Young and Reckless

Four

When I wake up Pete and Sian are still sleeping. I look around us. My window is open just a little but enough for me to reach out and grab a chunk of the yellow flowers. I intertwine a few of the green stalks and make a crown of yellow petals, yellow pollen and green stems but when I place it on my head it falls over my eyes, slides down my cheeks and lands on my collarbone. I gently take it off and place it on Pete's head; it fits perfectly.

With nothing to do I begin to de-clutter the floor of my car. As I move maps and such into the glove compartment I find a brown envelope full of graduation photographs. Myself with my mother and step-father, myself with some of my high school friends, myself with a bunch of kids I didn't know very well, myself with Pete, myself with Pete and his parents, myself with Pete's grandmother, myself with my own grandparents, myself with Pete's other grandmother and a picture of Pete the first. I smile and put the envelope back. There should be a picture of myself with Pete and Sian in the envelope but I'd thrown it away a couple of weeks ago.

I find other envelopes full of other photographs from memorable days in my life. Kindergarten and first grade; these days aren't so memorable to me but I hear about them all the time from my mom. Myself in a pair of red dungarees with pigtails and a big chocolate-y smile. I look over my shoulder at Sian. Still sleeping, I'm sure that's she sleeping now - I can't ever imagine Sian being so young. With all of her sixteen years of age, the golden goddess seems too wise and too graceful to have ever been a clumsy five-year-old, just getting used to the world.

I open another envelope; elementary school, middle school, the early days of high school. The days when Pete and I weren't awkward together, when our friendship extended past glances in hallways and kind, almost apologetic half-smiles across the cafeteria. I see myself at the beach, neck-deep in sand with an awkward twelve-year-old Pete leaning over me. He has a plastic spade in his hand, one of those crappy rip off ones you get from stalls in seaside towns. I see Pete leaning into hole, trying to dig so deep that he'll reach the sea. I see Pete and I in a rock pool, looking for mermaids or magical tridents or Atlantis.

This summer was supposed to be Pete and I, maybe Pete’s little brother too. It was supposed to be used-to-be-best-friends bonding time. Pete and I, me and Pete, running through fields and taking pictures by the sea and going shopping in little towns that the world doesn’t know about. It was supposed to be fun. A roadtrip. My last chance to make amends, my last chance to finally say what I’d wanted to say for several months. My last chance and Sian... Sian ruined it.

Tears are beginning to well up in my eyes because it's now that I realise how, after this summer, everything is going to be different. There will be no mothers or step-fathers or awkward old friends to help me get through life as smoothly as possible in Massachusetts. There will be scholars and professors and libraries full of books I'll never understand. I put the envelope back into the glove compartment and close it. Inhale. One, two, three, four. Exhale. One, two, three, four. Inhale. I repeat it again and again until someone says:

"It's going to be really, really different when you go."

I nod. "Yeah, I know."

"But you're coming back for all the holidays and every other chance you get. I know your mom would kill you if you just disappeared off of the face of the Earth," he chuckles. I don't say anything. What am I supposed to say? I can't think of anything decent to say because all I can think of are those lips and that hair and those eyes and the way he laughs. For the sake of being polite I put on a sad smile and look down at my feet - faking (or this case elaborating) speechlessness is always a good move to stop a silence from becoming awkward.

"Sometimes I think that political science isn't me," the man-boy says, stretching his arms out and yawning a little. I glance at him out of the corner of my eyes. "It seems so... complicated. I really want to be a musician, like in a band or something."

"Who knows," I say, shrugging and looking up at all that rapeseed through the front window, "maybe you will be."

"Maybe I'll be famous." His eyes light up. "Maybe I'll own a mansion in every continental state and a couple in Canada. Maybe I'll have my own jet or three. That'd be pretty sweet, wouldn't it?" I have a habit of answering rhetorical questions but I don't answer this one. I sit and stare at the yellow rapeseed standing tall on green stalks. Pete notices the flower crown on his head. I catch a glance of him fiddling with it and say, "It didn't fit my head so I put it on yours."

He smiles. "I figured it was you, Sian's hands are too big and clumsy to have made it."

I twist from the waist up and look over the top of my seat at the sleeping Sian. I'd never noticed before but I notice now that her hands are really, really quite large. Her fingers seem to explode at the end so that the tip of each finger is slightly wider than the rest. My eyes run down her form, lying horizontal across the backseats. Without a doubt her hands are her most unattractive feature.

"Remember Sarah Channing?" Pete's fiddling with the radio, trying to get it to turn on. He's pressing all the buttons except the on button. I watch him absentmindedly without even thinking of helping. How could I forget Sarah Channing? Tall, brunette, beautiful, sweet, a bit loud and opinionated, freckles, crooked nose from one unfortunate volleyball tournament, on the Honor roll. I mumble, "Yeah."

"She's up in Quebec now. Dating some Canadian called Chad. He's thirty-five." Figures. Sarah did always seem the type to go for older men. "Apparently she was dating him all year and no one knew. They're getting married." Figures. Sarah did always seem the type to rush into things. "She's four months pregnant." Figures. I thought Sarah was looking a little round at graduation.

"Are you trying to make a point or are you just making conversation?" I can't bring myself to look up at him. He stops fiddling with the radio and leans back into the seat.

He turns and looks at me. He looks at me for ten seconds and doesn't say anything. He's really looking at me. I know he's waiting for me to look up but I don't want to. Another ten seconds pass. I turn to face him, "Well?"

"Em... do you really like Sian?" I look at Sian; sleeping Sian, the golden goddess, the honey-haired wonder, the big-breasted angel. I try not to grimace. Truth be told, I think she's amazing but boy do I hate her. I ought to lie, for the sake of being a good friend. I ought to lie and say that I like her, she's a nice girl. Selfishness gets the better of me.

"No." Cue the instant regret. Make an attempt to fix this. "She sleeps a lot." I look at the radio, cocking my head to one side, and press the on button.
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Sian will be sleeping less in the chapters to come. Promise.