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Lincoln Grove High School is a shitshow and Jessie hates it. The only tolerable thing about the school is the few friends that keep her sanity in check. She goes to school every day, sits through classes full of disruptions, talking with her friends and then goes the fuck home.
One amusing thing about the school are the students. Something is always happening to someone. Whether someone got pregnant, someone got sent to juvie or there’s a rumour about who graffitied the stairwell on B Block. And Jessie and her friends are not immune to the gossip on the grapevine.
Jessie has been in the same classes as Mandy Milkovich for as long as she can remember. That doesn’t mean anything because everyone knows who Mandy Milkovich is. There’s a running tally in the boys bathroom of how many dudes she’s blown in it and Jessie doubts the numbers are anywhere close to accurate.
Jessie’s friend, Louise, lives nearby so when they hang out over there, they often get to see Mandy or her brothers come and go down the street. The notorious Milkovich family, Louise swears that she saw the dad drag a dead deer down the road and points to the stains on the footpath of the supposed blood. He creeps her out.
But Mandy, Mandy is nice. She’s a little…outspoken and not afraid to go for what she wants. Comes to school with dyed streaks in her hair and was one of the youngest girls to get a facial piercing which made everyone else want one too.
They share an English class together and the teacher is a total creep. There have been dozens of complaints about him but nothing has been done. So when he trips over in the middle of class, it gets a huge laugh from the whole room and Mandy is whipping around in her seat to look at Ian Gallagher who has a small smirk on his freckled face.
She doesn’t know much about Ian Gallagher except that he’s Frank Gallaghers son. Cassie's dad is always complaining about Frank and his schemes from his nights at The Alibi and it’s not unusual to see him walking around town with signs begging for money. Ian is also weirdly really into the military and wears his ROTC uniform way more than the other ROTC students do.
Cassie says he blew Roger Spikey in the boys locker room and they’d all rolled their eyes at that one.
Lunch is right after English so when the bell rings she quickly makes her way to the cafeteria to get a table for her friends. As soon as they all sit down, she’s telling them all about what happened in English.
“He’s such a perv” Louise wrinkles her nose “Did he get a boner or something?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised” Cassie replies “I can’t believe he still teaches here”
“Do you think Mandy will file a complaint?” Jessie asks
“Nah” Louis shakes her head “No one would believe her anyway so what’s the point.”
“I think Ian fancies her then”
“You think so?” Louise asks, curiously. Always one to want to know who’s dating who and who’s hooking up. “He’s kinda cute, weird but cute”
“He’s gay though” Cassie butts in “Roger Spikey, remember?”
“That’s just a rumour” Jessie waves it off “Besides could be bi or some shit”
“Yeah” Cassie says “Did you hear Rachel and Dan broke up again?”
Ian doesn’t show up at school the next day is what Jessie notices when she’s English. Either that or he’s in the bathroom smoking with his older brother. Mandy is there and she’s making herself look sad and pitiful, her friends nearby asking her what’s wrong and she shakes her head and dabs at her eyes with a tissue. Overdramatic and attention seeking but it’s working because Jessie wants to know everything.
Cassie comes racing into the cafeteria, eager to share what she’s discovered.
“There’s lipstick messages on the girls bathroom mirrors” she says, eyes shining “Mandy or her friends wrote them”
“What do they say?” Jessie asks
“Ian Gallagher is a dead man”
“Jeez” Louise shakes his head “What the fuck would Ian do to Mandy?”
“Didn’t know he had it in him” Cassie adds “Dude, if Mandy’s brothers find out he’s actually dead”
Ian doesn’t die but he and Mandy do start dating. Like actual dating. It’s an insane twist of events but they’re both smiling, like, all the time and Mandy sits on his lap during lunch sometimes. It’s almost sickening especially because everyone saw the graffiti that matched the lipstick messages all over town. How Mickey and his brothers beat up Lip Gallagher because they couldn’t get to Ian.
“Do you think Mandy’s blackmailing him?” Louise asks, watching Mandy drape herself over Ian as she steals from his lunch bag.
“Maybe” Cassie shrugs “He looks too happy for someone being blackmailed though”
“Ugh they just kissed”
“They hang out all the time” Louise says “He’s always over at their house, I see him all the time now”
Mickey’s in juvie again is the not so hot gossip when Jessie arrives at school the following week. She kind of forgets he even goes to this school half the time because he’s never here and if he is, he’s under the bleachers dealing. The thing that makes this time more interesting is that he was shot in the leg at the Kash ‘N’ Grab.
“Apparently the owner got sick of him constantly stealing” Cassie tells them
“I heard Mandy and Ian talking about it” Louise adds “Apparently Mickey stole the gun and Ian fought Mickey to get it back”
“Ian Gallagher fought Mickey Milkovich?” Jessie asks “And won?”
“Yeah!” Louise grins “Crazy, right?”
Mandy posts a picture of her and Ian on Facebook and then changes it to her profile picture. They’re lying down in a bed together, heads close and grinning wide. It’s cute, they’re kind of a cute couple. Odd but cute.
Nothing really happens at school again, well nothing important. Lip Gallagher is taking peoples SAT’s for them and is taking a higher cut of payment than he was the previous year, Lucy Daniels is pregnant and then had an abortion (apparently) and Matt cheated on Carol again except then she slept with his older brother so there’s a whole thing about that.
And then she sees Mickey walking down the hall one day. She’s surprised to see him and didn’t know he was out of juvie so soon. She knows from Louise that the Milkovich’s like to throw a rager when someone returns home from juvie or jail so she was surprised she hadn’t known sooner.
She’s too far away to hear what Mickey’s talking about when he shoves a kid against the lockers. Probably owes him money from before he went to juvie but god, people are idiots for not paying back their dealer, especially when a Milkovich is the dealer. She should say something but then Ian Gallagher is running past shouting that someone's coming and the kid runs off.
Ian’s gotten rid of his swoopy hairstyle recently and it’s gotten on a lot of the high school girls radar. He’s suddenly leveled up and isn’t the gangly freckled face ginger and he has muscles, like proper muscles and a growth spurt. Mandy has been clinging onto him even more because of this and everyone is surprised they’re still together.
Jessie pretends to busy herself with sorting stuff in her locker. She didn’t know Ian and Mickey were friends considering last time she heard that they fought. Boys.
Ian keeps staring at Mickey intently, she’s close enough to hear Mickey ask what the hell he’s looking at and Ian’s quick reply. Then they’re gone. Mickey is apparently going to class and she can’t even remember what year he’s supposed to be in.
“Mickey Milkovich is in class today,” Cassie says, biting into her apple. She swallows before continuing “Didn’t know he was back”
“Yeah, he came back a few days ago” Louise replied “The dad is on a drug run I think so there wasn’t a party”
“He and Ian Gallagher are friends, I think” Jessie adds “Saw them hanging out in the hallway earlier”
“Weird” Cassie says “Thought they fought last time”
“Yeah, me too” Jessie replies “Ian kept staring at him”
“Cause he’s gay” Cassie says “Or bi”
“He’s literally dating his sister” Louise rolls her eyes “Do boys follow the same rules about dating siblings?”
Ian Gallagher doesn’t come to school for a while. There’s all this talk about them being taken by CPS again so he’ll probably return in a few days. Mickey doesn’t return after that day in the hallway either.
Ian does turn up in a few days and he looks rough. Hollowed almost. People stare but he doesn’t say anything, just follows Mandy around.
A month later, she’s all pissed off because Mickey knocked some prostitute up and has to get married. Apparently the Milkovich family was religious in that way, who knew?
Mandy and Ian break up a week later. Mandy looks just as haunted and troubled as Ian looked the previous week.
She’s friends with Ian on Facebook, so are Louise and Cassie. So they see it when Ian changes his profile picture to a picture of a bald eagle and then posts a single status about freedom.
They don’t see him at school ever again after that.
“Where do you think he went?” Cassie asks
“No clue” Jessie shakes her head “He’s too young to join the army”
“Ran off with his mum then?” Louise suggests “Mickey’s wife moved in the other day, she’s Russian”
“Of course she is” Cassie says “He’s Ukrainian, right?”
“I think so” Jessie bites at her lip “I think Karen’s back”
“God” Louise rolls her eyes “I did not miss her”
“She went all weird and emo”
“Yeah, cause her Dad is a piece of shit” Cassie explains “My dad was always seeing him at the Alibi and he would not stop ranting about his whore daughter and mentally ill wife”
“Is she still fucking Lip?” Jessie asks
“Probably but also Tommy”
“I thought Lip and Mandy were a thing now?” Cassie cuts in “She was all over him the other day”
“Isn’t it weird how they’re not even trying to find Ian?” Louise asks “Like, no one has seen him”
Karen gets pregnant and Mickey opens a rub n tug at the Alibi according to Cassie’s dad. He’s letting his wife do all the heavy lifting while he just gets the cash. He hasn’t been back at school since that day in the hallway which makes sense with the wife and baby on the way. Mickey isn’t the first kid at school to be a teen parent but he’s probably the first one to have a baby with a prostitute.
She passes Karen in the hallways sometimes, Lip is all over her and making sure she’s taking vitamins which she isn’t from what she’s heard. Wants to give the baby up for adoption to some rich yuppies over in the Northside which is probably the smartest thing she’s ever done.
Then Ian’s back. She’s over at Louise’s when she sees him coming from the direction of the Milkovich house. He looks different than the last she saw him and she points it out to Louise.
“He looks a bit strung out” Louis says “Drugs?”
“Probably” Jessie shrugs, everyone does some sort of drug around here “His hair is long again but not the bowl cut”
“Looks good”
They’re in their junior year of high school now and most of the people in the steady gossip grapevine have graduated or dropped out. It’s kind of boring but then two freshmen get expelled for dealing in the school hallways instead of outside where no one can see you and apparently the science teacher is having an affair with the school nurse.
“Did you hear?” Cassie runs to the table, nearly pushing the table across the floor with the impact.
“Hear about what?” Jessie asks
“Ian Gallagher and Mickey Milkovich”
“What about them?” Louise asks
“They’re fucking dating” and that stops all three of them in their tracks.
“No fucking way” Jessie says “I don’t believe you”
“Way” Cassie grins “Mickey came out at The Alibi at his child’s christening party or whatever”
“How do you know?” Louise asks
“My dad was there” Cassie shrugged “Said Franks ginger kid was lurking at the bar and Mickey’s dad came in after being released from jail”
“Wild”
“Right?” Cassie says “Anyway, I guess something happened because Mickey just fucking…announced to the whole bar that he was gay and no one gave a shit”
“Find that hard to believe” Louise comments
“That’s what I said” Cassie replies “Then Mickey’s dad goes insane, like, flipping tables and screaming that he’s gonna kill Mickey and just punches him in the face”
“Whoa”
“Yeah and then Ian joins in too!” Cassie exclaims “Can you believe it? Apparently Mickey’s uncles or his dads friends joined in on the bashing and Ian tackled one and had a chair broken on his back”
“Is he okay?” Jessie asks “Like that would hurt a lot”
“I mean, it probably hurt” Cassie shrugs again “But yeah it went on for ages until the cops came and Mickey's dad broke probation and had to go back to jail immediately and Mickey and Ian were free to go”
“That’s fucking wild” Louise shakes her head “So what, was Ian gay this whole time?”
“Roger Spikey” Cassie smirks “Fucking told you”
“Still” Louise waves her hand “Mandy was a beard then?”
“Mickey Milkovich is gay?” Jessie asks, head still reeling “That’s insane”
“Right?”
Sometimes friends drift apart when high school ends. They go to different college’s, don’t even go to college full stop. They travel the world if they can, or they go straight to the workforce.
Jessie, Cassie and Louise were not those types of friends. Despite going in different directions in life, they still managed to keep in somewhat regular contact. It’s nice seeing the Facebook messenger notification pop up every once in a while with some new gossip from old classmates.
It’s the only reason Jessie still has a Facebook account, just to lurk and see what everyone ended up doing with their lives.
It’s late at night when she’s scrolling through her timeline, breathing deeply through her nose when she reads an amusing meme of a twitter post that was once a tumblr post many years ago. Then she sees it.
Ian’s still on Facebook. Not that much but it seems like he has his Instagram connected so that it posts automatically from there.
He’s posted a photo of himself in a black suit and he looks amazing. Grown into himself and then he sees the man next to him. Mickey Milkovich who’s wearing a similar suit except with a white suit jacket instead of black. Their arms are around each others waists, tightly gripping one another and they’re smiling so widely. Their giving the camera the middle finger in true Southside fashion and then she realises what she’s looking at.
She sits up in bed, covers falling around her waist as her eyes widen.
It’s a wedding photo.
She drags her eyes up to the caption, a simple sentence that really conveys everything.
“Married my best friend, it will always be you.
I love you, @MickeyMG”
Posted by Ian Gallagher-Milkovich four hours ago.
She takes a screen shot and immediately sends it to the group chat.
‘Did you hear about Ian and Mickey?’ she types and then waits for the three little dots to appear.