by Destiny Webb
There was a soft knocking on the door.
“Is the princess awake yet?” Brian called from behind the door.
“She is. You may enter, sir.” I laughed.
“Well, good morning, Sunshine.”
“Hey Bry.”
“What up, little sis?” he said, plopping down beside me. I shot him a look and he laughed at me, muttering about how I couldn’t take a joke.
“So, what’s up?” I asked him.
“Not much. I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever, and tomorrow we’re going home, and then you’ll be going off to your fancy science program with your boooyfriend, and I’ll be stuck in Reno going to the local college. We’re never going to see each other.”
“That’s not true BryBry. We’ll see each other on breaks and holidays. And you can always come see me whenever you want. Wait. Did you say we’re leaving tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you realize that today was the fourth?”
“Uh, seeing as how I spent the night scared out of my mind in the woods, no, I did not,” I reminded him. I couldn’t believe that today was the Fourth of July. I always seemed to forget that my birthday was right before the patriotic holiday. That would explain how Sean got a hold of those pretty fireworks, though.
“Since you brought it up, how are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Last night was really something,” he implied.
“Yeah….” I hesitated.
“Everything with Tasha.”
“Yeah….”
“And then getting stuck in the woods.”
“Yeah….” I repeated like a record skipping.
“And then everything with Cassie.”
“Yeah….”
“Would you quit saying ‘yeah’?!”
“Ye…alright. What’s your point?”
“It must have been, you know, upsetting.”
“Yeah, it was,” I admitted. “Sean made it a lot better though.”
He gave me a look that made me blush.
“You and Sean seem to be doing really good.”
“Yeah,” I smiled. “We are.”
“It was really cute how worried he was about your birthday. He was running around like a chicken with his head cut off.”
“He really did too much. It was wonderful. Everything was just so amazing. I felt like I should have, I don’t know, done something for him.”
“He wanted everything to be perfect for you.”
“It was,” I told him. “It really was.”
“I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that.”
“Where is he?” I asked nonchalantly.
“He and Sarah went to get stuff for dinner, but I don’t even know if we’re going to do a family dinner. Mom and Charles are supposed to talk at some point today.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yeah.” He paused, “Do you think they’ll get back together?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. From the sound of it, Charles has made a decision, and I don’t think Mom would try and change his mind. Part of me hopes not. He’s been so awful lately.”
“Yeah. I noticed,” Brian said bitterly.
“I can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow.” I changed the topic so he didn’t have to think about Charles’s blowup on our birthday.
“Yeah, me neither,” he agreed.
“Do you think that Sean and I are going to be okay when we go off to college?”
“Definitely,” Brian reassured me. “Sam, you and Sean are amazing together. Plus, you’re both going to UOP. You guys are going to be the perfect college couple.”
I smiled at the image that brought to my mind. When I got my acceptance letter to the University of Pacific, I was so excited. I had gotten into other, more prestigious schools, but UOP had a state of the art science program. On top of that, it was the school that Sean went to…not that I would ever admit to anyone that that was one of the reasons I chose to go there. It was my personal number one school, and I quickly responded to my acceptance despite anyone’s, especially Charles’s, insistence not to.
Brian and I went downstairs and had lunch together. It had been a while since we had really gotten a chance to hang out. During our meal, we were joined by Sarah and Sean, who had returned from the store with things for breakfast the next day. We were cleaning up the kitchen when Mrs. W came in.
“Hey guys. How would you feel about fending for yourselves for dinner tonight? I know we usually have a celebration, but I just don’t think it’ll be a good idea. Your mom is on the phone with Charles, and it doesn’t really sound like it’s going too well.”
“That’s alright, Mom,” Sean answered. “We’re probably going to go out anyway.”
“Oh. Okay. Just make sure you’re safe. Oh, and make sure all of your things are packed and the quads and things are ready to go, please?”
We all agreed and she left us there to go on our way. I was worried about my mom, but I knew she would be okay. She was the strongest woman that I knew. Things would be way different though.
“So, where are we going tonight?” I asked Sean, getting my mind off of it.
“An end of summer party.”
“I probably should have guessed that,” I laughed.
“Probably. What’s on the agenda today?”
“You heard your mom. We need to get our things together. And that involves you helping me track down all of my things.” I smiled up at him.
“Oh joy,” he replied sarcastically.
Chapter Thirty
“I still can’t believe that you stole my book,” I said as Sean handed me back my copy of The Notebook. It was the last of my possessions that I needed before I could zip up my bag. Of course, in the few weeks that we had been there, it seemed as if my things had multiplied tenfold. Tracking them down proved to be just as daunting of a task as packing them in the first place.
“I did not steal your book. I just borrowed it temporarily without asking. I gave it back in perfect condition! Cut me some slack.”
“Never. Years down the line we will be at some college party, and I will be telling everyone that I can find that you are a lover of Nicholas Sparks’s romance novels.”
“You even think about it and I will buy a pet frog and terrorize you with him forever.”
I glared at him. “That isn’t even funny.”
He snickered. “It is to me.”
I went to hit him with my book and he picked me up around the waist.
“You know, for being so small, you’re really abusive.”
“And for being so big, you really get under my skin.”
“Ouch, that hurts me Sam. To the core. I’m wounded.”
“Good. That’s what you get for calling me abusive.” I chuckled at him.
Setting me down on my suitcase, Sean laughed at me. I handed him the book and he stuffed it into my suitcase before zipping it shut.
“One down, one to go.”
We made our way downstairs and outside where the quads were stored. I hadn’t realized how dirty they had gotten until now. Mud was caked over every inch of them. Cleaning them would be oh, so much fun. While Sean was around back getting the hose attached to the spigots, I got the buckets filled up with soap and sponges. I was sitting in the sun, working on my tan, when someone walked up, surprising me.
“Sam. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Startled, I jumped about a foot and opened my eyes.
“Cassie, you scared me.” I put my hand on my chest, trying to slow down my heart rate.
“Sorry. I’ve just been trying to get you alone all day. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?” I said, worried about the conversation that was about to begin.
“Sam, I want to apologize. The way I have been acting has been completely unjustified and downright cruel. Honestly, I just thought that you were a summer romance that Sean was going to be over by the end of the summer. If I had known otherwise, I wou
ldn’t have—”
“Interfered?” I finished her sentence.
“Yeah, exactly,” she admitted, ashamed.
“It’s fine, Cassie.”
“It really isn’t, Sam,” she disagreed. Whatever she was going to say next was cut off by honking. We both turned our heads towards the road, where Tasha was sitting in her car glaring at us. I looked back to Cassie with my eyebrows raised.
“Listen, we’ve been friends since elementary school. I can’t just stop being friends with her. I don’t want us to hate each other though, especially if you’re sticking around.”
“I intend to,” I informed her, then added. “And I don’t hate you Cassie.”
“Thanks, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t though.”
There was another honk and Cassie looked back.
“I should get going. Thanks for your time Sam. I really am sorry.”
“Thank you Cassie. I appreciate it.”
Cassie ran inside to get something.
I heard Sean fill up one of the buckets. I could hear him walking up behind me and I turned around, just in time to see him lifting a bucket of water over my head.
“Sean. Don’t!”
It was too late though; the water was already flowing over me, soaking me.
“Oh, you’re going to regret that.”
He tried grabbing me, but I ducked under his arms and darted straight for the hose. I grabbed it and pointed it at him like a gun.
“Sam. No. Come on. We can talk about this. We don’t have to resort to such violence.”
I sprayed him as hard as the hose would go, soaking him just as much as he had soaked me.
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” I grinned.
He came towards me like he was going to attack me and I sprayed him again. Instead, he just picked me up, making me drop the hose, and spun me around. I was laughing when he sat me down and looked me in the eyes.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” I replied, beaming. He leaned down and kissed me, picking me back up in his arms so I was his height. Relaxing, I wrapped my arms around his neck. We were in our own perfect world until a car honked, startling us both.
“What’s Tasha doing here?” Sean asked, getting defensive. She made no effort to hide the fact that she was glaring at the two of us.
“She was picking your sister up,” I told him. Almost as if on cue, Cassie came stumbling out of the house. She ran over to Tasha’s car and got in. Tasha gave us one last glower before starting her car and screeching off.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I had an interesting conversation with her.”
“With Tasha?” he asked disbelievingly.
“With your sister,” I corrected.
“Oh. And how did that go?”
“Good.” I paused. “I think.”
“Well, that’s good.”
We stopped talking about it then and started washing the quads. It took us a while, but by the time we were finished, the quads looked like new. We stepped back to admire our work and Sean wrapped his arm around me.
“We make a pretty good team, if I may say so myself,” he declared, bumping my hip.
“I would have to agree with that,” I said, leaning into him.
“Okay, let’s get these things locked up before anyone gets them dirty again.”
Carefully, we got them into the shed without getting any mud on them. Sean was about to turn the light off when I stopped him.
“Sean. Wait. Look at this.” I walked over to one of the walls. I touched it and looked back at Sean. Trying to see what it was, he walked over to where I stood.
“Is that…?”
“Yeah.”
“From when they dared us to?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. I can’t believe that’s still there.”
“What did you expect it to do? Fill itself back in? It’s carved in there pretty deep.”
The carving seemed like it was from so long ago. It was a cheesy heart with “S.A. + S.W.” carved inside it, from the last summer I had come to the camp.
***
After I had gotten lost in the woods, Sean and I spent a lot of time together. One night, we were all outside around the campfire playing truth or dare and things got a little out of hand.
“Sam. Truth or dare,” Brian asked me. I was always afraid of playing Truth or Dare with him. He knew so much about me, but he always came up with the most ridiculous dares.
“Truth,” I replied hesitantly. I rarely ever picked dare.
“Do you like Sean? And I mean ‘like-like.’”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe he had asked me a question he knew was way off bounds, especially in front of Sean. I closed my mouth and looked up at Sean, who looked eager for my response. I responded the only way a seventh, almost eighth grade, girl knew how. I lied.
“Uhh. No.” I tried to sound convincing, but it still came out sounding like a question. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced back at Sean. He didn’t really look phased by my response, but maybe I was wrong; he could have just been hiding it well.
“Yeah okay,” Brian replied, not buying my answer. “It’s your turn.”
“Sarah. Truth or dare.”
“Truth.”
“Why did you hate me so much?”
“I didn’t really hate you,” she admitted. “I was the only girl, and when you guys moved in, it felt like you were trying to replace me.”
“Oh. Alright.”
“Sean. Truth or dare.”
“Truth.”
“Do you like Sam?”
What was this? Were they trying to get us together or something? I looked down at my feet, trying to hide the blush in my cheeks.
“Yeah,” he replied, and I looked up at him.
“Like ‘like-like’ her?”
“Yeah.”
We locked eyes for a moment before Brian interrupted.
“Come on, get on with the game.”
“Brian. Truth or dare.”
“Dare. You guys are such sissies.”
Sean thought for a minute.
“I dare you to streak around the entire camp area and cabin in nothing but your boxers.”
I rolled my eyes at the dare. They were such boys. I put my head in my hands until Brian’s dare was completed and he was fully clothed again. Fixing his shirt, he sat back down and looked at Sean.
“Truth or dare.”
“Dare,” Sean picked nobly.
“Alright. I dare you to kiss Sam.”
“What?” I said, at the same time he said, “Alright.”
Everyone looked at me.
“I’m not kissing him in front of you guys.”
“But you’re not saying no to kissing him?” my brother clarified.
“No. I’m not.”
“Fine.” He turned back to Sean. “I dare you to take Sam up to the shed for at least five minutes. And there better be a kiss going on.”
“Alright.”
He got up and looked at me. Grudgingly, I stood up and followed him, turning around to give my brother a death glare, which he returned with a grin. Quietly, we walked up to the shed.
Once inside, Sean pulled on the little overhead light, illuminating the shed.
“So,” he said, leaning against the wall.
“So?”
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth?” I said, wondering where he was going with this.
“Did you mean what you said about liking me?”
“No,” I admitted. I looked up at him; he was looking at me funny. I was about to ask him what was wrong when he took a step towards me, closing the gap between us.
I had never kissed a boy before, so, the entire experience was new to me. He looked into my eyes as he leaned down, and I gazed back into his. When there was barely any room left between our lips, he paused, almost as if he was unsure. I closed my eyes, taking in the moment: the way the shed smelled, the feel of Sea
n’s breath against mine, how close he was to me. Not a fraction of a second later, his lips were against mine. It was slightly clumsy, slightly uncoordinated, the way only a first kiss ever could be.
When he pulled back, I was breathless. He smiled at me and I smiled back. I didn’t know what to say. How was someone supposed to react in a situation like that? Did they say “thank you”? Or did they just not say anything and go about their business?
Turned out, I didn’t have to react. Startling me, Sean pulled a pocketknife out of his jeans. He walked past me, pulling me by the hand over to a wall. Then, he opened the knife and started carving. It wasn’t until he took a step back that I could see what he’d carved…a heart. It wasn’t perfect; the edges were jagged, the curves of the heart uneven, but inside were our initials engraved into the wood. My heart thudded and I looked up at him, smiling.
“I know. It’s kind of cheesy.”
“It’s perfect,” I disagreed, leaning up to kiss him one more time.
***
“You know, you were the first girl I ever kissed,” Sean said, remembering the occasion.
“You were the first boy I ever kissed.”
“Thank you Brian,” he said jokingly and we laughed.
Sean reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife. Underneath our initials, he started carving something. I watched, but his hand was in my way. When he stepped back to show me his work, I chuckled.
S.A. + S.W.
FOREVER
“You know, that’s even cheesier than the initials.”
“Yeah, I know. But it’s kind of perfect.”
Leaning us into the wall, Sean bent his head down and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back lovingly. In the dim light, the passion intensified. Heat and humidity filled the small little shed, creating an electric atmosphere. Sean picked me up, pressing me into the wall, and I put my hands on his face. When the doors to the shed opened and threw light all around us, ruining the moment, he almost dropped me.
“Oops. Was I interrupting?”
Chapter Thirty-One
“Do you really have to take her away from me?” Sean asked for the billionth time.
“Yes. I do. We are going to go get ready and you can’t be around for that,” Cara told him.
“Sure I could.”
“I said no!” she said, pulling me from Sean’s arms and dragging me towards her car.