THOSE GOOD TEEN YEARS 3 CRUSHES NO MORE

Chapter Ten: Stand Up

They had just reached the ending of Lake Springs when Em suddenly yelled.

"Wait!"

"Em! What happened?" Si asked.

"This is it!" She gasped, wide eyed. She pointed towards two trees that were entwined together at the branches, forming a kind of a natural arch. Tiny white and pink flowers sprinkled down once in a while. The ground beneath it looked showered with it.

It looked so sweet and romantic, Peter thought it could only be a place where people probably got married.

Where people got married...

Oh. Now he got it, Em's reaction and surprise. Because this was the place, the place her parents had run away to and married in secret, with no one but God as their witness.

"This...this...Si, this is where Mom and Dad got married!"

"Really?" All of them looked and studied the scene. Peter thought all of them had come to same conclusion. A fairy tale setting for those deeply and truly in love, who are willing to sacrifice family (their's) for love. That got Peter a little misty eyed, and he hid it by pretending that something had gone in his eyes. He thought about how a little bit farther from this place had he and Em had been last night. It was almost like magic.

Em had moved forward and was now searching the trunks, like she expected some kind of a mark. Then she smiled. Peter got curious, and he went along with the rest to see.

"It's true. Mom wasn't lying about it." She said dreamily, casually touching the mark on the tree.

It wad a heart, now faded and old, that had two sets of initials inside it. It said, 'ND+JB'. A very simple message.

"That doesn't make sense." Ali said.

"It does, actually." Peter said. He knew what those initials stood for. "ND as in Nicholas Deyton, and JB as in Jean Black. Her parents' initials."

"Oh my god, that is so romantic." Sienna whispered. Peter took out his camera and clicked a picture of that. Em looked up.

"For proof." He simply replied. She nodded. She touched it one last time before turning.

"C'mon, then, we don't have enough time. Let's cover as much as we can." She said.

They all agreed and continued their work of exploring the park.

***** 

Early Monday morning, Emma made her way to school hurriedly, before the tardy bell rang. Peter had already left (at her insistence; she didn't want to make him late.) The sun was shining nice and bright, and it was starting to get a bit hot. That happened. Emma hoped that the rain would come soon. It brought down the temperature.

Reaching school, she started searching for Peter. She was just about to call him when she saw him sitting at the fountain. She made her way towards him.

"Hey, Pete."

"Em! Hi! By the way, you look beautiful." He smiled. That warmed her heart.

"And I don't need to compliment you, do I?"

"Well, I'll certainly feel better. You've got to feed the man ego." He grinned.

"Oh, please." She rolled her eyes. 'Man Ego' was a term coined by Sienna, who thought that all boys, whether popular or nerds, had an ego that tended to flair up like a red hot satellite alert. This was what made boys sensitive if they were insulted about their manhood, which was supposedly their goal or something. Stupid.

"What? It's true!" He exclaimed. She continued stand there, suddenly her heart rate climbing, hardly believing her luck that she was talking casually with him and she was his girlfriend. It felt good and comfortable.