Nevermind [90s fic]

Chapter 9: Common Denominator

"But Marilyn isn't a dyke, I'd know it if she were," added Carlie, gradually getting into deep thought about it.

Karla cringed and suddenly changed gears. "I'm kind of flunking math, I was gonna ask her to tutor me. I heard she's, like, the best in school and, like...I don't know. I just figured it wouldn't be a problem—"

"Uhhh, it would?" Normani grimaced. "You'd be the next Molly Turner, trust me you don't want that. Just get another tutor. Jauregui may be smart, I'll give her that, but she's bad news. Besides, I think that whole tutor thing she does sometimes is a front to convert new people to her group of loaded idiots or something."

"I bet that if she were to tutor you and if you got close to her she'd make a move on you. That's why she doesn't have any female friends and only hangs out with her sister," Carlie giggles. "It'd be pretty sick to hit on your sister. Trust me, Camila, you're dodging a bullet by staying away from her."

"But Lauren has a boyfriend? Do you guys not see how all over him she is?? They're like a married couple but except what joins them aren't rings, it's their tongues," Karla's face scrunches in disgust as she hastily throws her lent out makeup items into her bag. "I don't know why you guys keep insisting that she's gay, it doesn't make any sense."

"She kissed a girl, remember?" Normani almost shouts it.

"What if Molly kissed her, Lauren rejected her and Molly just got so mad that she blabbed about it being the other way around to the entire school? Out of fear of Lauren doing it to her first? That also makes sense."

"Camila, honey," Carlie sighed and went to hold onto her shoulders. She smiled sympathetically and said, "Don't fool yourself. If that were true, Lauren wouldn't be so upset about it or hiding from us all the time. But anyway, if that bitch does something to you, you tell us about it and all of us will set her straight. Don't worry."

-

[The song being sung is Hard To Handle by The Black Crowes]

"Baby, here I am, I'm the man on the scene!
I can give you what you want but you gotta come home with me. I've got some good old lovin' and I got some more in store. When I get through throwin' it on you you gotta come back for more!"

Marilyn sang with her best rugged impression of the singer and danced on the desks in the classroom with swagger and provocation. Her classmates raised the noise level with their amusement and support, Danny used two pencils to drum against his binder and desk, two classroom idiots made guitar sounds and got up to pretend as if they were holding one. Marilyn skipped across to another desk and swayed her dipping hips, pursing her lips and whipping her hair side to side.

"Boys and things that come by the dozen, that ain't nothin' but drugstore lovin'! Hey little thing, let me light your candle 'cause, mama, I'm sure hard to handle now, gets around! Hey!" Marilyn peered over her shoulder and laughed at some silly comment a boy made about her. Something about the song playing for her video shoot for Playboy magazine when she's finally legal.

Lauren was sat all the way at the back of the classroom with the sole of her combat boot against the back of the chair in front of her, notebook against her raised thigh and her thick mane falling all over her face as she buried herself into her scribbled writings. Frankly she ignored the chaos happening in her unattended Math class; normally she'd join in but today had the slim chance of zero for that to occur. Julian and Danny kept calling for her, she ignored them too. Lauren only looked up whenever someone bumped into her desk or a paper ball landed onto it—scowling and huffing through her nostrils.

"Show us a lil something, I'll pay you a dollar for it!" another teenage boy shouted across the room then giggled with his buddies, thinking today was gonna be their lucky day.