It is so friggin' hot!
School is out, and we're all hanging around at its gate, trying to make plans for this afternoon. To be honest, I don't want to do anything except take another nap, preferably with Kira as my teddy bear.
She asked me if I wanted to go for a swim at the waterfall, as Jet just suggested, and maybe that is a good idea, but I really only want to be with her... wherever... however.
We've made up, and everything is okay again, but I just cannot shake this yucky feeling. It's like my brain needs a toothbrush... a brainbrush with toothpaste... some brainpaste.
Why doesn't that sound right?
It's like when you've watched an upsetting movie, and your insides are just all over the place. None of your organs knows where their home is anymore.
I guess I need some Kira time.
"Ethy?" her voice brings me back to where everybody is hanging around, looking at me. Some are amused, and some seem worried, and I feel stupid. I glance down at Kira's fingers, twined with mine, and a rush of joy makes the stupid melt away in a smile.
"Dude?!" Barn barks a laugh and slaps me on the back hard enough to jostle at least half my organs back into their right places. "Are you sleepwalking?"
It kinda feels like it.
I blink my eyes, grinning, when I realise that, apparently, they're all waiting for me to answer a question I've forgotten. Is it about swimming at the waterfall? Oh, right, Kicks was asking me if I wanted to go for a swim. The water is usually pretty good after some rain.
"Do you wanna go, Kicks?" I ask since I just want to do whatever she wants to do. I really don't care what it is, as long as I can be there too. Yeah, I'm that pathetic right now.
"Sure," she smiles, squeezing my hand.
"Okay," I grin at Barn, suddenly looking forward to some cold water to wake me up and douse the flames this brutal sun is lighting all over my body... and the ones burning up my brain.
"Yeah!" Lurch laughs happily. "Are we going home to change, or are we skinny dipping?"
Dream on, Dude!
"Actually, Brian, after the kind of rain we've just had, the lighting in Scarlet Park is just perfect for drawing the sculptures. I really want to go draw them now," I hear Tonia tell Lurch, and I'm surprised. Usually, they're stuck together as if they were welded in place.
"You... want to go to Ghosties?" Lurch sounds completely confused and disappointed.
Scarlet Park, also known as the children's sanctuary or kiddie park... and a bit grossly as Ghosties, is a huge, overgrown park in the shadow of the mountains. Botanists love the place because of all the plants, trees and flowers. It's pretty with monkey vines and dripping moss, partially wild and partially maintained and managed.
About a hundred years ago, there was a scarlet fever outbreak in Summerfields, and a lot of children died. Their parents had life-sized sculptures made of them and put them all over the place to remember them. When you walk in there, it's like the kids were playing among the trees and flower beds when they suddenly got trapped in stone.
The place freaks me out.
The first statue was of seven-year-old Lily Richford, placed there by her mother, Eleanor, because her little girl loved to play there, sitting amongst the flowers with her dolls. Now, she sits there for all eternity. It's so friggin' sad!
Deli and Kicks often go there, my sister to draw and Kira to crawl around in the mud. I like to go there to mess with them and to make sure Kicks doesn't fall into the creek and drown or fall off the mountain and break her neck... stuff like that.
Seriously, people say I'm self-destructive, but I've got nothing on Miss Nature standing here, gazing up at me with shining eyes, searching my face for something while she holds my hand.
What has her looking so worried?
I'm only half listening to Lurch and Tonia having a mild argument about sometimes needing to pursue their own activities. I get it. Tonia wants to draw, and Lurch will stop her from drawing.
He's not all that crazy about Scarlett Park because the little stone kids freak him out too, and he gets bored just hanging around or climbing the mountain. The creek is not great for swimming, and it is seriously hot now. It's hard to believe that it was raining just this morning. The sun is already sucking all the moisture from the ground and trying to suffocate us with it.
"Did I just get dumped?" Lurch mutters when Tonia runs across the road after promising to meet up with him later. Honestly, the guy is so blooming clueless.
He is not like me, an expert who knows all about women since I have two running my life. One harpy and one angel... oh, and my mom. I feel sorry for the idiot; he looks lost and pretty devastated... the way I did this morning. He didn't mock me, so I won't mock him either.
I'm probably not an expert after all.
"Totally!" Jet guffaws; clearly, he has no issue with mocking heartbroken guys. Is he going to ask if he can have Tonia now? I step closer to him and jab him in the ribs, stopping him just in case. I don't like seeing Lurch so freaked out.
"Dude!" Delia scoffs. "She went off to make some nice drawings. I often do the same thing. Sometimes with Sy, sometimes without him. You're not stuck together with super-glue."
"But you heard what she said. She doesn't want to make out and give me massages and stuff... we always do that when we go to Ghosties..." he moans, nervously messing up his already messy brown hair, curling all over the place. It's time for his regular haircut, or we will use his head to mop Burlap's kitchen floor again. We do that sometimes because... uhm...
He is anxiously looking at Jet, who is still laughing even though Barn took over from me to shut him up and is now trying to tackle him to the ground. Barn is... well... a barn, and it might look as though he is about to kill Jet or snap him in half, but Jet is a friggin Honey Badger! He might not be as vicious and aggressive as one, but he is definitely as cocky, scrappy, tough and bad-ass.
"Lurch," Kira lets go of me to take his hand, patting it gently with her other hand. I know she's just being her sweet, encouraging self, so I'll let it slide... this time... but I want her hand back! "You do know that it's hard to draw and do those things simultaneously, right?"
"Yeah, but..."
"And you do know that Tonia is an actual person with feelings and needs and things she'd like to do on her own?"
"Yeah...?"
What?! He didn't know?
Sometimes, Lurch is a bit oblivious, but I know he loves his girlfriend and enjoys having her around all the time. He is often just a little too blind to see what she might need. Tonia is always going along with his plans, and I guess he started to forget that she might have plans of her own sometimes because she never tells him.
I really hope Kira and I will get better at communicating because I don't want us to fall into that kind of trap where only the needs of one of us are ever catered for, and the other person starts to fade. I've seen it destroy relationships. She must never be afraid to tell me what she wants to do and when she needs to do things without me. I don't own her.
She owns me...
"Just come take a swim with us and meet up with her later," I tell the guy, taking back my girlfriend's hand and patting him on the back. It might be a bit harder than I meant to because he jumps forward a bit. I guess seeing Kira hold his hand pissed me off a tiny little bit. "It's like Deli said, you're not glued together."
I so want to be glued to Kira! I wonder if she'll be up for it... just for a couple of hours. It will be fun! Actually, she didn't enjoy it much the last time we got glued to each other... neither did my dad... I enjoyed it, though.
She is frowning at me, looking amused. Yeah, I guess she noticed that I'm a bit jealous. Let that be a warning to her! Don't hold other guys' hands! Well, so much for warning her to behave; I'm grinning at her like the love-sick puppy I am. I don't think she's getting the message at all.
"Yeah, sometimes you each need to do your own thing," Delia soothes Lurch. "Sy and I do things without each other all the time."
"Not all the time. Just... when we want to do things we can't do together," Simon frowns, and I think he might like to experiment with some glue too. Good luck with that, bro! I was stuck to my sister once.
We were a donkey in a Nativity play. Yeah... I was the backside... obviously... It wasn't fun! She tortured me! On stage! I couldn't even run away. To the audience, it looked like the Donkey was having a fit or had worms.
I think the guy will be safe, glued to my sister because she is grinning at him, wrapping her arms around his waist very affectionately. She is not torturing him at all. So unfair! I tamed her for him! Well, probably not. She still often tortures me.
"She didn't break up with you; just give her some space," Burlap assures Lurch when he still looks sceptical, his eyes wandering to his girlfriend's gate across the road and three houses down, where he'd last seen her. He might be on the verge of running over there, but he finally nods, smiling again. He still looks a little worried, but he knows that Burlap is the only one of us who has dated a girl successfully for a long time and probably knows what he's talking about since his girlfriend didn't just randomly dump him.
"So, skinny dip?" Lurch prompts, rubbing his hands together, excited now about the prospect of that swim.
"Yeah!" Jet agrees loudly, always game to be an animal. We've never actually skinny-dipped when there were girls around; this is all purely fantasy territory for them. We do often swim in our underwear, though.
"We'll meet you there in about 15 minutes," I snort, lacing my fingers with Kira's and start the walk home to get rid of our school bags and change into our bathing suits.
This day is turning out to be so much better than I'd expected this morning. The sun is bright, there's a slight breeze playing in my hair, and I'm walking hand in hand with my girlfriend. I've got my schoolbag on my back, Kira's on my front, and my sports bag slung from one shoulder. I'm friggin' dying, but I'm happy, listening to Delia, Simon and Kira chatting about some school assignment I don't care about right now.
When Sy says goodbye at the turn-off to his house, I take Deli's bag from him, trying to find a spot for it on my body without having to let go of Kira's hand, but my sister grabs it and hoists it onto her back, calling me an idiot, but with a huge adoring smile on her face. I've come to understand that being called an idiot by these two girls is actually meant as a massive compliment!
"Hey!" Lance yells from the low wall in front of his home when I stop to open the Crofts' gate, and Delia hurries into our yard and up to our house. His nine-year-old brother joins him, waving at us, smiling widely. They've obviously been having one of their many brotherly brawls and are both covered in mud from head to toe. That might actually just be their natural appearance. I seldom see either of them dirt-free.
"Hello, Lance. Hi, Jonah," Kira smiles and, feeling benevolent, I hear myself ask the boys if they want to come to the waterfall with us.
"Maybe," Lance says in that typically obnoxious way of his while his brother just about jumps up and down with eagerness, earning his disdain. Jonah is a stronger man than I am; if I earned that much contempt from my sibling day in and day out, my self-image would be crushed, but the kid is always grinning and happy. For some reason, he adores his obnoxious older brother.
"Okay, go get ready," I tell Jonah, pretending to ignore Lance's insolent looks. "We'll be leaving in a bit." I'm not surprised to see Lance hurry after his brother, yelling that he will use the hosepipe to rinse off and Jonah can wash in the dog's water bowl.
The Crofts' kitchen is a cool haven when we leave the heat outside and walk inside. The aircon is not on yet, but the sun is shining from the other side of the house, causing the kitchen to lounge in the much cooler shade. If we hang out in here for a while, I'll be boiling again soon, but it's a relief for now.
I put our bags down and open mine to take out the two tins of condensed milk I bought last night on my way back from Burlap's house. I was going to leave it here this morning when I came to grab Kira's bag, but I forgot.
After the lunch break, I was relieved they were still in there, and the guys didn't drink them. Burlap looked out for me, just like I knew he would. Not only did he get my bag back from Jet, but he managed to save almost half my sandwiches from the hungry hordes, and I got to wolf them down between periods.
Kira is looking surprised, tilting her head inquisitively, making me grin. "Bought them on my run last night," I shrug. "What else do you need?"
Technically, it wasn't a run... it was an angry walk to Burlap's, some wrestling in the pool, good coffee, awesome company and a shameful jog back home... but Kicks doesn't need to know all that. I often go for runs and probably would've gone for one last night if I'd taken a second to think about what I was doing.
"Nothing," she sighs, shaking her head, surrendering to her inevitable fudge-making destiny. "Actually, Daddy bought some too and a massive block of butter. We always have plenty of sugar, and there's still more than enough vanilla essence. I was going to make some tonight anyway."
"Awesome! Thanks, Kicks," I give her ponytail and affectionate tug and pull my bags from the ground onto my back and shoulder. I noticed the first time I picked it up after break time that my school bag was a lot heavier than it should be. I know when I get home and unpack it, I will find some rocks and other disturbing treasures stuffed in there, way at the bottom.
I've already found some fun things, like a piece of iron that was once a part of the old borders set around the school's flowerbeds. They've all been replaced recently, but some of the old trimmings got left behind, forgotten among the plants.
The only reason my rugby bag still weighs the same as it should is because they didn't want to get tangled in my wet towel and muddy rugby gear. Damn, I should've dunked my textbooks in some mud!
"Ethy," Kira suddenly says, grabbing my arm when I'm about to open the kitchen door and leave. "We're cool, right?" she asks, looking up at me with wide eyes.
Are we? I sure hope so.
I want to be cool; I want everything to be cool. Maybe this depressed feeling in the pit of my stomach will be gone by tonight. It's already faded a lot since this morning. The solution is obvious, really; I simply need to make this relationship with Kira work. Problem solved!
"Always, Kicks," I assure her, running a hand over her hair before I pull her into a one-arm hug. "Everything's fine. I promise. Now, go get your bathers on. I'm boiling, I need to cool off, and then we're making fudge!"
"So demanding," she scoffs, giggling when I twirl her towards the door into their hallway and slap her on her butt.
"Run along now, little woman," I chuckle, knowing I'm playing with my parents' hospital insurance.
"I can see who wants his fudge shoved up his... nose!"
"It's all about the taste; the packaging doesn't matter," I laugh and leave the house, suddenly looking forward to that swim.
Delia corners me in the laundry, making me wish I'd run to my room right away instead of deciding to soak my rugby gear first, like a good boy. She doesn't scold me or lecture me or anything like that, though. She just looks at me while I work, and then she takes one of my socks, rubbing stain remover into it before she adds it to my pile.
I pause when she suddenly wraps her arms around me from behind, resting her head against my back.
"Don't be mad at her, Ethe, okay?" she says when I turn around to face her. "She doesn't know that you've been in love with her for ages, and she also doesn't know just what an insufferable bitch Amber really has been towards you. She genuinely doesn't know."
"I know," I sigh, resting the backs of my wrists on her shoulders, careful not to get any bleach or soap on her. Deli is already dressed in her bathers and a large colourful cover-up. I didn't even hear her vote yes for joining the swim. I'm glad she's coming with us today; it will make things seem normal again.
"Just tell her about Amber... all of it," she says. "The hard things too."
I grimace, really not liking the idea of throwing all of that out there and having Kicks see just how far I can fall sometimes.
"This is Kiki, Ethan!" Delia frowns, reading my expression accurately as usual. "She's not going to hold anything against you. You have to put things in perspective so it doesn't crawl out and bite you again. She needs to know your heart. All of it."
"I need a swim," I grunt, turning away to rinse my hands.
I was right!
The moment Deli and I meet Kira at her gate and begin our walk to the waterfall, I start to feel normal again. It helps that Kira slides her hand into mine the minute she steps from their yard, and I close the gate behind her. This is becoming very natural for her to do, which is a good sign that we're heading in the right direction.
The less-than-normal part I'm experiencing is mainly because I'm nervous about the mouth on the guy walking between Deli and me. The little brat actually tried to get between Kira and me, but I was not letting go of her hand, and he finally settled for Delia instead. Jonah is on Kira's other side, animatedly telling her about a cool bug he saw in their back garden and he expertly evaded Lance when he tried to displace him.
"Lance! Jonah!" their mother, Aunt Mable, shouts, trotting up to their front fence carrying two towels. She's a small, round woman who never walks anywhere she goes; she scurries. She reminds me a little of Lazy-Bones when he was much younger and still had energy. "Honestly, boys! Do I have to run after you for everything?" she huffs, handing Jonah the towels when he hurries back to her.
"Only if you want to, Mum," Lance grins, and I flick his ear.
"Thanks for taking them, guys," his mother says, smiling widely. The poor woman needs the break, and she doesn't want them to go to the waterfall alone. There is a lot of potential for unattended kids to be injured. Through the years, we've demonstrated that very well. Like Jonah, Aunt Mable hides her suffering (under Lance) behind happy smiles and kindness. "Let me know if Lance didn't behave."
"Oh, he's not going to," I assure her. "It's okay, we'll just tie him up; it's going to be alright."
Laughing, his mother returns to the house, and when we resume walking, Lance turns to me with that cocky smirk I know he learned from Jet. "Will you? It will be awesome."
"Will I what?" I frown, not liking the look on his face.
"Tie me up and throw me off the waterfall. It will be soooooo cool."
"You're an idiot." No, it's not a compliment when I say it!
"You did it to Jet once!"
"That's because he's an idiot too," I assure him. The sooner he loses his hero worship for the demon of foolishness, the better.
"So, you'll do it then?"
"No!"
Kira and Deli are giving me some seriously weird looks now, which is exactly what I was worried about with this brat coming along. Well, this might not be so bad. I do become a responsible adult and sound like my dad whenever I have to take care of Lance. It's freaky and messed up.
Oh, wait!
Their looks don't hold any sympathy or admiration. They're horrified and curious about what I did to Jet when I wasn't being a responsible adult like my dad.
"He was being annoying," I explain, but their expressions do not change to understanding and empathy. "Don't look at me like that! We just bound him with some Woollybutt!"
"You have a woolly butt?!" Lance chortles happily. "I didn't need to know that!"
"Grass!" I growl. "Woollybutt grass! It broke before he even hit the water."
"You guys are morons," Delia compliments me. "Lance, you shouldn't hang out with them."
"I know," the brat says with all the wisdom of a pesky 11-year-old. "I am only coming to the waterfall because all my women will be there," he assures her, earning himself another ear-flick from me.
"Lance! Shhhhhht," Delia says, pretending to be his co-conspirator. "We need to keep that secret from Ethan and Simon. We're meeting Sy at his junction; I don't want there to be a fight."
"It's okay, love; I could take them both in a fight," he assures her. "Ethan especially is ridiculously weak. Seriously, dude, you need to stop doing that!" he shouts when I flick his ear yet again. The guy never learns! I'm right here within flicking distance! His ears are openly inviting me to use my chances. He is bringing it on himself. "Don't make me spill all your secrets. Kira, did you know Ethan likes to..."
I've had enough of this kid. Letting go of Kira's hand, I grab Lance, toss him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and run. He is screaming all the way, broadcasting all my deep dark secrets to the world like a friggin' town cryer reporting the news.
"Did he just say Ethan practises kissing on trees?" Kira laughs. "Doesn't that hurt, Ethy?!"
"Right?! He should practice on you instead," Delia chuckles, and I agree with her.
When we reach the junction where Sy joins us, I put the boy down and he thanks me for giving him a ride for at least half our journey. Yeah, maybe I really am an idiot in the uncomplimentary sense of the word.
We make it to the waterfall in one piece, without any homicides due to my superior self-control and Sy engaging Lance in basketball talk. The shade is thick on our favourite rock hangout, and the water is refreshingly cool. After a few minutes of swimming with Kira, I feel like myself again.
I did, of course, throw Lance off the waterfall, but I didn't tie him up with Woollybutt or anything else first, and I regretted it immediately because he loved it so much we had to take turns doing it over and over... and not just Lance, Jonah soon joined in the fun.
Whenever I hang out with these kids, with their endless supply of energy and Lance with his snarky cheek, I feel old. I'm therefore grateful when Burlap puts down his book and joins Jet in building a temporary dam at the outflow from the pool for Lance and Jonah to lie in.
We used to love doing that when we were kids. The idea is to build a wall with stones and mud, capturing enough water to lounge in as it warms in the sun. It was the closest thing to a jacuzzi we could get back then. You constantly have to patch the wall, though, or it washes away.
It's not possible to build a dam big enough to hold us now that we're not shrimps anymore, so we go to Jet's house if we want to hang out in a hot tub.
Sighing, I collapse on the rocks beside Kira, where she's lying on her back, with most of her in the shade of a boulder, just perfect to rest my back against. I'm pleasantly surprised when she rolls onto her side, wriggling closer and puts her head on my thigh. I know she's sleeping and doesn't know what she's doing, but sitting in the shade with the breeze in my wet hair and having Kira's head in my lap still feels good.
All my friends are here, doing their own thing. Barn and Wendy are watching skateboarding videos on a phone. Lurch is sleeping, Jet and Burlap are babysitting, and Delia, Sy and others are floating in the pool.
I think there's a huge chance that everything will work out after all.
♂♀