Highly Inappropriate

55.

SEVEN YEARS LATER

Nope, you're not hallucinating.. you read that right.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start telling you about the changes of the last few years, so I'll just go ahead and give you a quick recap.

Let's start with my brothers.. Matt is currently still working at his friend's dad's bike shop and he's in a long distance relationship with Melanie. Yup, still together and going strong despite all the issues a long distance relationship comes with. She went to law school in Philly and was now working there as a junior partner at a small firm, with Matt visiting her every chance he got. Seriously, I had no clue how they were managing to let this work, but hey.. if they're happy, kudos to them.

Chase on the other hand unfortunately followed my footsteps and failed his junior year, so needless to say he was still in high school. He also grew up to be a lot more challenging than his brother: let's just say I've lost count of how many times he came back home escorted from the police, nor the multiple sleepovers he spent in jail. Mind me, he wasn't a troublemaker.. he was just plain stupid (sorry bro).

Wanna hear the dumbest thing that landed his ass in that place overnight? Well, I don't care if you do.. I'm gonna tell you: he once checked out a book from one of the local libraries and not only he didn't even bother to read it, he also forgot about it's existence for over two years. Therefore, he racked up around 40 bucks in fines, and things took an hysterical turn when police showed up and handcuffed him in front of my dumbfounded face. I didn't even know it was possible to end up in jail for an overdue book.

But hey, life's full of surprises apparently.

As for Jess, she eventually became a therapist after enrolling to college a year after graduation. Best part is, she did move out of my house at some point just to move into the house across from mine, so our friendship didn't really have to endure the whole 'separation' ordeal, like at all. She was basically married to Tyler the firefighter though.. I swear, they're more cheesy now than when we were in high school.

Jason and I made it our personal mission to mock their sorry asses every chance we got, obviously. He's now a cop, anyway.. well, not really. He's the guy that works with computers, cracks codes, hacks into whatever thingy he has to hack into in order to get the detectives all the information they could gather on their suspects. I have no idea what's the exact name for his job, so sue me.

As for me? After finally accepting that Ashley was to be left in the past, I focused entirely on myself. I followed Jess' advice of becoming a tattoo artist, but I soon realized it was more a hobby to me than it was a real job.. I also ended up owning the bar I used to work at. Well, not entirely: Dean woke up one day and decided to pack his shit and move to Mexico to open a kiosk on the beach.

Lucky bastard.

So he offered me to take over the place, with me owning 80% of it whereas he kept the other 20, and I eagerly accepted.. but bartending wasn't working for me anymore, not in the long run at least. I loved my job, I really did, but I wanted to do more, I wanted to find a purpose to my life that wasn't just getting people drunk.

That's when I trained to become an EMT and what were the chances..? I actually ended up working side by side with Tyler at fire station 23, much to Jess' relief so I could 'keep an eye on him'.

Like I needed to.

Last but not least, Donna. Surprisingly enough, she did manage to stay clean this entire time and even though I might never say this out loud, I was proud of her. A few months after our encounter, she managed to get her own place and even got a decent job. She was now working with troubled teenagers and young adults struggling with addiction, portraying herself as the perfect example of what they didn't want to be in the future.