Draven

Time sped up.

Before I knew it, we only had one week left of school. 

When the year started I was in a different place in my life, a place where nothing mattered. I should’ve been full of regrets for the things I’d done in the past, but I wasn’t. I wouldn’t be where I am without it all. 

Classes let out a little late on Friday, since everyone had to attend graduation rehearsal. I was seated just a couple of rows in front of Jenny, but from where my seat was I could see her out of the corner of my eye. Our class was small, but we were going to kill at graduation. We were a rowdy bunch, and all of us were ready to say goodbye to that crappy place. 

I met Jenny by her car when we finished. She and Lo were deep in conversation about the air mattress races for senior night. Every year the senior class would bring their tents and sleeping bags, and of course their air mattresses to Border Fields. It was an abandoned place out behind the old warehouses of Mr. Fars land. He’d leave the gate open every year on senior night for the class to camp next to the lake. It was supposed to be the best night ever with campfires, and music, and the air mattress races. You had to have a boy-girl team of two per mattress, and you’d race from one side of the lake to other. It wasn’t that far, but it was supposed to be a load of fun. I was actually just as excited about it as the girls were. It sounded like a good time.

“I’m your partner right?” I asked Jenny. “I mean for the race.”

“Duh,” she replied like I should’ve already known that. “And you’re going to help me dig out all the camping gear from the garage.” Her smile was wide. I knew that I’d get roped into something before the day was up. 

We had to be at the lake by noon the next day.

“Jett can be your partner Lo, if you need somebody.” I volunteered him. He’d probably cuss me out later, but he owed me one. 

“Fine,” she countered. She looked about as pleased as a wet cat, but at least she had a partner. Jett was a cool guy, probably too over the top for her, but it was just a race.

“It’s settled then. We’ll pick you up tomorrow before lunch.” Jenny told Lo before the two of us climbed in the car. 

“You know we need some beer right? I’ve already made two paint-balling trips with no alcohol. I at least need a six-pack if you want me to be appeasable. I can’t stand most of those people and if you don’t want me to be the crabbiest person on the planet, then I need some alcohol.” 

“Fine, but you have to figure out how to buy it. I don’t know anybody with an I.D. or anyone old enough,” she replied. 

“That won’t be a problem.”

She gave me a little side-glance, and her blonde hair fell loosely over her face. With a swipe of my fingertip, I gently pushed it back over her ear. Every time I attempted to touch her she would stiffen up or pull away. I was really beginning to take offense to it. We had history, I knew that, but I thought we were close enough now that it didn’t have to be weird. 

I wanted to be with her again, so damn bad. Only this time, I wanted it to be for the right reasons. Not because we were just some horny teenagers in need of an escape.

She kept driving, and I didn’t say another word. 

I was going to tell her my plans for after graduation soon, but I was worried. She was probably going to hate the idea, and I didn’t want her freaking out on me. 

Oh, she was going to freak. 

Back at the house, the two of us spent the rest of the evening rummaging through the garage looking for the best things to take for our overnight camping trip. 

We had to sit through a grueling talk with her mom about being careful at the lake, and making sure to keep an eye on one another. I promised I would. I would most certainly keep an eye on Jenny.

I think she was worried about a bunch of drinking teenagers at the lake. Someone could possibly drown, which I understood. Six beers were all I was planning on drinking. I just needed a little liquid courage and it would take double that to get me drunk.

“Do you think we need the lantern?” Jenny asked me, snapping me away from my thoughts. Of course my eyes were still glued to her ass.

“We can’t take this much stuff,” I told her, pointing at the massively growing pile. 

“But we need it.”

“No we don’t. The less we have to worry about the better. I think you can rough it for one night.”

Her lip pouted and she gave me that puppy-dog face. “I don’t do well with roughing it.”

“Well good thing for you, I do. Now lets cut this pile in half. We don’t need two tents. One is big enough for the both of us.”

She sucked in a breath. 

“I think you can handle sleeping with me for one night.” I told her. I didn’t give her time to argue. “And instead of a lantern, let’s just take a flashlight. You don’t need the bug spray. I’m not sure what this is, so we don’t need it.” I kept on and on until we had it narrowed down to about six things, not counting our pillows. “There, see.”

“So, we’re going to die.”

“What?” I laughed. “We’ll be fine. It’s one night.”

“One night without bug spray,” she huffed. “And that’s a water purifier. We can have clean water.”

I was laughing hysterically at her. She was so serious too. 

“It’s one night, Jenny. You will survive. We will bring bottled water. I promise.”

“At least pack the bug spray. I don’t want to be itching all night. And stop laughing at me.”

“I’m sorry,” I spat out trying not to laugh harder. “Fine. We’ll take the bug spray. All that other stuff is staying.”

She shrugged her shoulders, and walked out of the garage. I could only imagine what it was going to be like when we packed her up to go to college. She’d probably want to pack everything she could get her hands on. 

Thinking about it made my mood change completely. 

It wasn’t the time or place to be thinking about that just yet. I didn’t want to picture her leaving since we’d only recently grown so close. I was going to miss her. I was going to miss us.

***

We had the car loaded down, with our stuff, Jett’s stuff, and Lo’s stuff. We were officially ready for Senior Night. Jett came through on the beer, so we had everything we needed. 

The day was nice, almost ninety degrees. 

When we arrived at the lake and parked, the four of us unloaded the car and started to set up our tents. Jett just brought a sleeping bag. He said he didn’t mind sleeping out in the open, but Lo took pity on him and said he could sleep in her tent. 

“But no funny business,” she told him. “You keep your hands and other body parts in your sleeping bag.”

“Okay,” he said with his hands in the air. 

This was going to be an amazing day. I could just feel it.

As soon as the tents were up, the girls hopped inside to change into their bathing suits. Up until that moment, I hadn’t thought about the fact that she’d be running around the lake with barely anything on. It slipped my mind. It also meant that I’d be sporting a boner half the fucking day. 

“Give me a beer,” I told Jett. “I don’t care what time it is.”

“Chill man,” he said, opening the cooler. 

When the girls came out of the tent Jett looked at me. “Fuck. I guess I’ll need one too.”

Two very small pieces of material were the only thing that kept people from seeing her tits. That’s it.  

I should’ve bought a case of beer. It was going to be a long damn night. 

“God she’s hot,” Jett said. The two of us had grabbed a spot near the water, while the girls were both lying out on their towels. They were the only two girls at the whole party with books in their hands. 

“You better be talking about Lola.” I warned. 

“So you do have a thing for Jenny.” 

“Can you believe it?” I joked, sipping my beer.

Jett shook his head. “I never thought I’d see the day when a girl stole your heart. Hell, I didn’t even know you had a heart.”

“Good one.”

We sat there sipping our beers and watching the girls, while the rest of the class were playing football and hanging out. It was clear that our solid group of four didn’t fit in anywhere at this place. We were the outcasts of the class of 17’, and we liked it that way.

A group of classmates made an announcement to start inflating our mattresses if we were competing in the race. The race had to be finished before dark for safety reasons.

“You going to blow them up for us Draven?” Jenny called out to me. “We all know you’re full of hot air.”

The three of them got a good laugh out of that one. 

“I don’t know why you’re laughing, Man.” I lifted my head at Jett. “If they’re looking for the best blower, then it’s definitely you.”

Both the girls were laughing their asses off. It made me wish that the four of us had gotten more time to hang out. We would’ve had a blast. It sucked that we just got to know each other. The four of us had been going to school together for a long time, well the three of us anyway. I think Jenny told me that Lo moved here in middle school if I remember correctly. I block out anything middle school related. That was a very rough time in my life. 

We had one hand pump between us, and we had to blow up two full size mattresses. By the time we got them aired up, we were going to be too tired to race. 

A girl with a microphone stood up on a picnic table, and I tapped Jenny’s shoulder to get her attention. The girl’s voice came through a loudspeaker telling everyone to grab his or her partner, and their mattress and get to the water’s edge.

It was only about thirty minutes until dusk so we needed to get a move on. 

We set the mattress in the water right at the edge. Lo and Jett were to the left of us.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Jenny asked me.

“No. But how hard can it be? I’ll hold it steady so you can get on first. We have to lay down on our stomachs.”

“Okay,” her eyes were wide, and I could tell she was nervous. 

“It’ll be fine. I won’t let you fall.”

I could hear laughter surround us as everyone was trying to steady themselves on their mattresses. Jenny climbed out into the water and slowly made her way onto the float. It was a bit unsteady and she held on for dear life. 

“Scoot up just a little. We’ll use our arms to paddle.” I told her

She adjusted, and I climbed on beside her.

“You scared?”

“A little,” she replied. “Don’t let us fall.”

“Never,” I told her. 

The race started with a bang. The two of us paddled like crazy. It was a lot harder than it looked. Trying to keep balanced while paddling was quite the workout. Water was splashing up all over us, and people were running into us. It would give us something to laugh about one day, but in the moment it was crazy as hell. 

Jenny was doing pretty well, considering she had chicken arms. There was no chance in hell we were going to win, but we tried. We were only halfway across when screams erupted. Our heads snapped up, and we realized that Lo and Jett had won.

“What the hell?” Jenny yelled. “How’d they do that?”

“If I knew, it would be us in the winner’s circle right now.”

“True that,” she said. She rested her head on the mattress facing my direction. “I really don’t work out enough.”

We let ourselves rest instead of trying to finish the race. There was no use trying to get to the other side. We were already losers.

I brushed my hand against her cheek to move the hair away from her face, and she flinched. The same way that she had done the last time. 

“Why do you keep doing that?” I snapped. The beers must’ve kicked in, because my filter was gone.

“What?” There was a stressed look in her eyes.

“You pull away every time I try to touch you.”

“I don’t know.”

I was going to get some real answers from this girl. We were in the middle of the lake and we had nowhere to go. She had to talk to me unless she wanted to go for a swim.   

“I want to know what you’re really thinking. Tell me the truth. Do you hate me now? I mean after we had sex.”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Draven.”

“Well, I do.”

“Don’t be an ass,” she told me. 

“I’m not! I’m being honest. I should’ve told you the truth a long time ago.” I rebutted. 

“What truth? I’m pretty sure you already told me.” Her head shook as she argued with me. “The sex meant nothing, and you didn’t want a relationship. Am I leaving anything out?” I could see the anger all over her face. “Oh, wait. You also made it known to Tyler that we had sex, so that the whole student body could be in on it.”

“I apologized for that.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better. Take me back to camp,” she said, turning her head away from me. 

“No. I have stuff to say to you too.”

She started to paddle with her arms, so I started paddling against her. All we were doing was making one big circle. It was kind of funny actually and it made her laugh too. Thank goodness, because we sure needed something to lighten the mood. 

“Say it,” she told me. “Whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better, just say it. I’m not going to lay here with you doing circles all night.”

I could feel my chest constricting and my heart rate picked up. I had to tell her the truth. I might never get the chance again. But first I had to know something.

“Did the sex mean anything to you?” I asked her. “Please be honest with me.”

I thought we were going to sit in silence for the night. I could tell she was fighting herself. But I waited for her to say what she was feeling. I needed to know before I could say anything else.

“It did mean something to me.”

I felt a weight being lifted off my shoulders.

“It did to me too. I didn’t realize it then, because I had all these crazy things in my head,” I rambled. “But I liked it. I liked it a lot.”

“So you liked it. So what.”

“What I’m trying to say is…” Suddenly I couldn’t speak. I felt clammy and nervous, like I was about to speak in front of a really large crowd. Only it was just Jenny and me. 

“Really, Lepage,” she rolled her eyes. “The man who has everything to say is suddenly speechless. Just get me back to dry land already.”

“Shut up, woman.” I used my free hand to pull her to me and pressed my lips against hers. I’d been waiting to taste those lips again for a long, long time.  

“Don’t,” she said when she pulled back. “I can’t do this again.”

“I love you.” I blurted out the words like they were the last ones I had. “I’m in love with you. I didn’t know it that night when we had sex, but I realized not long after that I only want you. My heart is yours if you’ll have me. I don’t even know if you share the same feelings, but I had to tell you.”

“I’m leaving for New York in a few weeks.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I’m sorry, but you were mad at me, and I was just getting you back in my good graces. I was scared to say anything, and have you shut me down. I don’t take rejection well.”

“I was in love with you long before the sex, and I pretended not to be.” She smirked like there was something funny about it. “How’s that for rejection?”

“Don’t mess with me?” I shook my head.

“I’m not,” she replied. “It almost broke me that night I slept with you, and you said you didn’t do relationships. But stupid me gave in, because I wanted you. I made one idiotic mistake after another.”

“I’m sorry, Jenny. I really am. I want to be with you. I didn’t think you’d ever have someone like me in your life. I’m nothing compared to you. I come from the most fucked up family imaginable, and you have the perfect family. We’re night and day. Oil and water!” 

“I can’t believe you’re telling me this now.”

I took her hand in mine. “If I didn’t have all this beer in me, I might not have. I’m running on liquid courage.”

“What do you want me to say?” Her voice was strained.

“I just want to know that you’re in love with me too.”

“Shut up.” She told me and I closed my mouth tight. Then she kissed me. I felt like I had all the answer I needed. But it would’ve been nice to hear the words back. 

We pulled away, and I noticed that we were getting closer to the shore. Nightfall had set in, and it was just the two of us still out on the water. 

“Let’s jump,” I told her.

“In the water?”

“Yeah.” I nodded my head. “Want to have another adventure with me?

I maneuvered so that I was kneeling on the mattress. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to stay on. 

“You’re completely nuts,” she said, but she kneeled right beside me. I loved that about her. She was ready and willing. Or at least I thought she was.

“On the count of three we are going to stand up. Try to keep steady.” I flashed her a grin, and she gave me a nod.

“One… Two… Three…”