Senior Year Memories Ch. 15

(Usual Disclaimer Time: Even though this story almost entirely takes place in a high school setting, all the characters in this story are 18 years old or older, and since we're living in the wide wonderful world of porno-land here, where clichés roam free and things might get a little unrealistic from time to time, please remember it's all in good fun, I swear.)

(Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to a very special anonymous fan with a fondness for short skirts and fantasies of mature women. As always, if you're enjoying this, please, please, please drop some stars, reviews or shoot me some feedback. Though I may not always respond, I do love hearing from all of you and seeing that you're enjoying the series. It keeps me going and motivates me to continue writing more. You've all been wonderful and I can't thank you enough for all of your kind words and encouragement and yes, even the criticisms!)

Previously, on Senior Year Memories: After nerdy 18-year-old Ryan Collins' best friend, Tori McNeil's, wild child college-aged sister, Rachel, discovered that he'd had sex with their mother, Lauren, Ryan was terrified that she'd use this information against him. Rather than blackmail him or reveal the pictures from his Senior Year Memories album to the world, Rachel encouraged him to get his life back on track by offering to help him repair his friendship with Tori, reconnect with goth friend and lover Josie Wong, and discover the identity of "Sam", the mystery girl Ryan had sex with on Halloween. Josie and Ryan reconnected with some passionate oral sex in the school library, while a clue to Sam's identity discovered by Rachel led Ryan to meet with athlete and aspiring Ninja Warrior Noa Kanzaki. A virgin who wanted to experience sex, Noa seduced Ryan, and the two snuck into the school gym after hours to fuck, eventually being joined by Ryan's friend and bubbly blonde cheerleader extraordinaire, Brooke King, for an intense anal threesome in the school showers. Finding out from Noa that "Sam" is in some way connected with the school's marching band, Ryan and Rachel intended to continue looking into the mystery while exploring their budding friendship.

***

"It's so big," Rachel exclaimed.

"I know," I said, a little intimidated myself.

"Why does Regan Hills High School need such a big fucking marching band?" Rachel asked as she scanned the picture on her computer. "If the football team's anything like it was when I attended, they really don't have anything worth marching about."

"It still is," I confirmed.

"Then my question stands," Rachel said, taking a bite of pizza.

"If I had an answer, I'd share it," I said, sipping my Coke.

We were crowded in next to each other in a booth in Cue Ball Pizza, a tiny hole in the wall joint in a strip mall toward the edge of Regan Hills. Since Rachel and I were still meeting in secret, it was an ideal place since nobody either of us knew would hang around here. It was dingy, but the pizza was good, and the retro arcade cabinets were well taken care of, letting us play X-Men, Mortal Kombat 2 and Polybius to our heart's content when we weren't looking into uncovering the identity of "Sam", my Halloween mystery girl.

If you'd have told me even a couple weeks ago that I'd be spending some of my increasingly rare free time hanging out with Rachel McNeil, I'd have told you you were insane. Her sister, Tori, and I had been friends since we were little, and pretty much since we were friends, Rachel was always our nemesis. She was a cruel kid who loved to play twisted games with us. I'd been beaten up a lot in my life, but Rachel probably was the first to ever hit me and mean it. As we all grew up, her games got more twisted and her cruelty transformed into tormenting Tori and me emotionally. Knowing her was a living hell and seeing what she did to Tori, especially with her rare moments of great kindness to Tori further messing with her, I was glad when she went away to college.

Looking at her now, I'd have assumed little had changed. Back when she was in high school, her mother had been able to force her to look somewhat respectable, but a few years away at college had transformed her. She had her mother and sister's pale skin and red hair, but her hair was chopped short, her skin covered in tattoos including a sleeve that overtook her entire left arm. She wore trashy, punk clothes that showed off her tight, lean body, C-cup tits and her art and had a number of piercings. Her lips were painted dark and her eyes were heavily made up, even behind her glasses, and though the dark look was one I'd come to appreciate with my time with Josie, with Rachel it only made this image I had of her more frightening.

When I had a bad day last week and wound up fucking Lauren, the bad day only seemingly got worse when Rachel found my phone and the Senior Year Memories pictures. I thought my life was over, but then, bizarrely, it wasn't. Rachel didn't want to rake me through the coals; she wanted to help me get my life back on track.

She said it was out of boredom, that she was doing it for good karma.

Personally, I didn't care why she was doing it, I just cared that she did. Already she'd talked me through patching things up with Josie after one of my patented freakouts, and she said she'd been talking with Tori, trying to get her to talk to me about the new girl she was dating.

Between these and our search for Sam, I'd found "New Rachel" to be far superior to "Rachel Classic," and someone I oddly looked forward to spending time with.

Both of us hunched over the laptop, we pored over the picture of this year's marching band from their webpage. Rachel had it blown up in Photoshop, and between the two of us we were making some good progress.

"Alright," Rachel said, X-ing out almost a third of the faces. "So you're sure Sam was a girl, that makes this first part easy."

"Definitely a girl," I said. "I didn't ace anatomy class for nothing."

"Just checking," Rachel retorted. Briefly, she reached to the screen, lightly tracing her fingers across faces and shaking her head. As ever, her tattoos caught my attention, an odd blending of dark and whimsical imagery that felt in serious conflict with her former less than sunny demeanor.

"Just how many tattoos do you have?" I asked.

"Why do you ask?" Rachel replied.

"Curious."

Rachel shrugged. "I lost count. Gimme another three or four years and I'll probably be covered, though; I like my body as a canvas."

Without thinking, I said, "It's a nice canvas."

Rachel snorted, "You checkin' me out, Ryan?"

Whoa, this needed some quick damage control. "What? No, no, no, I wasn't-"

"I wouldn't be surprised if you were. I mean, you clearly got a thing for the women in my family, and you definitely got a thing for tattooed chicks the way you talk about Josie and Sam," Rachel clarified.

"I wasn't saying-"

"I mean, I'm not doing anything vital right now, I wouldn't mind sneaking into the back alley for a quickie and seeing what the hubbub's all about," Rachel said.

"No! No! You're not listening," I clarified. "What I meant to say-"

"What? You don't think I'm pretty?" Rachel replied, lowering her voice. "I know I don't got tits like Mom and Tori, but I've still got a body built for sin and a mind to match. You're really so sure you don't wanna drain those big, swollen balls of yours in my mouth, pussy and ass? It doesn't make you squirm in your seat just hearing about how much I love a nice, fat cock up my ass?"

If all the blood hadn't been rushing to my cock at that exact moment, I'd have been blushing bright red right then and there from embarrassment. My cock didn't usually turn traitor on me like this, but it had its moments and this was one of them.

Seeing my discomfort, Rachel finally burst out laughing. "God, you're easy to fuck with."

"Shut up," I said, poking her in the side, glad to be laughing instead of dealing with whatever kind of discomfort she was expert at dealing.

"I'll stop doing it when you stop laughing," she replied.

"Shaun of the Dead?" I asked, intrigued by her quote.

"I may be a bitch, but credit me for some taste," Rachel said.

"You're just full of surprises," I said.

"Yeah, well how about you surprise me with a couple more slices of Hawaiian while I continue paring this down?" Rachel suggested.

"On it," I said, getting up and heading to the counter. I waved down a worker and ordered two more slices of pizza, sparing a glance back at Rachel as I did. She was talking to someone on her phone and didn't look anything close to happy about it, which I was grateful for because it made her look like the Rachel I remembered and gave her the image I wanted to have about her, but... well, it was still hard to ignore that she was also pretty hot. Not the hottest of the hot, but she definitely looked good in a trashy sort of way, and she did have a way with words when she wanted to...

"Stop it," I said, shaking my head. I'd already put myself in a lot of danger by having sex with Lauren; hooking up with Rachel too would've been suicidal. Tori hated Rachel, and for all that Rachel was trying to do to fix her relationship with her sister, I had my doubts that Tori would ever forgive her. I knew we were dealing with a "kinder, gentler" Rachel than either of us had dealt with before, but Tori had a definite way about holding grudges. Forgiving Rachel for years of torment would've been a minor miracle, and her getting Tori to talk to me about the girl she was dating would've been even more impressive.

I had to give her the chance, though. Rachel had some good ideas and was helping me out with both Josie and finding Sam, and if she needed some time to work on Tori, I'd give her the time before I jumped in. Tori had been politely dodging me for a little over a week now, constantly coming up with excuses and telling me she'd explain things later. I gave her her space and let her do what she needed to do, but I was looking forward to having my best friend back. I knew she was in a new relationship and those have ways of monopolizing your time, and the hurt I'd felt over her lie had mostly passed (stone cold fear has a way of doing that to you), but I'd still have enjoyed the opportunity to talk with her.

Instead, I was spending more of my rare free time these days meeting Rachel in secret and trying to figure out the identity of the mystery girl I'd had sex with on Halloween.

That was normal, right?

I grabbed our pizza and headed back to the table, catching the tail end of Rachel's conversation.

"...look, I told you what happened and that's not enough? I don't care what that asshole fucking said, he's lying. All I want is my stuff back; just throw it in a box, tape it up and use the fucking UPS label I sent you, okay?" Rachel exclaimed. She was shaking, more agitated than I'd ever seen her before, and if I wasn't mistaken that might've been a tear in her eye?

"Thank you," she finally said. "I appreciate it. Look, I gotta go, okay?"

She ended her call and set her phone down, forcing a smile on me. "Thanks."

"Everything okay?" I asked, taking my seat and shaking some red pepper flakes on my own Hawaiian slice.

"No, but it will be," Rachel said.

"You wanna talk about it?" I asked.

She laughed. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Well, you're helping me with my problems, I don't know if I can do the same for you, but, I could try," I said.

"No, these problems are just for me, though get me high or drunk enough sometime and maybe we'll talk," Rachel said. "Just promise me you're never gonna get a roommate in college, okay?"

"Since I don't have any idea what I'm doing with college yet, I'll keep that in mind," I said, desperately hoping to avoid this conversation. I wanted to enjoy this year, but the specter of college looming on the horizon scared the ever-living hell out of me. Everybody had plans and ideas and I had none, and whenever you told people you didn't have any ideas they felt like it was their opportunity to share their ideas about how you should live your life.

I hoped Rachel would skip that step, though she took a different approach with it than I'd have expected. "You don't have an idea? Good. Stay without an idea. Explore the world, explore yourself, figure your shit out before committing to anything. If you're gonna go college, go to community college, get your general ed out of the way, use it as an opportunity to find a major you truly love, experiment, have fun and figure out who you are at your own pace. If you try to be the person everyone wants you to be, you'll just wind up hating yourself and going insane."

That... fuck, that was a lot to take in. Rachel rattled off her speech as if speaking from some hard personal experience, and if she were someone I were closer to I'd have probed her, seen if she wanted to talk. We weren't that close, were we?

Fuck it, I was willing to try.

"Are you sure you don't wanna talk?" I asked.

"Yes. I've talked about this enough and I'm tired of nobody listening. I just want something I can focus on that's not me, okay?" Rachel said.

"Okay," I replied. She lifted her glasses and wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand, before forcing another smile and going on like none of this had ever happened.

"So, we've still got a fair list of suspects. We can rule out some by height, since you said this girl was short, but there's a lot of short girls in band. It might be time for you to rely on your marching band contacts," Rachel said, her voice full of false eagerness.

I should've stopped her and dealt with these issues. She was clearly in a lot of pain and needed someone to talk to, and while I didn't necessarily want to be the person to talk to on this, I didn't not want to be either, a revelation that surprised me. Still, I didn't want to do any damage if this wasn't something she was ready to explore, and I really did want to see what we could find out about Sam...

"I wouldn't call her a contact, so much, but she's a chance," I said.

"Well, a chance is better than nothing," Rachel replied.

"I can live with that," I replied.

***

I've always been a nerd, but back when I used to care about that image and dreamed of something more, I always used to think that I was a nerd, but one with standards that made me more "normal" than other nerds. I liked video games and board games, but I never got into D&D. I liked horror and sci-fi, but I wasn't into anime. I was smart, but I wasn't the top of all of my classes. I dreamed that I was the nerd who could've been normal if only I'd just worked at it, which was bullshit, firstly because I never could've been my definition of normal back then, and secondly because I wouldn't have wanted to be my definition of normal back then. I liked being a nerd, and putting myself ahead of the other nerds was stupid, classist bullshit I never should've done in the first place. It took getting laid to get past that line of thinking, and I was glad that only a few remnants of those old prejudices remained.

Unfortunately, one of those remnants meant that I was still nervous hanging around that most nerdy of nerdy bastions: the band room.

It was after school and I was nervously waiting outside of the band room, watching people file in and trying to look inconspicuous as I waited for my potential source. Josie told me the person I was looking for would be here today, just not when, meaning I was left highly visible outside a place I never meant to be highly visible near.

Maybe this would be good for me, shake me from all of this, just another part of this year where I'm learning all sorts of-

"Hey, Hope!" I exclaimed a little too loudly, glad to be moving away from the band room.

A tall, lanky girl with wide glasses and her wavy, dirty blonde hair held back in a messy braid today, Hope Harris eyed me first with surprise, then with a wave. She was walking with a couple friends, one a small blonde girl with most of her head covered by a hoodie that only barely hid green eyes looking out from under horn-rimmed glasses I knew to be another of Josie's friends, Sarah Kent, the other a black boy carrying a trumpet I knew from some classes but whose name escaped me.

"Hey, Ryan!" Hope exclaimed, turning to the black boy. "We'll catch up with you, Terry; don't let them start without us."

"Sure," Terry said, eying me with a look halfway between suspicion and amusement before wandering off into the band room.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, sure. Your exploits have raised the bar for nerds around here and, well, there's a lot of guys out there who are either jealous or looking up to you, so, you know, be aware of that," Hope said. Her face was more plain than pretty and her smile was wide and animated enough that it took up half her face when she got going, but she had an enthusiasm that made up for me wishing I had a hoodie of my own so I could disappear like Sarah clearly wanted to.

"Well, thanks for that," I said.

"No prob!" Hope said, either missing or ignoring my comfort. "So, what brings you down to the band dungeon?"

"Well, I was-"

"Wait," Sarah whispered from under her hood.

"What?" Hope asked.

In a voice as meek as a mouse, Sarah said, "Didn't we want to...?"

"Oh, right!" Hope said, putting a hand to her forehead in an almost cartoonish gesture. "Silly me! What'd I do without you, Sarah, you'd think I'd forget to screw my head on in the morning. Ryan, Sarah and me, even Fatima if she were here, we wanna put out an olive branch. We know things didn't go so hot the other day because things have a way of not going so hot around Mia, but we also want you to know we're not all Mia."

"You make Josie happy. We all need happiness, but her especially," Sarah said.

"Couldn't have said it better myself!" Hope exclaimed, clapping Sarah on the back. Sarah looked less than amused by the gregarious gesture, but she gave a shy smile from beneath her hood anyway.

This wasn't what I was looking for when I came to the band room, but it might've been even more important.

"Thanks," I said.

"Don't mention it," Hope said. "So, what were you looking for?"

"There was something I wanted to ask you about Halloween. I was just looking for you, Hope, but maybe you can answer it too," I said to Sarah, though she shifted slightly behind Hope at the mention of her name.

Hope started, "Is it about why I wasn't helping with the house? Look, I told Nadia and Josie already-"

I replied, "No, it's not that, it's-"

"Hey, Hope, Sarah! What's the holdup, we're starting soon!" a girl called out from the doorway to the band room. I couldn't help but look at her, and when I did, I was taken aback. She was mousy and short, with wavy blonde hair that fell about her shoulders.

April Martel. The girl Tori had been seeing lately. She got one good look at me, eyes widening, then darted back into the room.

"Gotta go," Sarah said, running after April.

"Sorry, can we finish this later?" Hope asked.

"It's a quick question," I said, wanting an answer.

"Yeah, but if you ask me later, it'll be more fun, trust me," Hope said, promise in her voice. I did a double-take just to make sure I'd heard her right, but the way she looked at me I knew she meant it.

For a moment I was afraid it was a test. "I don't know..."

Hope laughed. "If you're worried about Josie, don't. She's been encouraging me to hit you up and see what you're packing, and trust me, from Josie that's high fucking praise, she doesn't do referrals often. She seems to think you might be able to take me. Me, I don't fully believe her, but-"

"I can take whatever you've got to give ," I challenged.

"We'll see," Hope said, pulling out her phone and handing it to me. "Program in your number, I'll shoot you a message when I'm available."