Chapter Text
It all started with a stupid dare, which she hadn’t even wanted to accept in the first place, but saying no would have made her look weak in front of her friends. Well Linda and Karen weren’t actually her friends, but since Beth was a cheerleader it was expected of her to hang out with other popular students.
Her only real friend was Ruby, and she was grateful that the two of them didn’t go to the same high school, she didn’t want her best friend to see how she acted when she was with Karen and Linda. She had to pretend that she was this confident and shallow person, she never dared to tell them about her feelings or her problems.
She knew that they would stop talking to her if they would find out about her family situation, they were extremely rich and they never had to worry about paying the bills.
Karen and Linda were excited about the Homecoming dance and were talking about the dresses they just bought, while Beth was trying to pretend that she actually cared about any of this. She knew that she would have been excited too if she wouldn’t have had to raise her younger sister, because their parents couldn’t be bothered to actually do their jobs.
She was not looking forward to the dance, she knew that Dean would be there and probably ask her for the hundredth time when they would get back together. She had been the one who had told him that she needed a break, even though she already knew that she didn’t want to be his girlfriend anymore.
She used to have a crush on him, she had felt flattered by his attention, but she had never been in love with him. And most of the time when she was with him she found herself wishing that he was a different person. For months she had told herself that she couldn’t be with someone better than him, that she had to settle for him, until she had talked to Ruby about it. Her best friend had convinced her that she shouldn’t just listen to her mother ( “ You get what you get and you don’t get upset” was such a shitty thing to say to your child) and that she deserved to be with someone she actually liked.
And yes, it had been nice to imagine that Dean would take care of her and her sister and she won’t have to worry about anything ever again, but that had been just a fantasy. So many things could go wrong, she couldn’t just trust him and wait for him to save her.
No, she needed to save herself, she had to focus on school and continue working at Dairy Queen, even though she hated that job.
After the girls finished talking about the Homecoming dresses Linda started gushing about Rio again. He was one of the new students and he was already quite popular, due to the fact that he was handsome and he knew how to make himself likable. Some of the girls had a crush on him and were waited for him to invite them to the dance. Beth was starting to get tired of having to hear about how hot Rio was, she had eyes so she could tell that herself!
It wasn’t like she disliked him, he seemed like a cool guy, but having to hear about him almost every day was exhausting, to say the least. And she just knew that Linda was only interested in him because he was the shiny new toy, she did that every year and she would most likely dump him after a few months.
Rio was a straight A student, so he must be smart, perhaps he would see that Linda didn’t really give a crap about him and he won’t get his heart broken. Beth certainly didn’t want him to suffer, they’ve only talked once and she had enjoyed their conversation.
Linda was watching Rio, who was sitting on a bench and was drawing something, and she was once again telling Beth and Karen that she was convinced that Rio had a crush on her and he would definitely invite her to Homecoming ( “ he just wants to tease me, that’s why it’s taking him so long).
Beth just couldn’t take it anymore, she was so tired of this subject, so she asked something she had been wondering about for a while.
“ Why don’t you just invite him to the dance, then?”
“ Oh, Beth, you can’t be serious! I can’t do that, it would be so humiliating” it was ridiculous, Linda was acting like she had just been told to rob a grocery store.
“ Yeah, not to mention that the guy looks like a drug dealer, I don’t get why you would want to be with someone like that” Karen never made a secret of the fact that she disliked Rio, she kept expecting to see him sell drugs in the parking lot.
“ No, he doesn’t, and asking him to be your date won’t be humiliating. That way you save time and you don’t have to wait for him to make a move” it wasn’t like she was Rio’s biggest fan, but she felt like she had to defend him. God, Karen was such an awful person!
“ Oh, I could never!”
Beth doubted that Rio actually wanted to invite Linda to Homecoming, so far he hadn’t showed interest in any of the girls, he seemed to be focused on school and he apparently participated in boxing matches. She admired him for that, she thought that he could go far in life.
“ Well, I would” she had no interest in doing it, but she had hoped that this would motivate Linda to get over her fear. But no such luck.
“ Then I dare you to do it! If you think it would be so easy...” Linda seemed quite upset, she wanted to prove that Beth was full of shit.
And Beth knew that she could have simply apologized, but why should she? She wanted to show the other girl that it wasn’t such a big deal, even though she had never done this before. So far she had only had one boyfriend, and he had been the one who always made the first move.
And it wasn’t like Rio would accept her invitation anyways. Sure, it would be a little humiliating to be rejected, but it won’t be the end of the world. Her classmates might talk about it for a few days, but then they would find something more important to gossip about. And maybe Dean would realize that she didn’t want them to get back together, and that way she won’t have to explain it to him. She kept avoiding having that conversation, she knew that he won’t react well.
“ Okay, I will do it right now” she enjoyed watching the shocked expression on Linda’s face, and she just walked up to Rio.
He didn’t seem to have noticed her, his attention was entirely focused on his drawing, and when she came closer she could tell that he was trying to draw some kind of bird. Maybe an eagle or an owl? She wasn’t sure and she wasn’t going to ask him that, he might feel offended because she couldn’t understand his artistic genius.
"Hi, will you go to Homecoming with me?" she could have made some small talk before asking him that, but why bother? He was just gonna say no, the only thing that mattered was that she had proven Linda wrong.
He gave her a startled look, stared at her for a few moments and just when she was ready to ask him again he finally responded.
“ Yeah, why not? What time should I pick you up?”
“ Wait, really?” that was the last thing she had expected, she first thought that he was trying to make fun of her, but he actually sounded serious.
“ Duh, did you think I would say no?” he seemed to be amused by her bewilderment, but he didn’t understand! This was not supposed to happen, Linda would probably hate her for this, she would think that Beth had a crush on Rio and she was trying to steal him from her.
Ugh, why couldn’t he just have said no, you know... like a normal person?! They only talked to each other once, didn’t he want to go to the dance with someone he liked? Or was he doing this because he disliked Dean and wanted him to be jealous?
She was really wishing now that she would have just apologized to Linda, why did she had such a need to prove people wrong?!