Lake Rossen was my favourite place; it was where I learned how to ride a bike, swim, fall in love with nature and suffer through countless sunburns.
But, most importantly, Lake Rossen is where my grandma is. Where I used to sit by her side and stargaze and dream for hours on end each summer. It's where my mom used to hold me tight and tell me tales about mermaids that lived in the lake and wolves that ran in the forest.
Lake Rossen is where my heart is.
The whole town was tucked away behind an endless forest and rocky mountains that spirit the sky into two. There were only two ways in, the most popular way is driving along the twisting road on the lake's edge, or (if you were lucky enough to have a boat) you could boat in from the other side of the lake that was filled with campgrounds and kayak rentals. I had only ever driven in; completely memorized by the way the water and trees seemed to blur together as we drove past.
All in all, Lake Rossen was your typical small summer town. It had no more than 30 year-round residents, all of whom I knew by name. Like Mrs. Cameron, who always had a yard sale every long weekend, and yet never managed to run out of junk to sell for 0.50 cents. Or the Johnstons', who seemed to have a new grandchild every time I stopped by to say hi, they had five kids who all got married young and their family just kept growing. Or even Mr. Lincoln whom you could always find down by the lake with his rod in the water. They were all my family.
But in the summer Lake Rosen became like a whole different place. As soon as June hit, all the usual empty cabins would fill up until September long weekend, and then there would be well over 100 people here.
However, despite how Lake Rossen would more than double in size during summer, it only had three stores. All of which had faded 'Welcome!' signs in a gravel parking lot that you first saw when driving into the town. The first was 'Got Milk?' which was the closest thing to a full-fledged grocery store we had. 'Got Milk?' had been owned and run by the same family for longer than I've even been alive, it had everything from sunscreen and fresh-cut firewood, to (of course) milk. And then there was a local fruit and veggie stand. It was only open from June to August when it was busiest, but I swear on my life it had the best blueberries I've ever tasted. It only accepted cash and was owned by the Hale's, a middle-aged couple who were as 'crunchy' as it gets. And finally, there was, more or less, a gas station with two pumps, although one of them seemed to be forever out of order.
And that was it. If you needed anything else, you'd have to make the hour's drive to the closest town.
But the people that came to Lake Rossen didn't care about how many stores there were, or if the gas pump was out of order. They all came to get away, to get lost in the sun and sand and all the beauty of the lake.
My grandma always told me that the water was magic, that it could cure anything. And for the longest time, I used to believe that. But that was before I found myself crammed into Reggie's truck, his awful rap music blaring, and the AC blowing warm air.
But right now, none of that mattered. All that mattered was that Lake Rossen was where my grandma was. My grandpa, her late husband, bought them their own lake-front cabin years ago as an anniversary gift, and they planned to finally settle down and retire there. My grandparents were high-school sweethearts, met at the 11th-grade homecoming dance, and the rest was history. But my grandpa passed away not long after buying the cabin, and everyone's heart broke. He was the foundation of our family. The dad to three girls and grandfather to even more. He was my grandma's everything. But Grandma still moved up here when she retired because, in her exact words, "I can't bear to be away from him any longer. His dream was this cabin, and now I finally get to live in his dreams again."
I cried when I heard that.
And not long after that my mom and her sisters bought their own cabin up at Lake Rossen. It was two streets over, and one street up from Grandma's. It wasn't waterfront like hers, but it was magical nonetheless.
When I was 10, I carved my initials behind the table on the front porch, so everyone would know that I was here. That I was engraved into this cabin -- this place forever.
Lake Rossen and the cabin were my home.
But when Reggie pulled his truck into the gravel driveway, he looked anything but happy. "This is it?" He asked, eyeing the log cabin like it was a garden shed filled with rats.
"This is it." I nodded.
"Are you sure it isn't one of those big, three-story, cabins back there?" Reggie jerked his head to the side, gesturing to one of the mall cabins as I deemed them. They were all made out of concrete, and ten-foot-high windows --- tall, boxy, and anything but magical. They looked like every other mall.
"Positive, Reggie," I rolled my eyes. "Unless you forgot how to read, which wouldn't surprise me, then you should be able to read the number '1997' on the front," I told him, hopping out of the truck and pulling my duffle bag and backpack out of the back.
I dropped the bags by my feet on the porch, the cabin's spare key was tucked up, on top of the door and I needed to stand on my tiptoes to reach it.
Reggie made a face of annoyance before grabbing all his bags out of his truck bed and bringing them up to the porch.
I was still trying to pull the key forward when I felt Reggie come up behind me. He wrapped one arm around my waist, pressing my back flush against his front, and easily grabbed the key with his other hand. I was so surprised that I barely registered when Reggie pressed the key into my open hand.
I quickly unlocked both the screen door and the wooden one behind it. I was grateful that at that moment Reggie was behind me and couldn't see the blush blooming on my face. "Thanks."
"Whatever helps to get this summer over faster. And by how short you are, grabbing that key would have taken you until July," Reggie muttered, hastily picking his bags back up and stepping past me into the cabin.
1997 was nothing special, at least to Reggie it wasn't. But to me it was everything. It was a one-story log cabin that was built in the 1940s and had been touched up a few times over the years. The bathroom had a leaky faucet that dripped all night, and the stove in the kitchen was gas and used to heat up the whole cabin in the winter. The laundry room was in the far, right corner of the kitchen, with a washer and dryer stacked on top of each other that shook the whole house when it was turned on. There were only two bedrooms in the cabin, the back bedroom that was through the kitchen, and the one at the end of the small hall my aunts would sleep in. The back bedroom was where my cousins and I would pile into, a queen-sized bed, a day bed, and lots of floor room for blow-up mattresses is what we would cram onto. The whole cabin was filled up with too many family pictures and old participation ribbons from when we were all kids. And even though I hadn't been here in years, it still felt the same.
No matter how many times my mom cleaned every square inch of this place, it still smelled like sunscreen, bug spray, and the slightest bit like melted freezies. Home.
"You can take the room in the far back. I'll take the one my aunts always stay in," I told Reggie, jabbing my thumb at the far door next to the kitchen stove. It was the biggest of the two, and he had more stuff than I did. Plus, I didn't think he'd enjoy the floral wallpaper in my aunt's room much.
"Cool," Reggie said before walking past me and into his room for the next two months.
I copied Reggie's actions, picking up my bags off the deck and making my way to my new room for the rest of summer. On the other side of the kitchen were the bathroom, the linen closet, and my room.
I pushed the bedroom open, kicking it shut behind me and dropping my bags onto the end of my bed. The whole room smelled like fresh linen and damp wood, no doubt from the old rot that used to be on the roof a few years ago. There was a queen-sized bed in the middle of the room, a small fold-out loveseat-style couch against the far-right corner of the room, cutting off some of the floor-to-ceiling window, and an old vanity that used to belong to my aunt facing the bed. On each side of the bed, there was a small closet that was filled with old clothes that had been left here over the years, a wooden shelf sat right above the head of the bed, and an old alarm clock and some tissues on it.
The walls were all dark oak logs, and a few family pictures hung on them. And right behind the bed was an absolutely god-awful floral wallpaper from the 60s that refused to come off no matter how much remover we sprayed it with.
When I used to come up here as a kid, my mom and her other sister, Sherry, used to share the bed. They were the two single sisters, and then they would make my other aunt Shannon, take the fold-out loveseat. They said that it was only fair because she was the youngest. The love seat was a faded pink with a few bleach stains and a yellowed mattress on the inside from who-only-knows-what. It was permanently broken and lumpy, and whoever spent the night on it was guaranteed a sore back the next day. But despite all that, it would never leave.
The top of the vanity was covered in a fine layer of dust and a few hair-ties. Nothing special, but enough room for me to get ready in the morning.
Before I could let my mind wander any further, there was a knock on my door. "Yo, Li!" Reggie yelled. "Let's go to the store and get some food. I'm starving over here!"
Despite my aunts coming up here a few days ago and filling the kitchen with the basics, we still needed to grab all our fruits, veggies, and perishables.
I pulled open the door to see Reggie leaning against the wall, a pair of sunglasses preached on the top of his head, and his arms crossed over his chest. He had clearly changed into a pair of navy blue swim trunks, and a simple white t-shirt that gave me a slight outline of his abs.
As much as I hated Reggie, I didn't have a death wish. I knew from when we were kids that if he was hungry, he needed to eat or else.
"Yeah, let's over to the bottom of The Hill, Got Milk? And the veggie stand should both be open," I agreed, reaching out for my wallet.
And just like that, my summer with Reggie Reys was officially starting.
Reggie used to be everywhere in my life. We used to be best friends, spending every weekend together playing on the Wii, building pillow forts, and sneaking candy out of his mom's hidden stash. He was on every page of my mom's photo albums, and even had a special place in my grandma's heart, sadly.
But despite being practically family, Reggie was the worst person that I knew. After the incident, he insisted on making my life a living hell, and of course, I wasn't just going to sit there and take it, I gave it right back to him. Before all of that, the worst thing Reggie ever did to me was push me into the pool at my cousin's birthday party in 4th grade, to get back at him I smashed a slice of cake all over his head. We both got time-outs.
Reggie was by far the worst at school. He was the typical 'golden boy' that played baseball and went to parties all the time. He always managed to get out of trouble, even when he filled my locker with slime in 11th grade and completely ruined everything I had in it. No one wanted to get on his bad side, except for me. I made it my personal mission to make Reggie Reys suffer. Like the time I switched out his baseball pants for ones that said 'I LOVE MY MOMMY' across the back and he didn't notice until it was too late.
After Reggie and I stopped being friends, I was all alone and needed something to do with my time, so I took up pageants. I won the first one I entered into, and on Monday at school, Reggie's new nickname for me was 'Air-head Princess' and he constantly asked me if I wanted world peace. On career day that year, he asked me if my future plan was to marry Hugh Hefner.
And that's just the short list of reasons why it felt so unbelievably wrong to be grocery shopping with Reggie.
"Why would I ever need two different types of lettuce? Do I look like a goddamn rabbit to you, kid?" Reggie bit out.
He was currently arguing with the Hale's youngest daughter at their fruit and veggie stand over lettuce, for reasons I don't even know why.
The Hale's youngest daughter, I think her name was Sarah? Sally? Was trying to convince Reggie that he needed both romaine and iceberg lettuce for the perfect salad.
I don't think Reggie even knows how to spell salad.
"But it's so much better with both!" Susan? exclaimed. "You get the crispness of the iceberg, and the victim boost of the romaine, it's absolutely perfect!"
"Look here Greta Thunberg," Reggie grumbled, swatting both heads of lettuce away from him. "Up until right now, I never even knew that there were two different types of lettuce. I'd rather eat my left foot than your stupid rabbit food."
"I think we're good!" I practically yelled as I tugged Reggie away from Sophie? "We need to get going now."
I dropped my half-full basket onto the plastic folding table in front of Mrs. Hale and let her quickly bag up all the fruit and veggies. "35 even, Hon." She said.
"Keep the change," I told her, pushing two 20s into her open hand and snatching the bag off the table and practically dragging Reggie with me. "Have a good one, Mrs. Hale."
"Would it kill you to be a decent person for five minutes?" I snapped at Reggie as soon as we were out of hearing distance from the stand. "I mean, she couldn't have been more than 11, and you were slapping vegetables out of hand!"
"She was old enough to know not to be annoying," Reggie rolled his eyes. "I mean, who does she even think she is? No one cares about lettuce! It's basically fancy grass."
"What kind of all-star athlete doesn't eat lettuce? Aren't veggies meant to be a main part of your diet?" I asked confused.
"Aren't pageant queens meant to live off a diet of vanity and world peace?" Reggie mocked me in a high-pitch tone trying to get under my skin.
"You're a jerk," I spat out.
"Oh come on, Li," Reggie tossed his arm around my shoulders, squeezing me into his side. "I know how much you really love me."
"I'd rather eat every head of lettuce that I can find than be one of your baseball bimbos," I snapped, shrugging Reggie's arm off of me and spreading up until I was a good few feet in front of him.
"I love it when you play hard to get," he called out after me.
This is going to be a long summer.