"I cannot believe you let them dress you as a woman!"
Seven ignored Ian as they made their way to their Biology class. Cherish had her arm thrown over his shoulder possessively; it was fitting, he supposed because she was wearing the men's clothes. She and Ari had even gone as far as to draw black stubble onto her face. At least Ian wasn't choking anymore.
As they entered the classroom, they were greeted by a couple dozen shocked faces. Ian just about giggled as he plunked himself into his seat. Beside him, a spirit filled cheerleader dressed as a sexy mouse was staring dumbfounded as Seven and Cherish took their seats. Even the teacher was staring with a rather confused looking expression on his face.
This was not Seven; he did not do this sort of thing. He didn't show school spirit. He didn't even wear costumes on Halloween, and if he did it was some lame last minute excuse of a costume, like the construction hat he had worn the year before at Ian's request. But, here he was wearing a knee length denim skirt, striped leggings and a girl's hooded sweater with pink bunnies all over it. He had carried a purse into class- black and pink, to match his outfit- and he wore makeup.
Seven Severin was wearing makeup... and cute little dangling star earrings.
-.-
Cherish smirked as she crossed the cafeteria beside him; the looks were priceless. Every person they passed did a double take, eventually noticing her beside him. Their costumes came as one, and were Ari's idea. She had woken them up extra early just so she could get them ready. She had been expecting them to resist or argue, but was surprised by their eager willingness to do it.
"Everyone expects me not to do anything," Seven had said. They had picked out their outfits together laughing stupidly on the floor of Cherish's bedroom while Ari held out random items of clothing.
Cherish wore one of the baggy tattered pairs of jeans she had gotten from Quentin, and a black button up shirt stolen from Seven's closet by Ian. Her hair was pulled into a pony tail and tucked into the back of the shirt and she wore a baseball cap from an auto shop. Her feet were shoved into a pair of black work boots, heavily scuffed on the toes; they had been the ones she wore when she helped Jeb out in the garage.
Couple the outfit with the black eyeliner Ari had smeared all over her face to look like the shadows of facial hair, and she resembled a scrawny greasy mechanic. A scrawny greasy mechanic who had managed to bag a tall, statuesque, "pretty" girlfriend. Every time a person did a double take, she wanted to laugh. In fact, she was surprised that Seven had managed to get through the day so far with a straight face. She made a mental note never to play poker with him.
-.-
If anyone had told Cherish two weeks ago that she would be up in her bedroom, in her bed and alone with Seven, she would have laughed till she choked. Then, she most probably would have punched whoever said it. She was glad her father wasn't due home for another four hours. Of course neither of them were paying any attention to anything but the homework that was spread all over the bed. She somehow didn't think that would matter much to her father.
What would matter was the, as he would consider it, low cut top she was wearing, and the bare stretch of skin below her shorts. What would matter was Seven's head inches away from her knee, and the fact that he was on the bed beside her- while they were alone at home. It was funny, she thought as she looked down at him, that three days ago she would have kicked his head in for getting too close to any part of her. Seven sat up, stretching with a heavy sigh, and kicked his homework off the bed.
"Done?"
"Nope. It's only Friday anyways."
Cherish rolled her eyes and returned them to the history text in front of her.
"Is this her?"
She looked up to see Seven holding a picture of Len in his hands. She was stunned for a moment, teetering on the unsure edge of talking about it and exploding. Her hands wanted to jump forward and rip the picture from Seven's hands; Len was hers, hers! But Seven held the picture reverently, as if he was afraid it would disintegrate between his fingers. Somehow she knew he wasn't going to be the insensitive butt-hole he normally was.
"Yeah, that's her," reaching out, she caressed the picture; it was the one she kept taped to her headboard. She swallowed back a lump in her throat, the pain that came whenever she tried to talk about Len. She hadn't talked about her since the day she had told Harper and Delia. Sure, she had mentioned her name in passing once or twice, but actually talking about her? It hadn't been necessary with the people who had known Len.
"She was my best friend," she breathed, and leaned over Seven to get one of the photo albums that she kept in her night table. She handed it to him and looked away; she hadn't shared these moments with anyone, these quiet painful moments in which she visited her Len. She saw Seven smile as he flipped slowly through the pages. "We did everything together." As if he couldn't already tell.
He grinned at a picture of the two of them dancing on the bottle fence at Audrey's place. Cherish flipped the page over quickly, pressing her hand down on the page like it would turn itself over again.
Seven glanced at her cautiously, "You okay?"
"That was the bottle fence," she said quietly shaking her head. "The guys used to line up all their empty bottles and use them for target practice. Len and I used to sit up there whenever Audrey had a party, which was practically every weekend. You can see the entire field from there. Everyone parks by the fence, so there's music from the cars, and drinks in the trucks. It was the perfect spot. Len and I used to dance on the fence."
Her voice cracked and she took a deep breath to steady herself, "The night she died, we were up there. You know, it was my fault..." The tears were surging out of her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to force them away.
Seven put the album down softly, "I'm sure it wasn't your fau-."
"No. No it was. There're woods behind Audrey's place, and a road right in front, and I was dancing in the street. If I hadn't been such a stupid shit, she wouldn't have had to jump in the fucking road to save me. So it was my fault... She died because of me."
He didn't care about her, so she knew he wouldn't say some bullshit crap about things happening and it not being her fault. He didn't love her the way the rest of them did, so she knew he would agree that it was her fault.
"God, Rish! It's not your fault," he pressed his shoulder to her comfortingly. "It was an accident! It could have been her in the street, and you jumping to save her. And you would be pissed if she blamed herself."
She couldn't help but smile, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand and leaned back into the pile of pillows, "Gah, Len would totally kick my ass if she was here right now."
Seven laughed as he settled against the pillows beside Cherish, "Well if she was anything like you, of course she would."
"I miss her..."
Ignoring the way Cherish leaned into him, Seven picked up the album in response, flicking through the pictures once more. He laughed as he examined a picture; there were six bodies tangled up in the picture, but only five heads.
"Who's tha-" he began to ask but realised the sixth head had been scratched out. Cherish and her friends struck him as the type of people who were very tight and stuck together unfailingly. Sort of like an inbred family; they played as a group, dated within that group and would probably marry within that same group.
The boy whose head had been scratched out of the picture had probably been Cherish's ex-boyfriend. One who probably deserved to be scratched from pictures- and the group as it seemed. Because Seven had met her friends, and not once had another boy been mentioned. Nor had Cherish avoided anyone at the party.
"Oh, it's Cash," he laughed again, pretending not to notice the slightly stricken expression on her face.
"Yeah," she smiled when she glimpsed Cash's marker covered face. "He can be such a freak sometimes."
The silence could have been a hundred times more awkward, but as they lay there Cherish didn't feel the need to fill the emptiness with words. The quiet stretched on for what seemed like hours before a sad strained smile spread on Cherish's face, "God, I'm so messed up."
"Yeah," Seven drew his hands up under his head, "me too."
Cherish twitched, unable to stop herself from asking the question she had no right to ask, "What... What happened? Why'd your parents kick you out?"
Seven sighed, but didn't respond. Cherish didn't press the matter, instead she reached over Seven for her photo albums again. This time she went through the pictures herself, smiling at some of the stupid things. She was very aware of Seven beside her examining the pictures, a sad thoughtful look on his face.
"My dad killed himself."
In her shock, she dropped the album. He didn't react, except to lean into her a little more, "You know, if Jackie could have, she would have told me he was sick like she told my sister, Chantal, but I saw it, so I knew. No one wants a messed up kid, right? She ignored me for the longest time, and she wouldn't let Chan come near me. She put me in therapy, but she went right along pretending it hadn't happened."
This time it was awkwardly quiet. She didn't say anything; what was there to say?
"I was kind of a problem then; I hated Jackie for what happened. It wasn't her fault, but at first I felt like it was, like she should have been able to tell, like she could have stopped it, you know? Even when I finally got that she couldn't have done anything, I still hated her. What drove me nuts was that she kept pretending. Pretending it didn't happen, pretending I didn't exist, telling Chantal not to believe what I said about Dad. It didn't fix anything."
He took a deep breath and released the fists he had been balling up.
"I was pissed when she married AJ. Hell, I didn't even know she was dating him. He didn't like me much... Like I said, no one wants a messed up kid. No one wants a thirteen year old hell bent on destroying his life. I was getting into trouble all the time. I used to come home drunk outta my mind, or absolutely strung out on some drug or the other. I got my first tattoos when I was thirteen. I never bothered hiding them, I used to throw them in his face. I didn't fit into his perfect lifestyle. He told me to get the fuck out, and Jackie didn't argue, so I did."
Cherish quietly let his words sink in. Was there even an appropriate response? Anything she could think to say seemed trivial and massively inconsequential against what he'd gone through. She knew how much she hated the frivolous things people said to her when they found out about her loss. Of course you can't imagine what I'm going through! So she chose to stay quiet, as he was.
"I have a baby sister who doesn't even know who I am," Seven suddenly laughed.
"Chantal?"
"No. Jackie and A.J. had a baby. Before I left, Elise was the one thing I loved about that place. Now she thinks I'm Chan's boyfriend, because I'm only ever there when Jackie and A.J. are gone, and Chan bribes her into secrecy. She'll keep her mouth shut if she gets an ice cream every time I go over."
"Wow. That is messed up. So, you've been living with Ian all this time?"
"Yeah. Ian's like my brother, always has been."
Cherish had a feeling that Ian was more than just a brother to Seven. It seemed to her that whatever trouble Seven used to get into, he didn't get into now. It was clear from the way he spoke about his mother and her husband, he hadn't calmed down for them. Seven would do anything Ian asked, even if it meant dragging a drunken mess of a girl he hated along to his party. As she thought about the way Seven got anxious whenever she told Ian things he'd been trying to hide, it occurred to her. Ian was Seven's Len. It was almost as if Seven was afraid to disappoint Ian, like his approval meant the world to him.
"He saved my life you know."
-.-
"Cheven! Cheven? I know you two are here, I saw the car out front!"
"She's calling us Cheven, now?"
"Apparently, we're not two people anymore!" Cherish smirked, raising the volume on her T.V.
In a matter of seconds the door to her bedroom was flung open, and a sparkly, frilly monster barged in. "People! People, why are you just sitting around? We have a lot of work to do!" Ari's arms were full of bags, struggling to contain ruffles and petticoats. "You can just put those in my room, thanks," she called over her shoulder as she dropped the bags. As Delia, right behind Ari, dragged a chair into the room, Cherish flicked off the T.V. and frowned apologetically at Seven. Grinning, Ari pushed Cherish's chair over so the seats were side by side in front of the dresser, "Butts in chairs, now, please!"
"Ari, I am not letting you give us makeovers or anything stupid like that. We are perfectly capable of putting together our own costumes for tonight." Even as she grumbled her complaint, Delia pushed her and Seven into the chairs with almost no fuss.
"Oh, no, no, silly! I'm not giving you a makeover... I've hired only the best to take care of you two!"
"Ari, I'm not dressing as some pink fairy princess or some shit like tha-"
But Cherish's protest died when Audrey walked into her room, dragging a stack of three large silver cases behind her. If Audrey was involved, Cherish knew there was no way she was leaving the house looking anything less than fabulous. She would be one hundred percent Cherry Malice and definitely not one hundred percent Ari approved.
"Salut, ma belle!" Audrey shook her head as Ari bowed happily and skipped from the room. "She is a very strange girl, your sister. Delia, the music, s'il vous plait?"
Cherish watched as Audrey popped the three cases open one after the other, and dumped out the bags of frilly things that Ari had brought in. She plucked two exquisite masks from within the mess, both black, and set them gently on the table. As the music finally exploded into the room, Audrey grabbed a make up brush and spun around, "On'y va!" Shimmying over to Seven, she picked a container of white face makeup and popped it open, "You first!"
* Title song by Elvis Presley (and lots of other people)