The Ups and Downs of Becoming a Recluse.

There was weed and hormones there were kids everywhere, but nobody really cared because they were all just doing their own thing, and as long as they weren’t bothering anybody, well, then they shouldn’t be bothered, either. It wasn’t one of those clichéd high school parties, though, the ones you read about and almost believe because it’s that surreal that it must be true. People weren’t making out everywhere, and there wasn’t even booze - at least, not from what I could tell. It wasn’t even at somebody’s house like you always hear about; nobody’s parents had left them the house keys and no one was throwing some insane blowout that would be the talk of the entire summer.

I hadn’t ever heard of something happening like that in real life, at least not as long as I’d started letting Christina take me to parties.

The party was outdoors, and it was hotter than hell. However, someone had gotten the bright idea in their heads to host a bonfire and camp out in tents and sleeping bags and make these insane s’mores with a pound of chocolate for every graham cracker.

Of course, this whole party wouldn’t have even happened if it hadn’t been for Jim, and how he was going off to college (yeah, I couldn’t believe he’d been accepted anywhere, either). But everybody seemed to just love that guy, the root of such emotions perhaps rooting from all of the pranks he’d pulled in his time. He was that typical class clown that everybody had at least one of in their class, and even though he was two grades above us, Christina had managed to make such an impression on him that she had been invited.

I don’t think she ever asked if she could bring me, but she did it anyway because there was going to be so many people there that nobody would have noticed.

That was so much truer than I could have ever imagined.

Maybe it was just me, but I think I must have been expecting a lot less because I was blown away by how many kids there were, sitting or standing or walking everywhere. Some of them were playing volleyball by the lake, some were sitting around the campfire, some were building tents, and some were just doing whatever. But I felt like I was the only one there who didn’t have something to do, because I almost immediately found myself standing alone, dipping my toes in the warm lake water as Christina ran off someplace to go find Jim, since she was so ultimately captivated by him that she felt like she had to go find him and be with him before he left for college.

Not that I minded being alone all that much, because just being there was all the fun I really needed. There was excitement in the air and it mingled with the heat, sticking to our bodies and bursting into flames as its ashes rose toward the sky.

All around me were people that I knew and didn’t know, and then the people that I almost knew and liked to think that I did because their faces stood out and I always saw them like they probably didn’t see me. I kept glancing down at my toes as they squished into the sand and my feet started feeling gritty, and I kept looking back up at all of the life that riveted through the night. Everything was warm and lovely and there was a fire in all of their hearts that I didn’t think I’d seen before, just because it was strange to see people so happy in Arizona, and during a time of sadness, no less; they were all grieving over the fact that Jim was leaving for college, and yet it seemed that the thought hadn’t even crossed their minds simply because of all the love that circulated through the hot, early summer wind.

Maura and Lionel were in the lake, no more than fifteen feet away from where I stood. Somehow, a plastic red cup had managed to find its way into my right hand, although I wasn’t quite sure where it had come from; it was filled with green fizzy liquid, which I’m guessing was most likely Mountain Holla, or something to the equivalent of its chemical makeup.

There were kids out on the lake, swimming toward the raft chained to its center. The water lining the shore was calm, but way out there it was rough and waves crashed like thunder. There were kids with canoes and kayaks and paddleboats approaching the excitement. There was laughter and happiness and love.

As someone bumped into me, I could feel the water exchanging skins and droplets rolling down my bare arms. It was warm and I knew that, whoever it was, they had been out on the lake. And perhaps they had done a cannon ball or two off the dock, or they had tipped the canoe and fallen headfirst into the waters below. Whatever the case was, he had managed to find his way into the lake and he must have just made a comeback to the shore, because when I turned around to see who it was, his hair clung to his forehead and the clothes he wore were soaked and dripping with lake water.

He smiled at me, reaching up to wipe the water from the back of his neck. He tilted his head to the side and, instead of continuing walking on, he stopped for a moment, just to look at me with his brown eyes and put his life on pause; it was just us and the night.

And back then, that was really all we had.