“Karley! Over here!” Karley turned her head to the side and saw her best friend, Jennifer, waving frantically at her from inside her white convertible. “Come on! Let’s get out of here! The rush is starting.” Jennifer referred to the mad swarm of teenagers trying to all get out of the high school parking lot at the same time.

            Karley smiled and jogged to Jennifer’s car, her blonde ponytail bobbing up and down with her steps. She tossed her pink backpack in the backseat and immediately pulled down the mirror in front of her to check her hair and makeup.

            “Girl, chill out! Your hair looks fine. Like, not as good as mine, but it looks good.” Jennifer said jokingly, fingering her own shoulder length auburn hair. Karley didn’t even smile though. Instead she sighed exasperatingly and sat back in the white leather seat. “Kar, what’s wrong? Come on, we’ve been best friends since the first grade, you can tell me!” Karley looked up at her and said,

            “Well, you know how I told you that I was going to, like, run for Prom Queen, right? Well, I just found out that Marissa is running too. I can just hear it now, ‘Prom Queen of 2004, Marissa.’” Karley spat out the word Marissa.

            “Aw, come on Karley! You’re the most popular girl in school! There’s no way you can lose!” Jennifer said comfortingly.

            “Psh! You probably said that to her too!” Karley said grumpily. Jennifer was also friends with Marissa.

            Being Prom Queen and King was a huge deal at her school. The King and Queen both received five hundred dollars, and their picture was featured on the first page in the yearbook. It was every persons dream to be King or Queen, so it really was a big deal.

            “Tell you what Kar, why don’t we swing by Wal-Mart and pick up some poster boards so you can put them up around the school. I’ll, like, take some pictures of you on my dad’s digital camera, and we can make you the Prom Queen for sure!”

            Karley smiled and said, “Thanks Jen, you’re the best!”

*           *           *

            Karley and Jennifer were browsing the posters, and Karley reached for the standard white ones when Jennifer said,

            “Ew, you know how I feel about white!” Jennifer started as Karley rolled her eyes. “It’s like the bottom bun of a cheeseburger. It’s meant for things to go on top of it, not all by itself!” Jennifer said in an as-a-matter-of-fact voice.

            “I should have known. When you moved here in 1st grade, I think I figured that our before I even knew your name!” They both laughed and bought three pale blue and pink boards instead. “Hey Jen, how about you come over tomorrow night and then we can work on these?”

            “Sounds good to me. Oh, thank you.” Jennifer thanked the clerk, who she had a huge crush on. She flirtingly waved at him and Karley pulled her out by her arm.

            The next day at school in Karley’s first hour, a girl named Joan came up to her.

            “Hey Karley. Heard you were running for Prom Queen. Cool. Anyway, I’m having a party tonight. It’s at ten. Here’s a map. Oh, and you can bring Jennifer too.” Joan talked very fast, and hurriedly went away. Whatever. Karley thought.  I guess I’ll tell Jennifer at lunch. She might like to go.

            The rest of Karley’s before lunch classes flew by, and when Karley entered the cafeteria, Jennifer quickly flagged her down. Jennifer’s lunch consisted of a chicken caesar salad and a skim milk.

            Karley stole a piece of chicken from her salad when she remembered about the party Joan had invited her to.

            “Oh, Jen, Joan invited us to a part tonight. You wanna go?” Jennifer’s face lit up and she quickly agreed. She loved parties.

*           *           *

            Jennifer pulled up in Karley’s driveway in her convertible at nine thirty that night. Karley ran out to her car and slid in the passenger’s seat.

            “Here’s the map to the party.” Karley said, and she handed the map to Jennifer. She looked at the map and raised her eyes.

            “Never heard of it. Oh well, I can find it.” Jennifer handed the map back, and drove off.

            After many twisty roads and wrong turns, they finally ended up at an old warehouse looking building. The paint on the siding was peeling horribly, and there were several good-sized holes in the roof. The two girls exchanged nervous glances, but pretended not to notice. They heard loud music, and there was a faint haze hanging over the whole scene.

            They walked up to the door and Karley opened it. They were greeted by the scent of sweating bodies and smoke. There were strobe lights everywhere and everyone seemed to be going crazy dancing and laughing.

            Just then a boy, about 17 or 18 stumbled up to them and spilled beer down his front when he drank it. His unsteady gaze found Jennifer and he said,

            “Heyyy babe. Wannadance?” He slurred his speech. Disgusted and shaken, both of them quickly left the door again, leaving the drunken teen to ponder what just happened.

            “Kar?” Jennifer said once they were almost halfway home. “Promise me you’ll never drink of do drugs, kay?” Karley could tell that the young people at the rave party were still fresh in Jennifer’s mind. Karley smiled slightly and said,

            “You bet Jen. You bet.”

*           *           *

            The next day at school, the late night party scare was forgotten, and all attention was brought back to trying to make Karley as popular as possible. She made a big show of doing her hair at her locker mirror, and when nobody was looking, she would even help a little lost freshman to where they wanted to go. Unfortunately, being Prom Queen wasn’t just her goal.

            “What are you doing!?” A familiar voice screeched from behind Karley.

            “Marissa…” Karley said calmly as she turned to face her rival. “Heard you’re trying to be Prom Queen. You’re chances are slimmer than George Bush’s chance of winning the Nobel Peace Prize.” Karley swerved her head with attitude as she said the last part of the sentence.

            “Yeah, well, Jennifer has been giving me loads of help lately, so I think that I’ll get the most votes. After all, she does like me better anyway. You’ve seen us together, I think we’re long lost sisters!” Marissa took a few steps forward.

            “Yeah, sure. That’s why she gives me rides to and from school, and hangs out with me at lunch, and after school.” Karley snapped back.

            “Whatever! She’s been helping me more and that’s the point! We’re better friends than you, so why don’t you just drop out of the race now and forget about it?” Marissa finished talking and when she walked past Karley their shoulders hit each other’s. How is she friends with her? I don’t get it.

            Later that day at lunch Jennifer was having her usual ceasar salad when Karley realized that they never got the chance to work on the posters because of the ill fated party.

            “Hey, how about you come over my house after school and we can work on the posters? Since, you know, we were busy yesterday.” Karley suggested. Jennifer agreed, and Karley stole her usual piece of chicken from the salad.

            “Hey, Marissa and I had this huge fight today. Okay, not huge, but we kind of dissed each other for a while.” Karley said, not thinking. At first Jennifer looked surprised, then said,

            “Hey, take it easy on her, k? She doesn’t have an easy life. Her family is kind of poor. That’s why she won’t tell anybody why she moved here in the seventh grade. She actually hasn’t moved since she was in kindergarten. Her parents just couldn’t afford to send her to the private school she was going to before.” Jennifer said. “Sorry I never told you before. I didn’t see any reason.”

            “That’s okay…” Karley said. The thought of the $500 check the Queen would get. Did Karley really need it? No! Don’t think about that Karley! She would still be mean even if she did have $500. She thought guiltily.

            The fight with Marissa was still in Karley’s mind at the end of the day, so she avoided her as much as she could. The last thing she needed was a fistful of hair pulled out or a black eye. Marissa was known for getting in catfights.

            At the end of the day, Karley jumped in the backseat of Jennifer’s white convertible as usual, and checked her hair in her mirror.

            “Chill out, you look fine.” Jennifer reminded her again.

            “I know, I know, not as good as you, but okay, right?” Karley laughed as Jennifer pulled out onto the road and headed toward Karley’s house.

            Karley was searching for the posters she bought with her friend a few days ago when she heard Jennifer ask,

            “Hey, can I have these chips?” Karley didn’t know which chips she was talking about, so she just said,

            “Yeah, help yourself to anything.” Karley’s hand brushed some newspaper and revealed the posters. She grabbed them, and brought them into the kitchen where Jennifer was eating peanut butter cookies her mother had baked the day before.

            “Okay, lets get started.” Karley said.

*           *           *

            Karley’s eyes itched with fatigue, and she looked at the clock. It was 6:57. Jennifer had been over Karley’s house for a few hours now. They had gotten four out of six poster boards done. Each poster had a picture of Karley on it, and lots of glittery glue and markers saying that she would make the best prom queen. They were eating salsa and chips when Jennifer accidentally dropped a chip with tons of red mild salsa on the board she was working on.

            “Aw God! I’m so sorry Kar; I’ll go run out and get another one right now. Sorry again!” Jennifer whacked her head with her palm said goodbye, and left with her car keys and jacket.

            Karley picked up the last remaining bored and started to draw a design around the edges of it to make it look like ivy. Her hand started to hurt after doing that halfway through, so she decided to do the rest after she finished the rest of the bored. She selected one of the pictures of her and glued it in the center of the bored. Then she took a red marker and wrote in fancy curvy letters:

            Then she resumed drawing ivy around the edges, and finished it by putting some sparkly stickers on it. Satisfied, she checked the clock again. It said 7:52. Stunned, she checked her wristwatch to make sure the time was right. It was. Suddenly her stomach felt like she just swallowed a fireball. Where was Jennifer? Surely it didn’t take that long to decide between pale pink, yellow, or blue. But nevertheless Karley jumped up like she had been bitten by a snake, and almost robotically, she grabbed her car keys and jogged out to her car, just to make sure Jennifer was okay.

            A little over halfway to the Wal-Mart, Karley heard something. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping, praying it was her imagination. But as she kept going, the noise got louder and it dawned on her that it was real. The eerie sound of ambulance sirens blared at an intersection of the Wal-Mart. At first Karley didn’t want to look, but she had to prove to herself that Jennifer was okay. She let out a gasp of relief. There was a black pickup truck, and she didn’t see any other cars. The truck was pretty beat up though, it’s front corner completely smashed in. But as Karley looked closer, she saw the end of a white car in a ditch. Icy fear took over her body, but it felt like her face was on fire. She pulled over, and starting jogging toward the ditch. She was in a full-fledged run now, when suddenly a man stuck out his arm and stopped her.

            “Sorry miss, there was a pretty bad accident here. Where were you going anyhow?” Karley looked up at the man. She realized he was a cop; otherwise she would have struggled and ran to the car anyway. Karley had to tell him that it was her friend’s car! She had to see Jennifer!

            “Sir, please! I think that was my friend’s car! Please! Oh God, who was in there?” Karley had panic in her voice.

            “I believe it was a young lady with brown hair. We don’t really have any information on her. She’s at the hospital, if you want a lift.

            Karley entered the police car, her heart beating as loud as a drum.

*          *          *

            It turned out that Jennifer was in fact in the accident. She just pulled out of the parking lot of the Wal-Mart when a drunk driver ran a red light and hit the driver’s side of the front of her car, causing it to spin into the ditch. Who was the drunk driver? It was Joan, coming back from another party. She was fine. No serious injuries.

            The first night Jennifer was in the hospital, Karley spend the night in the waiting room because the nurse wouldn’t let her in because she was in critical condition. The next morning, however, the nurse came and woke her up.

            “You can come see her now.” The nurse said. “We…we’re taking her off life support. She’s just in too bad of shape.” The nurse said with difficulty. Karley numbly walked into the small intensive care room. She saw her best friend under covers, with many tubes leading from her nose and arms. She looked beaten up, but…peaceful. Jennifer’s parents were there also. Her mother looked as white as a sheet, and her father’s face looked like stone. Karley hugged them first, then stepped forward to the bed and gave Jennifer a hug. Her face didn’t move much, except for the slightest hint of a smile. Jennifer died surrounded by her least favorite color: white. She kept her promise by never drinking or doing drugs, but unfortunately Joan made her pay her life just so she could have some fun.

            The next day school was canceled because of Jennifer’s death, and all during that day, Karley and Marissa held each other and mourned. Even though they didn’t like each other, they both understood how much Jennifer meant to them.

            The next week Marissa won the vote for Prom Queen. Karley was happy for her. She knew she needed the money and she deserved it. After Jennifer left, Karley and Marissa became best friends.