Take it or leave it

Round 32: January 2035 (Summer)

Rebecca's last update/Audrey's last update/next update

Rebecca Kirby is 26 and Audrey Lachance is 23.
(Rob and Victoria are both 34, Nathan and Susannah are both 25, Julia is 24, Jack is 23 and Zac is 4 months old)

Narrated by Rebecca Kirby

A few months after Susannah got pregnant, she moved out and Audrey moved in. I was a little dubious, to be honest. I can't afford this rent on my own though, so I didn't have much choice.

Audrey is a close friend of Susannah's but she's not someone I ever really got to know. I don't always do well with new people. It takes me a long time to warm up.

I can't really complain about Audrey as a roommate though. She's quiet, she's tidy (and does the dishes even, which is more than I could say for Susannah most of the time, I have to admit) and we don't get in each other's way too much.

On a personal level, I would say we've been becoming friends as well, since we started living together.

Audrey's boyfriend is my cousin Jack, so it's possible she'll be family one day. That will be easier if we get along.

I think I see Jack more now than I did while I was growing up though, which is interesting.

Sometimes I miss having Susannah living here but it's not like she's that far away. The apartment she got with Sam is only a block away, so I still see her all the time.

She's still on maternity leave with Zac and doesn't go back until March. I can tell she's getting a bit bored on her own at home. If I call her and ask if she wants to come over, she jumps at the chance.

It gives her a break from the baby, seeing Audrey is only too happy to snuggle Zac for a little while.

Audrey and I have been telling her she should take a real break and come out for a couple of drinks with us. I've been saying it since Zac was two weeks old and she has yet to take me up on it.

Let Sam deal with the baby on his own for a night; Susannah does it every single day, so I'm sure he can more than handle it. She couldn't argue with that, so she agreed to come out with Audrey and I that Friday night.

It was a great chance to catch up without Susannah having to attend to Zac. Susannah said almost straight away that it was just what she needed to recharge a little.

She's been incredibly stressed lately. There's Zac, of course but she's also having problems with her mum.

Kimberly didn't exactly hit it off with Sam when Susannah first introduced them and Zac hasn't really improved that at all. They're both quite stubborn and aren't making any moves towards any sort of compromise.

I couldn't help but think of how my mother was with Finn, for a long long time. Although at least Finn was making an effort to bridge the gap during that time, even if Mum wasn't.

We had cause to celebrate that night, because of Audrey's new job. She was just cast in a music video, where she'll get to show off her ballet skills.

She's been teaching jazzercise classes since college, so she has her fingers crossed this is her big break.

We were all having an awesome time.

Until Julia Gray decided to show up and ruin everything, unfortunately.

She still isn't over Nathan dumping her and she's decided to take that all out on me. She's sweet as pie whenever Nathan is around, because she's still hoping he'll take her back.

So of course, as soon as she saw me, she started in on how I stole her boyfriend and I'm a dirty skank, et cetera.

I'm so over all of her bull, so I decided to give her a piece of my mind

Then, out of nowhere, Julia pulled out a drink and threw it in my face!

I could not believe it! Who does that?

I have a temper at the best of times but I've been known to lose it a little when I've had a bit too much to drink.

So I just turned around and clocked her one, right in the eye.

Of course, there had to be two cops in the bar at that very minute. They saw me punch Julia and hauled us both outside.

Turns out punching people is against the law and I had to go down to the station to be booked.

I had to think pretty carefully about who I could call to bail me out at 2am. I was pretty sure Nathan wouldn't have the cash on hand and neither would most of my friends. My parents were definitely out, meaning I couldn't call Claudia either.

So my only option left was Victoria, who wasn't exactly thrilled at being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to go and help out her little sister at the police station.

She waited until we were in the parking lot to really lay into me though. Geez, I could have just called Mum if I wanted the lecture. I felt bad enough as it was.

I've never been so happy as I was that night to fall asleep in my own bed

The next morning, I was feeling much more contrite about the whole thing.

It was a pretty stupid thing to do and I'm probably going to get in a whole heap of trouble for it, based on what the cops said last night.

Audrey doesn't think I should freak out just yet and told me to talk to Nathan and see what he has to say.

I've never broken the law before - I've never even had so much as a parking ticket - so that has to count in my favour, right?

I'm avoiding Julia (no small feat when she lives across the hall) but Audrey saw her before work. She's sporting quite a shiner, apparently.

Anyway, Nathan came over after work and I told him the whole story.

He looked totally unsurprised. I was about to get offended, until he told me that Hope had already relayed the entire story to him. She called him at work especially to tell him. I guess I'm the talk of the town.

He still wasn't exactly happy about it, which I guess is understandable. He probably thought he'd dumped one psycho and hooked up with another one. Nathan spared me the lectures though, thank God. I got enough of that from Victoria the night before.

He can't represent me yet, seeing he's not finished law school but he said he knew someone who could and that he could set up a meeting for the next day.

I really hope this turns out as okay as Nathan thinks it will.

After meeting with the lawyer, Rob, I was feeling very confident about things.

He said the public prosecutors like to talk the big talk about assault charges whenever anyone is caught fighting but it rarely ever goes that far.

If I plead guilty, in all likelihood, they will either drop the assault charge and charge me with just being drunk and disorderly, which is just a fine.

Not that I'm thrilled about a fine - Rob said it would be about $500, which is not really a small amount of money to me - but I'll take it over the alternative!

I'm seriously relieved. I can't even describe it!

Nathan was coming back from lunch just as I was leaving, so I got to update him right away. He was happy, though he couldn't possibly have been as happy as I was.

I'm so glad he could recommend Rob for me. I guess it really pays to have a boyfriend in law school.

Extras:
Julia was really excited when I told her to throw a drink in Rebecca's face!

This just made me laugh. I had their facial overlays set but they both just kept grinning. And I'm sitting here thinking, "What do you think this is, girls, a social call?" Any other time, it's hard to get Rebecca to smile, because she's usually raging about one thing or another.

I've been playing with facial overlays a lot more since I edited my pose boxes. One of the Flirt.../ interactions has always really irritated me, because the Sims' are completely stone-faced during it.
It looks so much better to have them smiling! Any facial expression at all is an improvement on the default though.

Notes:

• Title is from Take It Or Leave It by The Strokes.
• First proper update of the round and we're already into the ROS! Rebecca rolled the bar fight ROS this round. The ROS says the fine is supposed to be $200 but I'm changing it to $500, because that's the fine for drunk and disorderly here. And no, I don't know that from experience! That's just another fun Google search term for anyone who uses my computer to come across one day. ;)
• Anyway, I did like that Rebecca was the one to roll this! This ROS would have been a much bigger challenge to write if it was another Sim. Like can you imagine Finn in a bar fight? LOL. I can't. And it was quite convenient that Rebecca, on top of having a temper, already has a history with Julia.
• And yeah, Sam and Kimberly are still not getting along. I'm waiting for one of them to roll the "Become Friends With" want, which I often get with in-law type relationships and that'll be my clue that one of them wants to build a bridge and get over it. ;)
• Both girls got promotions this round, which I was very pleased about. Rebecca is now a Social Worker, which means I can use her for Aaron and Calvin when they do the whole adoption thing this round. Audrey is a Dance Video Star - I just saw Kanye West's "Runaway" video (35 minutes long!), which has ballerinas in it, and I thought of Audrey straight away.