`Give your heart a break ~ Jess

[Mackenzie Jacinta Ferreira]

Mackenzie knew her poor car didn’t deserve the abuse it was getting right now, all because of her idiotic father and his absolute determination that she would not have a proper life as long as he was alive. The brakes and the accelerator were taking it particularly hard, as one might expect, but the gearbox was suffering too. Muttering various curses about her dad under her breath as she drove, the seventeen year old hardly even knew where she was heading to until she pulled into the car park by the trail that lead down to the lake. It was remarkably full for once, and only then did Kenzie remember the party going on here tonight – because Inez had begged her and Morgan to come along, even though they’d both flat out refused at the first mention of the word ‘party’…the Brit and alcohol didn’t tend to mix particularly well, especially when she had two younger friends to be getting drunk too. First and last time she’d make the mistake of going out somewhere like this with Inez; she could still feel the hangover she’d had the next morning if she really tried.

So she’d said no, and somehow she was still sitting here. Her dad was going to kill her when she got home, the brunette knew. Not just for running off, but also for having one or two and driving home after. But, well…did she care right now? No, no the girl really didn’t. In fact, doing all the things that would cause her dad to throw a shitfit seemed like a pretty fantastic idea. Kenz got out, shoving her phone into the pocket of her shorts and headed down the path, emerging onto the sand where a lot of her schoolmates had gathered. Sleepy Addison may be, but that didn’t stop an inordinate amount of underage drinkers like you might find in any other town.

Whistling quietly along to the music, Mackenzie pushed her way through the crowds, half-searching for Inez and partly so she wouldn’t have an attack of social inept-ness and leave again. There were a few surprised hellos from people she knew at school, mainly because they all knew she had a lunatic for a father by now, which Kenz returned before moving on. It really was a pain in the ass being no taller than five feet sometimes, because she couldn’t see too far ahead in the crowd to know if any of her friends were around or not…yet another thing to add to her current list of things she hated but wasn’t able to change, supposedly.

Regardless, Mackenzie had come here more for the alcohol than anything else (although drinking with friends was always more entertaining), so eventually she stopped looking and made a beeline for the ice buckets acting as fridges for now. And unsurprisingly, that was where she found her mechanic buddy, as well as…Ryder? Huh, who knew. He hadn’t really struck her as the type to do anything particularly unlawful in the time they’d been good friends, but there were always going to be things she didn’t know about people when you considered the thought that she didn’t spend much time around them. Add in the fact that Ryder was kind of hot and it wasn’t too surprising asking him if he went out drinking a lot hadn’t been the first thing on her mind. Poking him gently in the ribs, Kenzie grinned at him.

”Hey you! Not spending the evening with your feathered friend for once?”

[ryder augustus foxx]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #3d213a solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] Today, you were far away tagged Nem words idek muse The National notes mreh credits template by irish! Normally, Ryder Foxx was not someone you would expect to find at a party, downing alcohol like his life depended on it. Normally, Ryder was far too busy collecting homeless animals to be out at parties. His schedules always consisted of school, football, work, and doing what he could to keep animals at the local shelter from being euthanized. Normally, he wasn't at parties. Tonight... tonight was different, though. This week was the week from hell that came once a month, and no, it had nothing to do with a highly hormonal woman. This week was the week that Ryder and his siblings were "forced" to go stay with his dad for a week. For Ryder, there was quite possibly nothing worse than that. Until he was 18, though, he had absolutely no say in what happened with this whole custody thing, no matter how much he protested. Upon arrival at his dad's just a few days ago, his dad had immediately started drilling him as to the nature of his grades and whether he was staying out of trouble or not. There wasn't even a hello or nice to see you exchanged... just right down to "business." Just to be spiteful, Ryder told him that he was failing half the classes he was taking, and was barely passing the others, that he was spending far too much time partying and drinking than he was studying, and that he had a different girl in bed with him every night... and just to be as much of a jackass as he possibly could towards the man that he hated so much, tacked on a "like father like son" comment at the end of all that, even though his grades were flawless and he certainly did not sleep around. He knew he would probably be banished from doing anything fun for that statement, which would only make acting out against his dad all the more easy... after all, it wasn't really rebelling if you went out to a party when no one had said you couldn't. So tonight after his dad was certain that Ryder was doing homework and had left him be, Ryder slipped out and headed in to town where he knew there would be plenty of drinking and partying all night long. Now, he could just go out and make his dad think he'd been drinking... but he knew better than that. He wanted it to be more legitimate than that... and it wasn't like he was against drinking, he'd done it on more than one occasion... just not usually at large parties with mostly minors drinking and getting wasted until the cops came and broke up the party and made a few mip arrests and other such things. Tonight was going to be the exception though. He was going to drown the hatred he felt for his dad, just for tonight, and call it good. After all, he couldn't wait to get back, either drunk or hungover (depending on when he actually made it back to his dad's), and cut off his father five words into his raging lecture with a simple "fuck you," to shut him up, hopefully for good. Ryder really hadn't a clue whose party he was at... though he had heard a rumor that it belonged to several college students who were hosting the party... which was intended just for their college friends, but as always, news got out and there were so many people there no one knew who was and who wasn't a college student, and it wasn't like Ryder couldn't pull off being college age, what with being 6'1" and every bit the football player build added to his ability to pull off being older than he actually was... besides, getting arrested for an mip would probably really make his dad mad at him... that could definitely be fun. He had been there for a couple of hours and had already downed just enough alcoholic drinks to make his judgement a little more hazy than it normally was. He was currently standing near the beverage containers scowling rather sullenly out towards the like when a jab to the ribs drew his attention back to the people around him. He had to admit that he was a little surprised to see Mackenzie here, but then again... she probably felt the same way about him. At the mention of his flightless bird his scowl momentarily returned, "No." he said moodily, "He hates parties." Truthfully, Watson would probably be overwhelmed and terrified by the parties of this nature, but the real reason that the bird was not accompanying him was because his dad hated him. For the week that Ryder was trapped in the prison cell that was his father's house, Watson was taken care of by his mom and step dad... well, mostly his step dad because he wanted to stay on Ryder's good side. That was just another reason for Ryder to hate that week. Watson went everywhere with him, and he knew that the bird didn't adjust well to change. Ryder knew that his closeness to the exotic animal made people wonder about him, but he didn't care. Watson was his best friend, and people could judge him all they wanted for that.

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[Mackenzie Jacinta Ferreira]

Mackenzie knew that Ryder had father issues of his own. She didn't exactly know the ins and outs of them, kind of like he didn't know the details of the issues between her and Sean, but they both knew they existed. Anyways, Ryder was usually extremely easygoing and always friendly at least, so Kenz hadn't really been expecting anything other than his usual smile and a hello. In reality what she got was a lot less amiable than that and it took her by surprise. After the argument with her father about that had covered a range of subjects, the brunette had been needing someone calm and kind to stick around with a little, somebody who wasn't going to press her buttons or take advantage if she got a bit too drunk. She may have come to piss her one remaining parent off, but she didn't intend to prove him right when he'd inadvertently called her a skank.

It had started off silly, really. Just him getting stupidly protective over her when he'd seen her talking to one of the male jockeys, but it had escalated the way fights between her and her father always did. Truth be told, Kenzie wasn't really sure why she was still living with him, when all they ever did was fight and all Sean ever wanted to do was shoot any man who came within twenty feet of his child. Back on point, he'd called her trampy for hanging out with guys as friends (ergo, Ryder ironically) and said that she needed to find some 'better' ones. Because apparently Inez and Morgan weren't good enough either, but that was a story for another day. In essence, she was here to have a bit too much and not to take other people's shit when the seventeen year old did enough of that in the safety of her own home.

Not surprisingly, Mackenzie drew away from Ryder once more, flinching a little as she did so. Well, that was the next ice age compared to the kind of welcome she'd been expecting. For a second, she considered apologising, but then: what for? Because she'd happened to say hello when he was in a bit of a temper? Of course, if she hadn't said hello, that would have been wrong too. Honestly, Kenz couldn't win with anything these days. She was failing school and apparently she was a social screw up too, plus family life was rubbish right now. All she had to add on to that was just that she had a prick for a best friend and the destruction of her life would be complete, right? Well, conveniently she did happen to have a prick for a best friend so that solved that problem.

Mackenzie brushed past her 'friend', grabbing a bottle as she did so, demeanour distinctly more distant this time around. "I can't imagine why," she returned, feeling guilty even as she said the words. "But Jesus Ryder, don't feel like you have to be at all unfriendly or anything."

[ryder augustus foxx]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f9f9f9; border: #3d213a solid 10px; width: 450px; padding: 15 5 15 5px;] Today, you were far away tagged Nem words idek muse The National notes mreh credits template by irish! Most people who knew Ryder were under the impression that he was a very happy go lucky person without a care in the world who was friends with everyone and was just... nothing out of the ordinary. Most of the time, they were right. Very few of them, though, knew that there were a number of issues going on in Ryder's life, or what the root of those problems were. Ryder had looked up to his dad the way that every 12 year old kid did, and then all of a sudden he was brought to the terrible realization that his father was everything that some of a family's worst nightmares consisted of. It was like he was there one day being this super dad, and the next he was suddenly having an affair with someone else... choosing that moment's pleasure over the family that loved him. Ryder was crushed. He was sad, but mostly he was angry. He didn't understand why someone would do that, or how they could just turn their back on their family. He had spent a lot of years being angry and frustrated with no healthy way to express that anger. When he'd been sent in the direction of the football team, he had an avenue for that. He could hit people without getting in trouble for it, he could turn that rage into determination and get it out through physical activity that was draining mentally and physically. After everything that had happened with Dylan and he quit the team, that was suddenly gone again. Now the anger and frustration was allowed to build back up again, and it reached the boiling point when he was forced to spend a week with the man he despised. His dad didn't love him, he knew that much. No one who loved their kids could do something like this to them. The only reason he had to go there for that week was so that his dad could show off his new "perfect family" and hope that they would go reporting to his ex-wife about how so much better his life was than hers. "Sorry." He said when Mackenzie snapped back at him, "Bad day. I shouldn't take it out on you." What he really meant, though, was bad week... and he needed someone... anyone... to take it out on somehow. He didn't care how he just needed something to make him forget the hell he was in right now. Ryder was not the sort of person who would normally reach this point of desperation, but he felt like if he didn't do something he was going to explode. It was a feeling he was all too familiar with. It was a feeling that he'd had for three years before he reached high school and started football. It put him on edge, it made him pretty well attack anyone who so much as said hello to him. It wasn't the way Ryder really was, it was completely out of character, but he couldn't help it sometimes. There was only so much he could take, and he was pretty much at the end of his rope now.

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[Mackenzie Jacinta Ferreira]

Mackenzie was one of those people who was always way too forgiving for her own good. Usually it led to people walking all over her, but she couldn’t help it. She struggled not to give people a second chance, even if it happened to be the tenth of its kind. Knowing Ryder had father issues as well, it was far too easy for Kenz to understand why he was so prone to lashing out at anybody. She knew she did it sometimes, times like these after having fought with her father. If she hadn’t also been angry, Kenz doubted she would have hit straight back out at him in the first place, so it was hardly fair not to accept an apology. Not that Mackenzie caved for that reason anyway, she just did because he was her best friend and things like this happened at times. There was no point in losing a friend over one moody comment, especially when Ryder was usually so happy anyway.

”It’s alright,” she responded with a slight smile. This time taking a more hesitant step back towards him, knowing she ought to tread more carefully this time to avoid setting him off again, Kenzie forced away her curiosity as to why he was here in the first place and settled herself against the trunk of a nearby tree. She wasn’t really here to party, mainly just drink to piss her father off. It was funny, because she wasn’t usually like this at all, and she’d never done this kind of thing before her mother had been killed, but Sean had this way of trying to control every part of her life. She resented it, when one considered the fact that when her mother had been alive, her dad had never once tried to influence her at all because he hadn’t been interested. For all the brunette knew, he hadn’t even cared. Now all of a sudden it was ‘I’m doing it because I love you’ and ‘I get worried because I care, Mackenzie’. Bullshit, that was just him feeling guilty for not having a clue how to deal with a seventeen year old girl.

Kenz sighed, wishing for the thousandth time her mother was still here…although if she hadn’t died, they’d still be in Addison and she never would have met all her friends here. Not that it mattered now anyway. Feeling more like this was a good idea, Kenz turned her attention away from her thoughts and back to her friend, who still looked distinctly pissed off. People wouldn’t try and bait him though, given that he was a human tree trunk crossed with a tank. ”Bad day, huh? Grab a drink and join the club.”