Hometown Girls:
Reunion
Tressa Messenger
Published by
Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, LLC.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Copyright © 2014 by Tressa Messenger
Cover Designed by Rue Volley
Edited by: Amber Clark
Edited for CHBB: Elizabeth A. Lance
Though some of the places are real this is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and situations in this work are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead, or situations are merely a coincidence.
No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, other than a brief quote in a review or article without the written permission of the author.
Published by
Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, LLC.
To me; the person I was, the person I am, and the person I'm going to be.
One
1997
Once practice was over, Marissa Lou saw Daniel come into the gym through the corner of her eye, although she purposely didn’t acknowledge his presence. Just like she knew he had climbed to the top row of the bleacher in his loud cleats and was watching her. It was just them because the other girls had left the gym a few minutes before he came in since cheerleading practice was over. She stayed longer knowing he would be back after his own practice was over and she wanted some alone time to practice a little more, and to taunt her boyfriend. She spread her long lean legs as wide as they would reach and gracefully fell down on the polished hardwood gymnasium floor into a frontward split. She leaned over and stretched her arms as far as she could in front of her over her outstretched leg, increasing the stretch, her long blonde ponytail falling forward with her. He always said he liked the athletic type, which was perfect for Marissa Lou being as she was Miss Pamlico High School Athletic victor. Best of all, no one in their school could stretch as deep as she could, and she was proud of that fact, as was he.
“WHEWWW,” Daniel whistled.
She slowly turned her head and looked over her shoulder, looking up at him with an innocent stare as if seeing him for the first time, her blue eyes round and sparkling, then gave him a sly smile. Of course, she knew he was watching her. She always knew how hot she was and used it at every advantage and she loved driving him crazy above all else, which was pretty easy. She continued her stretch, ignoring his obvious request for her attention, before getting up. She wanted to let him sweat for a few more minutes by continuing to take her time pulling her arms behind her back and rolling her neck from side to side.
“Hey girl!” he yelled at her somewhat dismayed.
Feeling satisfied, she turned and slowly sauntered up the bleachers toward him, like climbing up a mountain one sultry step at a time, until she was standing directly in front of him; sweat from her earlier cheerleading practice was still glistening on her skin. She put her hands on both of his knees and bent over exposing the curves of what was under her tight sports bra as she did and gave him another sly smile before planting her glossy lips on his.
“Come here,” he whispered, pulling her closer to him by her waist, making her sit down on his lap.
“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing playfully.
He grabbed her by the back of her head and pulled her head down to his and whispered in her lips as he continued to smile, “Nothing. I just want you closer.” He kissed her again, this time hungrily, their tongues doing a warm, moist dance. He let go of her neck and wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her even closer.
“All right, slow down, playa,” she said into his lips. When he didn’t stop, Marissa Lou pulled back and looked at him with wide eyes. Her big blue eyes a mix of shock, fear and annoyance because they were at school, even if it were after hours, but he didn’t acknowledge her request to slow down. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” he asked with a continuous, mischievous smile.
He tried to pull her back close to him, but she put a hand on his chest to stop him. “But we're at school, what if we get caught? The other guys will probably be walking in at any moment.” Marissa Lou liked being a tease, but times like these, it tended to get her into trouble.
“Just relax, don’t you love me?”
Her body relaxed and she nodded her head, because God did she ever love that boy.
“Do you trust me?”
She nodded her head again.
He lifted her off his lap, placed her on the bleacher seat beside him, then stood up. She stared up at him taken aback until he reached a hand out to her to help her up. She put her hand in his, but stared up at him half smiling and half curiously.
“Come on, I want to take you somewhere,” he said pulling her to her feet.
Marissa Lou giggled as they ran out of the gym hand in hand, skidding by a group of football players when they passed through the exit door leading into the back parking lot behind the gym where they parked the school buses. They rounded the side of the gym that connected to the rest of the school and stopped.
Marissa Lou looked around, curious again of what they were doing.
“Can you climb?” he asked, turning to her.
Marissa Lou looked at Daniel even more confused, “Climb? What are you talking about?”
“Up there,” he said pointing to a thick metal pipe stretched from the ground up to the top of the building. “You wanna?”
Marissa Lou was always up for an adventure, even when she was secretly scared, but even then she would never admit it. She averted her eyes from him and stared up at the pipe with wide eyes. It had to be a good twenty feet high. She took a deep breath to compose her nerves, looked back at Daniel, and said nonchalantly, “Yeah, you want to go first?”
“It may be easier if I give you a boost up.” He clamped his hands together as tight as he could and bent down. She took another deep breath and put one foot in his hands and grabbed the pipe with both hands. As he hoisted her up, she climbed upward using the clamps on the side that fastened the pipe to the building as steps to help her along the way.
Once at the top she heaved herself up, feeling happy that she made it unscathed, then looked down over the side and whispered, “Come on.”
Using the walls on both sides of the pipe he climbed up the pipe like she did, except he did it with a lot more ease than her.
“What are you? Part monkey,” she asked giggling once he was safely on the roof.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said smiling and grabbed her hand. “Come on. Stay down so we don't get caught,” he said, bending over and walking along the top of the old roof until he found a spot just right. “I'm sure we'd get into some serious trouble if someone caught us up here.” He laid down on his back on the warm Galvalume roof and stared up at her. “Come on, lay down with me.”
She did as he said and stared up at the expanse of sky above her. The late August sky was so blue with hardly a cloud in sight. The slight wind blew through nearby trees and prickled her skin, but she didn't seem to notice much, or care. She turned to him smiling. “This just might be the coolest thing I have ever done.”
He rolled over on his side and brushed a long strand of blonde hair back from her face then brought her chin toward his and softly
kissed her lips. He inched closer to her, grabbed both sides of her face and kissed her hungrily.
“I need you,” he whispered. “I always need you.”
She closed her eyes and moaned as jolts of electricity fired through her. He wasn’t the first boy to ever kiss her like that, but no one had ever been able to make her heart quake and her nerves stand on end the way that he could.
He pulled back and delicately brushed the side of her cheek with the back of his hand and kissed her tenderly on the lips one last time.
“I love you, you know that?” he said and she knew he meant it.
Unable to speak from the building emotions being lodged in her throat, she nodded her head ‘yes’. Of course she knew.
With his words, she was struck for the second time in one day that as long as she was wrapped in his arms, the boy she loved more than anything in the world, all would be right in her little world, no matter what.
She stared up at him with so many emotions coursing through her. She knew with definite certainty that she would never love anyone as much as she loved him, not now or ever.
Two
Present Day
Marissa blinked rapidly, as her daydream of one of her most cherished, but random, memories was broken by an outburst of laughter from a table beside her. She looked around the old high school gymnasium at all of the smiling faces of people she went to school with twenty years ago and their spouses. She recognized a lot of people, but some not so much. The decorating committee did a great job recreating their high school prom, the theme being a 50s style, “sock hop”, with black and gold balloons and sparkling streamers all over representing the school colors. There was also the added bonus of a buffet of greasy diner food and a make your own sundae bar on one wall of the gym and a makeshift bar for drinks close by it.
During her actual prom all the girls dressed in poodle skirts and patent leather shoes, while the boys separated themselves as either cool James Dean types wearing jeans and t-shirts and their hair sleeked back, or they donned preppy polyester suits. Marissa and her close group of friends were an exception, opting for standard prom attire. But not today. Today everyone was dressed to kill, hoping to impress their former classmates. Everything seemed different, or maybe it was just her that was so different. Even the make shift bar that once served punch and soft drinks during their actual prom was stocked with a variety of alcohol. When they were younger it was put together as a way to keep kids from spiking the drinks with a teacher on guard, not that it stopped people from sneaking it in anyway. There were so many wasted kids dancing around the room, Marissa being one of them. Now that they were all adults they purposed that it was acceptable, even though it still felt strange to Marissa to drink alcohol on school grounds, like Mr. Cooper would rush in and bust them all and tell their parents, then sentence them to Saturday school detention for the rest of the year. Marissa looked down at her glass of white wine in front of her and quickly wrapped her hands around the glass, concealing it.
It had been twenty years since she had been back to Pamlico County. She fled the area as soon as she could, running for dear life from Randy and Daniel and all of the mistakes she was making, with no intention of ever going back. After she went away to college, her parents moved to Florida, so there really weren’t much of a reason to visit, not even for her fifth or tenth, or even fifteenth year reunions. Which seemed pretty absurd to her since most of these people never left town after graduation so they could see each other any time they wanted. She and her husband, Stan, who happened to be a doctor at the same hospital as her, on the other hand worked far too much to take off work for such frivolous things. She probably wouldn’t have even come to this one had she and Stan not separated five months ago. Everything happened for a reason. Just like how two weeks ago Marissa was scanning through the nationwide doctor’s data base on a whim and found an opening in the Cardiac department at Carolina East Medical Center located in New Bern, North Carolina, right outside of Pamlico County where she grew up. She was terrified to face her past, but something was pulling her back there and with all three coincidences lining up; the break up, reunion and job opportunity; Marissa knew she had to listen. Even though she felt awkward sitting there alone, amongst the people she used to reign over, yet she was hoping she wouldn’t see anyone she didn’t want to see.
“Oh my gawd, Marissa Lou?”
Marissa quickly put her glass down and turned at the sound of her name thinking she just got busted sipping her wine, but instead she stared up at a familiar attractive lady with long wavy brown hair and the darkest brown eyes, standing a few feet in front of her. She tilted her head to the side and squinted at the lady. Her clothes weren’t super impressive, although the black sleeveless maxi dress accented an almost flawless curvy figure, even at their age. They had it somewhat dark in the gym, especially in the corner where her table was located, that it made it hard to see her clearly, but as she stared at the lady recognition set in. Her eyes grew wide and she jumped up out of her seat. “Katie!”
“Yes!” Katie squealed, pulling Marissa toward her, wrapping her arms around her, and hugged her tight. “Oh my gawd, it has been so long. I can’t believe you actually came,” Katie said, pulling Marissa to arms length to look at her. “Jess, come here. You won’t believe who’s here,” Katie yelled over her shoulder without taking her eyes off of Marissa.
Marissa’s expression froze as she looked away from Katie’s excited face to search the room for Jessica. As she did, her eyes stopped on a beautiful blonde haired lady with the biggest blue eyes she had ever seen. The lady smiled slightly and she knew right away that it was Jessica, or Jess as she apparently went by now. All of a sudden a flash of a delicate, little, petite, ten-year-old girl came into view with soft wavy blonde hair and soulful eyes as blue as the sky and as wide as saucers. Marissa hadn’t seen any of her old friends since they graduated high school and instantly Marissa felt a tinge of guilt for that. She once loved these girls more than anything in the world and swore the day she left to never forget them, it was a promise that quickly got over-shadowed with a busy work load of school and miscellaneous jobs. Instantly, another memory came to Marissa; one very different from the one she had moments ago about Daniel, and one she and her friends reminisced on many times in the past. Marissa could see the details of that day as if she were watching a movie.
***
…“Hey, Marissa Lou, wait up,” Katie called out to Marissa Lou from her front porch as she rode past Katie’s house on her bike, her long, blonde piggy tails blowing in the wind behind her.
There was never a doubt that Katie could hear the pink and silver tassels on the handle bars rustling in the soft summer breeze as Marissa Lou rode by. But Marissa Lou didn’t stop at the sound of her name, instead she continued to peddle as fast as she could down the quiet, tree lined street.
She could see Katie as she turned to her best friend Jessica, who was still sitting on the sagging porch step just as she was before Katie jumped up, her pretty, blonde, Barbie doll still in her hands.
Over her shoulder, Marissa saw Jessica stare up at Katie with wide blue eyes full of concern. Jessica, Marissa knew was the shy sensitive one of their duo, seemed to swallow hard, worry etched on her pretty face. Katie and Jessica had been best friends their whole lives, living next door to each other. Even before they were born, their parents having been friends during their time in school as well. Even though Katie and Jessica were the same age, Katie had later told Marissa Lou that she’d always felt like the older sister. Jessica’s soft, sensitive demeanor was the total opposite of Katie’s in-charge, border line tomboy style.
Marissa imagined their conversation had gone something like this:
“What should we do?” Jessica asked softly.
Katie turned from Jessica and stared down the road where Marissa Lou disappeared. “Come on, let’s go see if she’s okay.”
Marissa glanced back again and saw Jessica put her Barbie down and follow Katie to
the driveway where they had parked their bikes earlier in the day. She knew they’d been swimming at Kennels Beach, a short distance from their houses. They peddled their bikes as hard as they could, but still couldn’t catch up to Marissa Lou. Katie looked behind her to make sure Jessica was still there and smiled.
Marissa Lou had questioned why Katie was trying so hard, considering she and Katie didn’t really even know each other. Marissa Lou’s family had recently moved into the gray house beside hers and they’d spoken just enough to know each other’s names and that she was going into fifth grade that year like her.
“Katie, there!” Marissa heard Jessica say as she pointed to their left at a little old white structure. It was supposed to be a gas station, but it only had one gas pump and it was so small and old that it didn’t carry much inside. It looked like someone picked up the raggedy building and tossed it from an airplane and let it stay where ever it landed, which happened to be on the edge of a field. I guess it really wasn’t too surprising since the majority of land in Pamlico County was farm land.
Katie turned to look at Jessica who had finally caught up to her, her face red and moist with sweat from the scorching summer heat. “Where?” Marissa Lou heard Katie ask.
“In the back,” Jessica said pointing to the rear of the building.
They slowly pulled their bikes around the side and sure enough, they’d found her sitting on the grass behind the building, her knees pulled up, pressed to her chest, and her arms folded over the top. Marissa Lou had her head buried in the crock of her arm hiding her face. Katie and Jessica quietly put their bikes down and slowly walked toward her.
“Marissa Lou?” Katie asked.
Hometown Girls: Reunion (Hometown Girls Series Book 2) Page 1