Nevermind [90s fic]

Chapter 17: The Right To Choose Your Consequences

Without warning her friends, Lauren made a disturbance when she launched out of her chair and accidentally knocked it over, snatched her backpack, and stormed out the cafeteria through the swinging doors leading outside the school. She bailed with two and a half hours left in the day, relying on the volition of her feet to take her wherever it was fixing to go without a ride.

Karla caught Lauren on her way out and took her arms off Eli. She didn't even think, she just got up, leading with her heart to swallow her pride, run after her, and speak up first, but Eli sat her back down and tossed her into the mixed debate surrounding August's little love problem.

"So why are you really fighting then? Babe, what do YOU think?" asked Eli, subjecting her to the pressure of agreeing with him—whatever his stance was on whatever the problem was.

"About what?" Karla sheepishly asked.

"If your parents didn't approve of the person you're dating, and they had every valid reason to. What would you do? You'd dump them and trust that they know better and have your best interest at heart, right?"

"Don't put your opinion on this in her head. Let her think for herself," August sneered.

"I usually do," said Karla.

"You mean you don't all share the same single brain?" Andy teased, grouping her with Normani and Carlie, the male jocks sitting and standing around the table agreeing.

"Excuse!?" Normani scoffed, about to raise hell on Andy.

"That's not even fair to say, and you know it. Camila is soooo different—she barely does half the things they do, and y'all have a hard time convincing the girl to sneak into places. What makes you think she won't have an opinion of her own?" Dinah defended, making her voice louder than the other earnest voices carrying around simultaneously.

"But that's exactly my point! If she's so loyal to behaving and following the rules, she'd easily side with her parents in this situation. And she'd be right! My girl usually sticks to doing the right thing, right, babe?" Eli hugged her tighter, drilling his dilated blue eyes into the side of her face.

Karla sighed and focused solely on August. "I'm sorry, what exactly is the problem? Do your parents not agree with you going out with Marilyn?"

"They didn't even give her a chance, Camila. They recognized her face, remembered all the stories they had heard going around about her, and only stayed for dinner because I refused to leave with them. I love my parents, that'll never change, but so will my feelings for Marilyn, and I'm sorry but I do not agree with how they handled things. They're not dating her, I am, and I get to have this experience regardless of what anybody says about it. So, with all due respect, I don't really give a crap about your point-of-view on this—or yours either, dumbass," August concluded with more bite aimed at Eli than at Karla, red in the face.

"But what if they're right? And because you have all these feelings in the moment, you can't see that?" she quickly followed up before August could completely lose his temper, "I'm not saying I agree with your parents, I just wonder if you'd still think it's worth it if you saw the future and discovered that they were right."

"If my parents were right about Marilyn, and not trusting that would bite me in the ass in the future, then I get to find that out myself. That's it. I don't care how it ends. I'd do it all over again if I could, because every minute I spend with her is every minute I feel like an actual fucking person. Sorry if none of you can relate to that," he held up his hands as he got up and did the same thing Lauren had done, forgetting his study books that Carlie began eyeballing as if it were a million dollar ticket.