One Day At A Time

Chapter Three: At The Table

The last warm day of September has gone away as it's now the first day of October.

October is everyone in the friend group's favorite month without a doubt.

Rose loves the pumpkin spiced everything that is sold in every store in town.
Lucas loves getting to pull his warm hoodies out of his closet and wear them until March.

Lilly loves the outings they go on, most notably, their adventure through large corn mazes.
Ava loves the rain and the colorful leaves, stepping on them on her walk to the bus stop, hearing the satisfying crunch under her sneakers.

But most of all, they love Halloween.

Dressing up as whatever they want and getting candy for it is the best way to end off the month, in their opinion.

Lucas and Ava both love the almost theatrical aspect of dressing up.
Getting into the characters of their costumes every year is undoubtedly their favorite part and it's a blast for everyone around them to witness.

Another part of Fall that Lucas loves is the school's Fall play, since he's on the stagecraft team.

So, the following Thursday, he sits down at their group's lunch table with an excited shine in his eye.
"What are you so excited about?" Rose asks him.
"Guess what play they're doing this year." He asks, answering their question with another question.
"Romeo and Juliet?"
"Romeo and- how the fuck did you know?"

Rose laughs a little bit.
"I got an email during summer, asking if I wanted to audition for the role of Juliet."

Lucas looks at them with pure confusion in his eyes.
"Why would they want you to play Juliet?"
"They're really good looking, that might be why." Ava comments nonchalantly.
"Thank you." Rose smiles at her, then looks back at Lucas. "See? There's one good reason."

Lilly looks at Ava curiously.
She wants to ask her why she thinks Rose is good looking.

Rose is objectively a really good looking person, there's no doubt about that, but she wants to know specifically what is good looking about her to Ava.

But before she can ask, Lucas goes on rambling about stagecraft, which she can't focus on one bit.

The bell for next period rings and Lilly groans.
"What's wrong?" Ava asks quickly.
"Lucas and I have a science presentation next period."
"We do?" Lucas asks, his eyes widening for a split second.

But then, he seems to calm himself down.
He does what he does every time he has a presentation that he's not prepared for in the slightest.

He goes into his backpack, pulls out a ziplock bag filled with a few gummy bears, and looks around for the eye's of teachers.
When he doesn't see any, he passes a gummy bear over to Lilly.

"You guys are seriously still getting high before projects? You don't have any other coping mechanisms?" Rose asks bluntly, standing up and slinging their backpack over their shoulder.

Lucas pops the gummy bear into his mouth and puts on his backpack.
"Yep."
Lilly looks at Rose and nods with a smile.

Lilly and Rose get their respective hug and handshake from Ava before she goes off, out of the cafeteria.

And the rest of them say their own goodbyes, going off their own ways.