The road up to The Bailey Estate was serpentine and crumbled near its edges. The road climbed a rugged pine-curtained hill up towards the bluffs. It was a challenging drive in the best circumstances, but this was a daredevil stunt as Sadie had to drive while craning her head out the window the way a dog does. Steam had already fogged over the windshield and the heat from the pizzas was unbearable. Her hands were slick with sweat, which made the steering wheel slip often, swerving the car to the precarious edge. She already had to stop once to put on her Gino's pizza delivery ball cap to keep her long black hair from flying in her eyes.

Just as Sadie thought about leaving the pizzas on the side of the road and turning back, she finally turned a bend and the Bailey Estate gates with their wrought iron "B's" appeared. She hit the breaks as she saw something she hadn't expected to see. Four teenagers already waiting outside the closed iron bars. And it was these four seniors she had most wanted to avoid seeing. Of all the reasons she wanted to leave, these four were it. And yet here they were, milling between her Golf and the front gates.

At one end, crushing a beer and pissing on the gate's bars was Moss Temple. Moss lived like a caged apex predator in a zoo. Most of the time he brooded, silently frothing, but sometimes, and seemingly out of nowhere, he'd rage out and go on an insanity fuelled rampage, punching walls and sometimes people. Moss was choked with muscles and tattoos that were inspired by his favourite MMA fighters. His vein corded neck had already begun to encroach past his shoulders.

Sitting on a boulder on the curb and picking at a spider sized fake eyelash was Autry Green. Autry was a YouTube make-up and fashion content creator. Sadie had long forgotten what her face looked like without the tanners, eye-liners, foundation, and streaks of colour and dazzle. Her big hair was held up by a smog of products. Sadie wondered how long it took her in the mornings to look like that. One hour? Two? That's a lot life. Maybe it was being hotboxed by noxious aerosol fumes every morning or maybe it's just the luck of bad genetics, but Autry lived in a constant state of confusion, processing things a little slower than most. She was scared of the unknown, which to her (and the wisest of us, to be fair) was vast and all encompassing. This past year, after her friends ditched her, Sadie had missed Autry and her closest, which Autry was always ridiculously generous with lending Sadie anything she wanted. But mostly Sadie missed Autry's big heart, which made it all the more confusing and hurtful when she suddenly refused to speak to her.

Tapping the intercom box was Gigi Arranow. Gigi was hyper intelligent and fluid. True to form she was in her only outfit: skinny black jeans, black tank top, and black leather jacket. Her black short slick backed hair and dark eyes gave her the appearance of a raven. Gigi gave the intercom box the finger and hit her vape. Gigi was the smartest girl Sadie had ever met and she wasn't modest about it either. Gigi was viciously smart, which Sadie had always admired and feared a bit too. For a time, they were both on the fencing team, but after everyone stonewalled Sadie, Gigi quit the team. When Sadie tried to ask why, Gigi just said we're seniors now, Swyft and never said another word on the matter or any other.

And we save the best for last and the person Sadie wanted to see the least. Jordan Cabalerro. Jordan was the undisputed hottest guy in Beachwood with a swimmer's bod and a never ending arsenal of perfectly subtle charm-bombs mixed with exact right amount of trouble.

Jordan spotted Sadie first. Then the others found her, one by one. Sadie clocked that they each looked to each other, sharing suspicious glances. Something secret was passed between them. Sadie ducked her head back into her mobile oven, willing to endure the excruciating hellscape than to deal with any of these fuckers.

Jordan fired that friendly smile, which Sadie's heart felt was cute and inviting. Sadie told her heart to stop being an idiot. She shushed the thought out of her head and reminded herself that caring about people who don't give a rat's ass about you is a waste of time. She repeated it like a mantra, but repeating something doesn't make it true. What is true is that she missed her friends. She missed them a lot. It stung to see all her former best friends all together. Well, Moss was never her friend, but there was a time when Gigi, Autry, and Jordan were her entire world. The surprise of seeing them here, together, took her back a year and a half, when instead of pizza boxes in her car it is was Autry and Gigi in the back and Jordan in the front. Laughing their asses off, smoking weed, and singing Post Malone. Heading off to some party or hang. Back when Sadie had a life. Before she was iced out.

Sadie crashed out of the dreamy nostalgia and slapped back into the present as she made out the blurred image of Jordan approaching through the steamed windshield. She was just about to throw her Golf into reverse, when Jordan grabbed onto the lip of the window.

"That's a lot of pizza." he said.

"Very observant. Are we locked out?"

"Who's observant now?"

Gigi, Autry and Moss clustered behind Jordan, keeping just enough distance.

Autry, nervously whimpered, "Sadie, did you get that weird text too?"

The others glared at Autry as if she just blew a big surprise party. Gigi elbowed Autry's side and said, "Does make-up cut off circulation to that pea brain? She's delivering pizza." Gigi reached into the car and stole a slice without acknowledging Sadie.

"If this is one of Christophe's stupid YouTube pranks I'll break his face." Moss punched his brick shaped fist into his meaty palm.

It was obvious to Sadie that they were all on edge. Sadie asked, "What weird text?" And again they all shared conspiratorial glances.

Jordan, keeping it light, showed Sadie his phone, "Christophe sent us all this."

Sadie looked at the screen and read:

Come early. 5 sharp. It's important. Don't tell anyone. XOXOXOXXO :{

"You shouldn't have shown her that." Moss muttered.

Autry startled as a few wrens suddenly took flight, "I don't like this."

Moss fast balled his beer bottle into the stone pillar of the gate. It exploded in shards and foam.

"A touch agro there, Moss." Sadie said, "What's the big deal? If it's a prank it's always just some iteration of Christophe jumping out of a trash can in a wolf costume."

Gigi scanned the area, "He's definitely filming us right now."

The others, taking Gigi's cue, scattered, searching for hidden cameras, but Jordan stayed with Sadie.

God, she wished he would just leave. She was leaking sweat and could feel her damp hair glued to her forehead. She probably looked like a stewed rat. But why did she care if she looked like a stewed rat? It's a good question and one Sadie didn't have the answer too because now, in this moment with Jordan, she wanted to look cute. It was a habit since that 6th grade Halloween dance. She made a mental memo to try to kill this habit ASAP.

Jordan said, "What do you say if - don't drive off - we end the Cold War and have fun tonight?"

"Cold War?"

"I feel like a turd about how things went down this year."

"You just now feel bad about ignoring me all year when I randomly bump into you at another thing I'm not included in. That's really sweet, Jordan."

"I didn't mean to ignore you." He said softly and with an enormous helping of this hurts me more than it hurts you.

"Oh, so you accidentally didn't return any of my texts for a year? You all treated me like I was a ghost. I thought we we're friends."

"It's our last night." Jordan rested his chin on the car door and gazed up to Sadie. He pouted in a playful mea culpa, "Are you really going to let our beer pong championship go undefeated?"

Sadie could feel her hatred for Jordan looping into itself and coming back out as thinking he's adorable. She felt her brain trying to logic it out, while ignoring all the past hurt, for one last magical night where it could be like it used to be. And maybe something more than it used to be. Sadie had to get the hell away before she did something she'd regret.

"No. I hate you," Sadie facepalmed Jordan out of the window and screamed, "Open the gate Christophe or I'm chucking the pizza over it."

And if by magic - or if by Christophe listening in on everything - the gate's motors gave a heavy clank and bars swung open. Sadie threw her Golf into drive and before Jordan could ask her to wait, she peeled up the driveway, narrowly missing her ex-friends as she left them in the dust.