Hanna was right, it was painful obvious that Ivy still hadn’t found her footing just yet, but as the night went on she would be able to use that brain to pivot to a tune she could carry. Muscle memory you know? Drinks would loosen her tongue and inhibitions, especially with the decadent flex of rounds on Hanna, but it would slow her wits. Something, she needed about her if this reunion was going to go any other way but south. Unfortunately for Ivy it didn’t seem like it was heading anywhere else, with Anni chiming in. The way she made herself diminutive in the face of the other girls in her circle prodded memories awake from an earlier time with Hanna.
-Sometime during Ritman High-
“'Sup, babe, you wanna hear a lil' something-something?” Hanna could barely hold it together with a stupid grin on her face. The question was perhaps the most rhetorical statement that she had ever cared to utter. Before Ivy could even take a breath, let alone answer or react, Hanna fired up the firing range: “Anni got booted from the squad yesterday. I mean, it was apparently totally brutal how it went down, at least according to Madeleine Peterson -- you know, Natalie Miller's little dog on a leash. Anyway, so, Stephanie Adams and Jennifer Cooper straight up tell Anni--” Hanna took a step closer to Ivy and lowered her voice a bit. “--that she's this total loser freak and they'd never let her on even if she was prettier than Natalie, or something like that, at least. And then, someone, like, throws something at Anni, a ball or something.” Hanna sort of chuckled and cringed at the same time. The scenario sounded hilarious, but she felt sorry for Anni. “I mean, holy shit, I didn't realize it was that bad with Anni -- I mean, is it? Do you talk with her at all?” Hanna asked.
Ivy took one last look over in the mirror, attached to her locker before closing it. She immediately jumped in her skin to see a wide grinned Hanna, “Jesus Hanna!” That devious face could have only meant one thing, which almost always meant she had the latest pound of gossip at 7:15 am, it was almost inhuman. Before she could even say, “Even if I say no you’re gonna tell me anyways”, Hanna went straight into it. It took a second for her brain to start up and contend with the speed of Hanna’s tongue. Ivy would have been lying if she hadn’t grown to live for the gossip despite doing her best to discourage the source of it through her actions. Ivy was saddened for Anni, disappointed in the girls involved, and revolted that words so harmful could be said let alone tack on with a ball to the face. Ivy pressed her back to the locker, hugging her books as she looked up and sighed in defeat. Hanna’s chuckle was the only thing that made her feel better. “Honestly, not as much as I should. I mean look at me honey, drowning in everything I had planned, have planned, and have yet to plan. And this administration does nothing in the way to help” her eyes darted to the side to meets Hanna’s gaze. In that moment she had a brilliant idea with the same expression Hanna had given her, “I didn’t realize it was that bad, but why don’t I hold an anti-bullying seminar/campaign? And I can try to get closer to Anni that way? You could come, that is if you wanted to be caught dead being an ally.”
Hanna leaned in against the lockers, modestly sliding over next to Ivory, resting her head against the gal's shoulder and listening to the qualms signing from that soft voice. “Oh Ivy League, you are too pure and beautiful to have to worry about these things.” Hanna spun right up again but with a less hectic tone, more mellow in its speed. “But, of course, I'll help. Anything for you, babe, but I'm not sure if it'll work on these bitches that did this,” she continued and exited their little moment by the lockers, now standing in front of Ivy. “I mean, they really don't give a shit about anything, especially things like that. They just need to be beat-the-fuck-up, plain and simple, but nobody is going to do that.” Hanna shifted her position to Ivy's other side and leaned in against the lockers again, but with a hand's distance between them. “For the sake of doing, something, you should do the campaign AND talk to Anni privately, just to let her know that she has an ally that isn't just I WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND I'M HERE TO HELP YOU,” Hanna blurted out and did tiny robot movements with her arms, chuckling at her own silliness in the process. “Anyway, I'm late for English. Cya latah, Poison.” Hanna said, playing on the name of the Batman villain 'Poison Ivy'.
Ivy was a bit disappointed in herself that she failed to follow up and keep ties with Anni, maybe then she would have been less lonely in HS. This is why she came back to Delton though, to make up for the mistakes from her younger days. Another ghost of her ghosting days appeared in the shape of Lucas, some one who could have contended to be as close to her as Hanna, but fell through the cracks. Not just him, but CJ and someone she never expected to see in Jack. Though their conversation seemed one sided at the bar with CJ all but physically torturing Jack. “Hey Jack, CJ, how are you two holding up?” The balancing act of social interactions as the host was going to make an acrobat of her yet. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ |
█ #1.01 WAY DOWN WE GO grown up — danny brown ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ |