wickerpark | Senior Ditch Day

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Senior Ditch Day

They were supposed to be in class still, but Izak and some of his friends had decided to ditch- which they could, because they were seniors. It was like they'd earned some sacred right to ditch their pretentious, ego-inflated professors. What did it matter, anyway? Gradation was just a few weeks away, and no one honestly was making them do anything any more. Plus? Izak had always been the moderately good kid (at least with school), and ditching was exciting. It felt like he was rolling the dice of fate.

"Yes, alright. This is what I'm talking about- Michigan Avenue, shopping....why are we shopping? Shouldn't we be like....taking over the Field Museum?" Not that shopping was entirely horrible. His father, Hadyn, had a weakness for it. Pretty much explained why he was the one Sarah went to with her womanly things- Hadyn was practically a woman at times. Izak liked to think he was more like Elisha, both of them chilling on the couch. Sometimes watching a bit of football, or baseball, or...something with a ball. Yeah- he was definitely more Elisha.

Turning around, Izak looked at the others he was with- and then he spotted the one that didn't belong. "What are you doing here?"

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It was a wonder that Izak had missed her this long, Sarah thought, peeking over Mike's shoulder and waggling her fingers at her older brother. "I was invited," she said with a smug little smirk. It was a toss-up which dad that came from, really.

She tossed her hair back and gave Mike a light kiss, one that telegraphed that they were done for now. "Also, we're shopping because taking over the Field Museum is hopelessly nerdy when you can take over Water Tower Place instead."

"You can't be invited you are a sophomore, that is against the cosmic rules. I'm hundred percent sure of that." Izak protested, before giving Mike a look that, honestly, was straight out of Hadyn's 'you will die' book.

"The Field Museum is not a hopelessly nerdy thing, at least I'm not boring myself to death by watching you try like eighty dresses on, and knowing you won't look good in them, and you won't by them. And no- I'm just going to say this now, they don't make you look fat." He did not want to go shopping, he so did not. This was why girls should have been left at home.

Sarah linked her arm with Mike's and patted his bicep when he...went a little pale green. To be expected, the Novak death glare was an impressive one, though he suspected it might actually come from the Kattalakis side. "Chill out, Zak," she drawled out. "Ditching school isn't exactly something written in the stars. I bet Papa wouldn't be cool with senior ditch day if he found out about it, anyway. This way you know I won't tell on you."

She'd get in trouble too, after all, she thought as she beamed at Izak. "I was thinking we should make you try on the clothes, actually. Your wardrobe's just sad. Flannel isn't even ironically trendy."

"Yeah, cos I just so wanted to hang with my sister all day. Just amazingly fun sounding. Yep." Ug, why was she hanging all over Mike. He was all...arms and muscle, and just a little dimmer than one would expect from a private school. Well, a lot dimmer than one would expect for a private school.

"What? No. My clothing is fine, and I'm not even trying to be trendy. Why do I need to be trendy- I have you. Someone has to at least pretend to be normal in this family."

Most of the reason was for the faces Izak was pulling, honestly. Mike was sweet, and smarter than her sometimes judgmental brother thought...but he wasn't really Sarah's type. He made a good cover for her real type, though. "He won't even miss me when he goes off to college," she told Mike before she turned back to her brother with a spark in her eyes.

"Normal's overrated," she said. Izak was always so desperate to be ordinary, and she really didn't get it. Why would anyone want to be ordinary? "But suit yourself, Zak. I'll just hang back here. You won't even know I'm here."

"Normal keeps you from being shoved in a locker every day." Private school or not, bullying did happen. He wasn't cool like Hadyn had been- or so everyone who had known his father back then endlessly said. Elisha was just....cool in his 'I'm rich, and I'm an artist'. Sarah was....'look at me I'm so popular'.

Izak was just...smart. Pretty smart, at least. He'd taken all the AP courses he could, and opted into some college courses too. He got 'props' for doing some extra homework for the jocks sometimes. But, at the end of the day? He was still referred to as the 'Supernerd'.

Maybe because he was Captain of the debate team and quiz bowl team - which was at least a little cooler than the mathletes.

"No." No, no, no. She was not going to 'hang' on Mike, though. "Can we talk? In private?"

Sarah rolled her eyes at the sky and dropped Mike's arm, breezing past her brother to lean against one of the benches in the little plaza a few feet away. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared Izak down as he came over.

He always seemed to think her life was easy, she thought, just because she was more popular than he was. But that had its price too, especially with other girls. There were a lot of girls at their school who didn't like Sarah much, because boys did.

"What's your problem?" She asked him. "The only thing I'm missing is a bullshit review session in world history."

She was so, so much trouble. Why couldn't his parents have been happy with just one bouncing, beautiful boy? Why'd they need another one? Sighing, he scrubbed his head as he followed her to the bench, giving Mike an almost polite smile.

"Seriously? Mike Sullivan? Could you ask for anyone more likely to try to get you drunk and then pregnant?" He asked as he closed the gap with her. She was likely going to blow him off, but at least he tried. But before he could say anything else on the matter a voice cut over the noise of the busy street. 'Hey,' David said, and then smiled, waved....and kept on walking. Who he was even saying hi to wasn't certain, but Izak still went a little weak in the knees and forgot what he was on about.

"Uh....Um, I just...Um. Do you really think my clothes are that bad?"

She was only in trouble if she got caught. Which, probably, she was going to be, if only because Izak was incapable of not being a complete tattler. "If you think boys in your class haven't already tried that with me and failed, you haven't been paying any attention," she said. "I don't let guys get me drunk, Zak." Besides, she was on the pill - for other reasons, admittedly.

She glanced over at David Oliver and then back at Izak, giving him a onceover. "You don't get anyone's attention by desperately blending in," she said. "They're not bad, but they're boring. The same thing everyone else wears."

"Yeah, so...I'll just wear a pink tutu like you do." He said dryly as he watched David walk on to talk to Mike. God, why was he everything Izak had ever wanted in a...well, 'man'. Not that his father would likely approve. Then again, what leg did Hadyn Novak have to stand on? He married a guy old enough to be his Teenage Dad.

"It isn't the clothes that make the person," Izak said wisely, figuring if Elisha could seduce Hadyn- he was definitely more than clothing involved. "I mean...look at Papa, yeah? He's got all those clothes, and what not and still he married Dad. Who wore the same stuff I am."

"Dad's not hiding in his clothes, you are," Sarah said, rolling her eyes. "You've got a protective layer of don't-look-at-me going on all the time. And I get it. But he's never going to pay attention to you," she said, nodding at David Oliver, "other than to ask you for help with math, if you go around like that."

"I am so not hiding in my clothes, okay. They fit, they are clean. What more do I need out of them? They cover all the essential and potentially embarrassing body parts. I call it good." Though she was probably right, anyway. And not just because David Oliver was, essentially, the hottest guy in school. The guy was probably a straight as an arrow kinda person too. So...chances of him even chatting up Izak in that way were so not going to happen.

"He's probably all into girls anyway." He said finally, shaking himself out of it as he looked back at his little sister. "What do you even suggest? Not that I'm planning to take your fashion advice. Yet."

Sarah just gave her brother a skeptical look and laughed, shaking her head. "Are we talking about the same guy?" She asked. "David Oliver, stoner basketball star? He and Marc Halloran got detention last year for using the second floor boys bathroom as a makeshift motel room."

She didn't even question how Izak had missed that. Izak was too much like Papa. Focused. Missed a lot of details because of it, sometimes. "Nothing drastic. Better jeans, cool shoes. Cut out at least half of the flannel, and for the love of god stop shopping at Abercrombie with Mike. Dudebro wardrobes only work on dudebros."

"...I..." How did he miss that? Well, aside from no one really spoke to him about that kind of stuff, maybe. And he'd come done with a pretty epic case of mono last year, so he'd been busy fending off Hadyn's endless questions. The suckage of having a Doctor for a father was you never got to 'play sick', but it was worse when you really were sick. All the poking and prodding just when you wanted to sleep.

"I don't think my jeans are bad." He said, looking down at his pants. "And what the hell is a Dudebro wardrobe?" Why couldn't people speak English when it came to clothing?

"You could be way hotter than Marc," Sarah said, her lips twitching up as she glanced over at David and Mike.

"Like what Mike's wearing. Hoodies and flannels. Oversized jeans. Logos everywhere, as if plastering Ralph Lauren across his ratty sweatshirt makes it less ratty looking." She shrugged a little bit, and smiled. "It's not a great look, Zak. Mike only gets girls because he's the running back and his parents have money. Or, in my case, because he got me out of class."

"I have no issues getting girls to like me. Well...a girl. Marcy Simmons." The worlds geekiest girl ever. Don't get him wrong, there was nothingnwrongnwith geek power, especially in girls. But Marcy just brought it all to a new level with her retainer, head brace, Darth Vader vogue mask thing. Izak was pretty sure they'd outlawed those things in the 80s, but Marcy's parents were both dentist and as such she'd been does from birth. Top it off with the cat sweaters, and the big fizz hair....and well, you felt equally as bad for yourself as her when you were both regulated to the 'uncool' table for lunch.

Marcy had also had a crush on Izak since they'd been in middle school, back when Izak thought that maybe he was into girls. So at a party with their mutually uncool, pimple pocked friends they'd made out in the closet after being dared. Ever since, she'd been a moon-eyed puppy who followed him around religiously. For his part, he'd just tried to be nice to her because she seemed like the sort that would blow up the chem lab for revenge.

"I used to do Susan Carlton's homework, and she'd talk about how adorable I was." And Susan was definitely one of the hot girls. That totally counted for something.

"Marcy's a nice girl. She'll be cute when she escapes from the eternal braces and learns how to do something with her hair." Sarah's own dark hair had the carelessly cool wavy look that took her literally hours to accomplish in the morning, thanks to Elisha's genes.

As for Susan, she thought anyone who did her work for her was absolutely precious, but Sarah was nice enough not to point that out. Right now, at least. "David'd probably do more than wave at you if you wore jeans tight enough that he could see you actually have an ass."

Sarah probably hated that Izak had Hadyn's genes, and not Elisha's. Hadyn's hair, while at times it looked a bit...frantic, was usually what most would call 'lovely'. Izak had been in the clinic once, and overheard at least half the little girls in the room telling his dad just how pretty his hair was. So it stood to reason that Izak would have pretty hair.

Except he cut it all off. Because long hair only worked on the select few men in the world. David, for one. And, as much as he hated to say it, Hadyn Novak.

"Nice hair isn't going to make her, you know...." At least to him. Especially to him. "And...tight jeans are so uncomfortable." There was a lot of adjusting to do, and god help you if you popped a boner.

"I know, I grew up in the same house as you," Sarah said, flicking her hair back and then looking pointedly down at the spike heels on her feet. "Sometimes you have to suffer to look good. You don't think I wear these for my health, do you?"

Aunt Zoe had bought them for her, because Talulla wouldn't be caught in a four point five inch heel.

"Does Tyler actually let you dress him up?" Izak asked, sighing a little bit before something occurred to him. "....Where is Tyler anyway? Did you leave him at school? Because if so...that's kinda lame." But not so unlike the twins. Despite what everyone else in the world seemed to think, twins were not always best friends, and absolutely did not always get along. Tyler, at least, would physically bristle whenever someone would ask endless rounds of 'so you a twin, can you...' questions.

Izak was pretty pretty sure that at this point in their lives, Tyler was disinclined to acknowledge relation between any of them. He certainly had moody teenager down pat in that way.

Not to say his brother didn't love them all, because he did. He just tended to hate what he referred to as 'disingenuous curiosity and stupidity.'

Sarah snorted. "Please, Zak. Tyler suffers my presence when he has to. What makes you think he wants to hang out with his twin sister if he doesn't have to? Trigonometry is twice as exciting." It didn't really bother her much. Tyler was just...Tyler. They might love each other, but they'd stopped particularly liking each other half way through middle school.

She'd heard Aunt Debbie tell Dad that she and their grandmother had been the same way in high school, but she didn't see it changing anytime soon. Tyler was already making plans for college, and Sarah was making plans to go somewhere apart from him.

"I don't think he's going to be pissed that I ditched him, unless he's straight up in the mood to be pissed, which is pretty much always possible."

"Funny, that never stops you." Though it might have been a girl thing. At least they all had their own rooms, and such. Own bathrooms. Izak got the basement, because he was the oldest and the most demanding. Sarah got the old master bedroom, and Tyler had the room across the hall.

Their parents, though? They got the top floor all to themselves, which Izak suspected Hadyn was both relieved about, and worried about. Nothing, after all, could give Dr. Novak a headache faster than when he came into the house to three children screaming at each other and the kitchen having exploded.

"Dude, he's just going through a phase. We all have them. He's still your twin and loves you dearly. He just wants to love you from afar." Or something. Tyler was a bit of a strange one.

"Nothing stops me, you know that," Sarah said with a grin. Except Tyler's patented why-are-you-speaking look. She was pretty sure he'd picked that up from Hadyn, no matter who's genes he had.

Still, Izak's attempts to reassure her - or whatever - just had her rolling her eyes. "Dude, I'm not crying into my pillow at night. He's been a pain in the ass since birth. He'll probably be a pain in the ass until death. We'll go to college 3000 miles apart, probably, and the world will be better for it." She waved a hand vaguely. "Don't tell Papa that. I think he's worried that we're growing up to hate each other. It's not that, we just don't have shit in common."

"Siblings should get along, and love each other, and not make coming home like WWIII." Izak said with a sigh, before he turned Sarah about. "But whatever, no one ever listens to me anyway."

They were both going to be the death of him, he was sure of it. Though, at least he didn't have to live on the same floor as them anymore. That was nice. Even better that it wasn't the same room.

"Yeah, because you'd get along so well with either one us if we were also in most of your classes and flirting with your friends." Though Tyler didn't flirt with Sarah's friends, in part because Sarah didn't have that many. Not that were just friends instead of guys she'd dated, was dating, or was thinking of dating.

"Anyway, it's like the therapist says. We're just normal fifteen year old siblings. There's bound to be 'friction' as we 'navigate' our teenage years." It wasn't, she thought, that Dr. O'Neill was full of shit. She was the only one Sarah talked to about...some things. But there wasn't any way to talk about her and Tyler without it sounding like pop psychology. "Besides, we don't fight anymore. It stopped being fun for him when I stopped letting him bait me. You should try it sometime. It makes him awesomely frustrated."

"Tyler's on the soccer team, I'm pretty sure he'd just kick my ass if I tried to piss him off." Izak said with a sigh. But that wasn't really the point, or Tyler's moodiness wasn't. Something like that.

"Whatever, look. I will hence forth not be pissy with you ruining my senior ditch day, however....if you can get David Oliver to, I don't know....go out on a date with me." There, that seemed reasonable. Right? Right. Sure. Totally doable.

"Probably straight into the lake," Sarah agreed. She could say more - make a crack about screaming like a girl - but there didn't seem to be much point in it, especially since it meant airing their really minor family drama in front of a quarter of the senior class.

Instead, there was David, who kept glancing this way, even if Izak was totally oblivious. "I can do that," she said. "But you've got to do what I say."

"This isn't going to involve waxing anything is it? Because that just sounds painful." He said with a bit of a dramatic sigh. But at least they weren't on the verge of outing their family drama everywhere.

"Come on, let's get this over with." Because otherwise he was going to back out of this little agreement. "Go make me a pretty boy, or something."

"I can't work miracles, you know," Sarah said before she straightened up and linked her harm with Izak's.

"But Neiman Marcus can, luckily. Mentally prepare yourself, Zak." She glanced over her shoulder at David Oliver, giving him a considering look. He had better, she thought, be worth the effort.

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Senior Ditch Day

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