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Chapter 18: Temptation

Over the weekend, Greyson, Adrian, Mia, and I planned our trip. We would take my car since it was the biggest, and we would leave when Adrian got off of work that Thursday night. I spent the rest of the weekend at home with Greyson. He stayed at my house that Friday night. Saturday night we were joined by Katherine, Jordan, Miles, Mia, and Adrian. Jordan and Greyson had made up while I was at school and as far as I could tell, everything was pretty much back to normal. We all pulled my mattress and the spare bedroom's mattress into the living room and spread out on them and the couches to watch scary movies all night.

On Sunday when it was time for me to go back to school after church, Katherine hugged me and apologized for being "a butt" for the past few months. I reassured her that I understood she was just stressed because Jordan's temper could be hard to handle and we said our goodbyes before I got in my car to head back to school.

~ ~ ~

Spring break began two weeks later. I had ten days to have as much fun as I could before returning to finish my Capstone and defend it in front of the History Department. "Have fun, but not too much fun," Charli had warned before jumping into her car to head to her house in North Carolina. I laughed and promised I would come back with all sorts of stories for her. The first thing I did when I got back to Dalton was go to the hair appointment that I had scheduled a few days earlier.

"What are you gonna get done?" Charli had asked.

"I don't know. There was this one time in high school when I had purple streaks in my hair. I may do that again. I want to have a wild streak just one more time before we graduate and have to go out into the real world, ya know?" Charli laughed and nodded her head. She knew what I meant even if her idea of a wild streak was staying up until sunrise watching Marvel movies.

I ended up getting chunky purple streaks scattered throughout my hair. The contrast against the brown in my hair made the purple look even more vibrant. It was enough to be fun, but the placement of the streaks under the first layer of my hair made it so I wouldn't look like I had just walked out of a Hot Topic magazine. After the hair appointment, I drove home to find Greyson already in my driveway waiting for me.

"Whats up bes- WOAH LOOK AT YOU!"

he exclaimed flicking my hair with his pointer finger.

"You like it?"

"It makes you look like one of those hot edgy girls," he said with an over exaggerated wink.

"Pssshhh," I blew through my lips, "I am one of those hot edgy girls."

Greyson followed me up the stairs into my house and threw himself on to the couch as I walked to my room to toss my bags on my bed.

"Where are your parents?" He asked.

"Camping. They'll be back Sunday."

"Oh. Does that mean we can't have people over?"

"They don't care as long as it's the normal people," I explained.

"Cool, cool."

I joined him on the couch and began sending out the invites.

Later that night, Adrian, Mia, Miles, Katherine, and Jordan all joined Greyson and me. The seven of us loaded up into cars around seven-thirty and headed out to Wal-Mart where we bought our favorite snacks and drinks. The plan was to order pizza, load up on junk food and stay up all night playing card games around the table. That night we did just that. Miles brought his poker chips and we spent three hours playing. When we were tired of that, we switched over to Uno. When Uno got boring, we all worked to pull the mattresses, blankets, and pillows into the living room like we had done so many other times before and scattered around the room to watch movies until we fell asleep.