Rather than carry groceries, Frankie offered to drive them to the grocery store. Michy rested her cheek in her hand as she stared out at the many people walking back and forth between the beach and the town. She looked bored.

"By the way, thanks for helping us out yesterday. We clearly needed it," Frankie said. He preferred conversation over radio.

"Don't mention it." And she meant it. Michy was pretty embarrassed about how physical she got yesterday. A month ago, she thought herself to be very mature, maybe too much so for most people, but since getting so wrapped up in the capture-the-flag game, she began questioning herself.

"Well, it was very nice of you. I'm sure Al really appreciated it." Frankie smirked at the memory of Michy pinning Al to the table.

"It was nothing. Just forget it," Michy said sternly.

Frankie looked over at her curiously. "There's no reason to be embarrassed. It may have seemed like an odd day to you, but it was par for the course for the rest of us."

"I'm not embarrassed!" Michy immediately regretted saying that. She obviously wasn't mature enough to control her temper.

Not wanting to upset her further, Frankie kept his mouth closed.

The number of people heading to the beach was larger than usual. The extra hot weather today must be sending all the people in town to the ocean's sweet relief. It was nice to be in an air-conditioned car, but the traffic was turning a short trip into a long one.

"I'm sorry," Michy said uncomfortably.

"Its fine," Frankie thought back to yesterday, "after all, I'm not immune to losing my head either."

"That was pretty surprising," Michy tried not to sound offensive. "I didn't expect that from you."

"Well," Frankie said with a tired smile, "sometimes I think it's more mature to let your anger out than to just keep it to yourself. I'm sure Rosaline would agree." Frankie looked over at Michy again. He left her an out, an opening for her to go into a rant about Rosaline. Instead, she surprised him.

She didn't say anything. Her bored expression seemed to waver with a hint of sadness.

I guess I'm not as grown up as I thought.

"So, you and R-Kelley seem to get along pretty well." Frankie was eager to move to a new topic. He hadn't had a lot of luck choosing his words recently.

"I wouldn't say that." She crossed her arms and slouched in her seat. She gazed at the car in front of them like an experienced woman reflecting on the mistakes of her youth. "He does something weird, and then I yell at him. There's not much more to our relationship than that."

"I'm sure R-Kelley doesn't think that."

"Did he say so?" Michy raised an eyebrow.

"Well, no."

"Then how do you know?" She seemed annoyed by his waffling.

"It's just a hunch."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She sighed.

"If you really want to know what he thinks of you, then just ask." Frankie suggested this, but he knew how that conversation would go. R-Kelley had a habit of dodging the question or just giving really vague answers. Whether this was something he did consciously or unconsciously, Frankie wasn't sure.

Michy already understood this. "He's just so secretive, but acts all innocent. It's frustrating."

"I know he has a lot of secrets. I'm not sure where he is half the time. And yes, he has reaffirmed my beliefs in ghosts and the Easter Bunny, but he's not a bad person," Frankie said, "If you take the time to get close to him, I'm sure he'd let you see the real R-Kelley."

"Yeah, like that would ever work. I bet he didn't even tell you how we first met." Michy went on to explain how R-Kelley had insisted on paying Michy back for saving Rosaline's life and how that ended in him saving her from the cross-dressing man that stole her purse. "See, he's weird. And it'd be one thing if he had some odd habits that were obvious, which he does but that's not the point. It's the stuff I don't know that bothers me. How can you commit yourself to someone you know so little about?"

Frankie was a little taken aback, but when she was done, he couldn't help but smile at how shameless she was being. "I didn't realize you could get like this. We're talking about R-Kelley being closed off, but I never expected you to be so open about your feelings."

Michy's face went blank as she reflected on what she just said and how it must have sounded. "I'm not talking about me! I'm being hypothetical! He's just so strange that I'm curious as to how this person can exist. It doesn't seem possible!" Michy scowled, but she couldn't keep her face from turning red.

Frankie sighed as he put the SUV in park. Being transparent made her angry, and being angry made her very easy to read. Frankie was a little surprised at how hopeless she really was. If she could control her temper that problem would go away. It reminded him of someone else he knew, but he felt it was better not to say.

He opened the door and said "Well, let's get going."

She held her head down shamefully as she followed Frankie out of the parking garage. Not paying attention, she walked into Frankie, who stopped suddenly. She curiously looked up at him to see a surprised and disturbed expression.

Before them was a group of people, mostly of college age, with signs reading such phrases as "love knows no gender" and "we deserve equality." They looked across the street, shaking their fists and making other rude gestures, at another group, whose signs read "we hate homoz" and "one man + one woman only." The obscenities that were screamed by both sides were probably not appropriate for children passing by on the sidewalk.

And of course, being oblivious to what she was really doing, Rosaline stood in the fray with her "I'm not gay! You're gay!" sign in her hands. Somehow her voice stood out amongst the others, as well as the traffic that passed between the two groups of protestors. Her shouts, such as "chastise the infected" and "get your lime out of my coconut," were not exactly understood by her companions, but the protestors against equal rights for homosexuals were happy to have Rosaline on board regardless. That is, until this happened.

Rosaline began singing one of her favorite songs, which incidentally had nothing to do with the protesting, and was very annoyed when her companions didn't join her. She went out in front of them and began screaming until they quieted down.

"Now that I got your attention," she turned towards their rivals on the other side of the street and held out her picket sign like a sword. "Charge!" Rosaline cried as she ran out into moving traffic. For the second time that day, she was the only one charging.

She dodged several cars, others stopped abruptly to let her go by. Of those that stopped, she jumped onto the hood of one and used it as a step to start running across the roof of another, allowing her the height to jump at the others from above. The gay rights protestors looked up in awe as the seventeen-year-old girl with blue hair came down towards them, a white picket sign raised above her head like a battle hatchet.

"Fear my oppression!" Rosaline announced as the crowd scattered. She swung her sign around, using it to trip a woman and make her fall to the ground. Rosaline quickly jumped on top of her, shoving her crotch over the poor woman's face. "Yeah, you like that? Ya like that c*** in your face! It feels good doesn't it? Hahahaha!"

Frankie watched the mortifying scene for a moment before he decided to run in and stop her. He was halted abruptly, however, by Michy quickly raising her hand.
"Hold on," she said as she stared intensely at the deplorable acts, "I want to see what happens."

A bald man in a white tank top grabbed Rosaline's shoulders and tried to pull her off the panicking woman, who quickly got to her feet and sobbed as she ran away.

Rosaline immediately crossed her arms over her chest and screamed "Molester!"

"What?" the man hastily took his hands off of her. "I'm not a molester, kid!"

"Are too! You tried to touch me inappropriately!" Rosaline accused.

"Your shoulders are inappropriate?" He yelled, red faced and tense.

"And then you were going to force me into your scary white van and have your way with me!" Rosaline squirmed in her own grasp as she spoke.

"I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot poll!" the bald man shouted.

Rosaline slapped him across the face with the back of her hand, sending the man to the ground. She then pulled him up by the straps of his tank top and bellowed in his face.

"Are you saying I'm not good enough to molest? I've never been so insulted in all my life!" Rosaline stared daggers into the bald man's sweating face.

He couldn't muster a response before a guy with short black hair ran up to them and tried to calm the angry girl down.

"Hey girl, chill out. I know he doesn't look it, but he's actually a really cool guy. I swear," he said quickly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" the bald man said before Rosaline threw his overweight body to the sidewalk.

"Fine, I'll forgive this scum for offending me." She crossed her arms and looked down on him. "But first you must lick my feet!" She kicked off her flip-flop and wiggled her toes in his face.

"You can't be serious," he stuttered.

Rosaline chuckled evilly. She was totally serious.

"C'mon let's get out of here!" the guy with the black hair yelled as he helped the man to his feet. The two started running down the sidewalk.

"Hey, I demand payment!" Rosaline screamed as she swung her fists in the air.

Rosaline grabbed her picket sign off the sidewalk. In one fluid motion, she swung it around like a baton and then launched it like a javelin. The wooden rod struck the bald man in the back, making him fall face-first to the concrete with a "Gak!"

Across the street, the other group of protestors looked at the act in horror.

"Oh geez, it's the cops!" one of them yelled when he saw a policeman running up the sidewalk.

"Should we help her?"

"Are you kidding? I'm getting out of here!" The rest followed this man's wise example and scurried away, leaving their own picket signs on the ground.

Seeing his comrade fall to the ground, the black haired guy kept running.

Rosaline launched herself at him, flying through the air like a tiger pouncing on her prey. Her fingers were bent like claws and dug into his back, sliding down his shirt and catching on his pants. The man fell forward with his pants around his knees. Rosaline quickly crawled on top of him and turned him over. She clapped her hands over his cheeks, giving him a gaping fish face. She then abruptly halted her assault.

"Holy ravioli! You're hot!" she yelled excitedly. "Wanna go out?"

The policeman wiped his sweaty forehead as he came to a stop behind Rosaline.

"Oh brother," he huffed, "you again?"

"Why hello officer," Rosaline turned around dramatically, giving the man a wink and using two fingers to blow him a kiss.

I must admit, I never really intended this to become as potentially offensive as it has. If I haven't apologized enough, I'm really sorry about this. I hope no one has any problems with this chapter. For the record, I'm not homophobic. Whether or not Rosaline is...well, she's just an idiot and doesn't know any better. She didn't assault them because they support equal rights for homosexuals, she assaulted them because she's a moron.

Next Time: A conflict in the parking garage. What's got Michy so worked up?