pull it off?", Monty whispered in her ear.

She shrugged and watched the two boys getting ready to chug the beer.

"Five, Four, Three, Two, One!"

"Go, go, go, go", everyone chanted.

"You got it! Come on, you got it! Go, go!", Justin said.

Clay stopped drinking to catch his breath.

"Come on, Jensen! No turning back! Let's go!" Bryce screamed at Clay and the drinking boy just looked at him.

Clay looked helplessly at Alex who was soon done and started chugging again.

"Come on, keep going!", Bryce screamed again.

"Come on Clay! You're doing it!", Ashley said while clapping her hands.

Everyone kept on chanting.

"It's so fucking close! Go, go! So close! Oh, my God, Jensen!", Bryce kept on screaming.

Clay finished first and everyone started screaming.

"Oh, my god!", Justin screamed and laughed.

"Attaboy!", Bryce said and punched Clay on the shoulder. 

"What the fuck!", Bryce screamed and laughed out of surprisement.

"Holy shit", Ashley said while laughing and got a hug from a laughing Monty.

"Okay, all right. That was pretty good", Bryce said and looked at Clay.

Clay turned around and walked to Tony, who seemed to be looking at Bryce with an angry face.

"What the fuck was that?", Bryce asked and turned to Alex who hadn't finished his beer.

"This tastes like shit", Alex answered and looked down at the ground.

"Fuckin' finish it anyway", Bryce said and pushed him.

Everyone got inside Monty's jeep and then they were off, to torture some other kids