Lights on the Lake

Alana stood there completely still as everyone cleared out of her birthday get-together later in the evening. She was sitting in the living room of her aunt's house staring at the fireplace as if there was a blazing fire in it catching her eye. But there wasn't. It was a warm summer night and the imaginary fire she created in her mind could have easily been to block out her boyfriend sitting right next to her, with his hand on her knee.

Ker walked in from the kitchen and handed Trey a mug full of something Alana didn't really care to know what and Trey thanked her and took a sip. She smiled down at him, almost for a little too long, making Alana finally look up from the idle fireplace. It was obvious why her aunt would look at Trey for a second too long. He was handsome. Strong face, blonde hair, blue eyes, tall. Who wouldn't want someone like him?

"Are you okay?" Trey asked her quietly after Ker had walked away to the last remaining guests in the backyard. Everyone was long gone by now and Julie had opted to take a drive with Alana's friends - excluding Leo who was nowhere to be found - to let Alana and Trey have some privacy.

"Yeah," Alana said back to him and gave him the most reassuring smile she could think of.

"Still surprised?" He asked with a lopsided grin.

"I missed you," Alana said honestly. Her voice was somewhat shaky and it was as if she wanted to soak in the moment yet disappear from it at the same exact time. As happy as she was about Trey's surprise, and how terrible she felt about what she was doing about two minutes before he had shown up to surprise her, she couldn't help but think of Leo. Their eyes had met right after Trey had kissed her in front of everybody. Instead of scowling, instead of glaring, Leo just blankly stared at her before turning his back and walking away.

"Me too," Trey replied. "Listen, I know we've been kind of off and on recently. With you coming down here and me getting upset with you, to me leaving and barely being able to talk... I know things have been tough. But if being away taught me anything, it was that I couldn't bear to be away from you for so long. My parents would ask how you were, even though they've never met you. My relatives would ask me about the 'girl in my life' and it just wasn't the same talking about you when I knew that you could have been there. I wish you could have came with me. But now I'm here, and your family is so great and welcoming and Julie helped plan this whole thing when I told her that I wanted to surprise you. You never talked much about this town and I just wanted to know the town behind the girl."

Trey looked at Alana, obviously wanting her to say something back to him. Instead she stayed silent and placed her hand on the side of his neck. She stared into his genuine eyes, trying to think of anything to stay to him. Contemplating letting him know about Leo. Letting him though that she was never quite a good girlfriend to begin with. But instead, she leaned in and kissed him with as much passion as she could meander, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't help but feel like the worst person in the world.



"Okay stay perfectly still," Alana said as Julie's eyes widened with complete fear the next late afternoon. There was a small green bug on the side of her neck and Julie almost looked like she was about to faint. Alana tried to hide her smile at how terrified her friend looked as she slowly reached forward.

"Is it a tick? Oh my god, it's a tick isn't it? Am I going to get lime's disease?" Julie asked frantically and Alana heard Weezer laughing right behind her. "Hey shut up Mr. Weeze, I'm from New York, not freaking Iowa like all the rest of you. Seriously, how humid is it outside? I feel like my skin is going to stick together. Take this thing off me, damnit!"

"Well if you'd hold still!" Alana rebutted.

"Alana!" Julie whined.

"Ugh, just let me do it," Weezer said, his voice holding a tint of amusement. Alana put her hands in the air and stepped backwards as Weezer walked up and tried to calm down Julie enough to get the bug off of her neck. Alana walked down the dock where Mackenzie stood with Abigail, who was inspecting something in her nail.

"How's it going?" Alana asked Mackenzie, who was staring over at Weezer and Julie who were laughing as Weezer held the bug in the air triumphantly.

"What?" Mackenzie replied. "Fine. Gay dad. Mom doesn't know. Yadda yadda."

Alana hit Mackenzie on the shoulder and looked over at Abigail who looked up to meet her eye. Abigail's dark brown skin reflected from the setting sun but her eyes seemed to hold a sense of nostalgia towards them.

"Do you think it's ever going to be like this again?" She asked.

"You mean after you marry Jason and become a housewife who dotes on her husband hand and foot and ignores her friends?" Mackenzie asked jokingly. It was Abigail's turn to punch Mackenzie in the shoulder.

"I mean it, we're all gonna go our separate ways. Alana back to New York, all of us back to school. Soon enough we'll stop wanting to come back for the summers because we'll feel like we've grown too old for it and then we won't ever talk to each other again. Alana will end up marrying Trey and will have beautiful babies, Mackenzie will find some rich prince from Peru and run off into the wild. All of us will meet at our high school reunion and awkwardly shake hands as if we had never met."

Right after Abigail was finished with her monologue, Mackenzie and Alana made eye contact and burst into laughter.

"Jeez, Abigail, why don't you go ahead and start writing obituaries you depressing little girl!"

Abigail frowned and Alana put her arm around her shoulder. "I'll try not to disappear for too long again, I promise."

Abigail scrunched up her nose.

"Where is your hunk of burning love anyways?" Mackenzie asked, her eyes still on the end of the dock where Julie was doing back flips off it into the water.

"He's actually golfing with my uncle," Alana replied with a small laugh. "He sucks so bad though so my uncle is probably laughing him off the course right now."

"Or he has already been laughed off and has become old buddies with Leo?" Mackenzie asked.

"What?" Alana responded and Mackenzie pointed over Alana's shoulder at Trey getting out of Leo's car. Her stomach dropped almost immediately as she could hear Leo and Trey's laughter as they slammed their doors and started walking towards the beach.

"Alana!" Trey yelled, his feet sinking in the sand with each step he took. The two boys finally reached the group of girls and Trey grabbed Alana and pulled her into a hug. She looked straight at Leo who was standing behind him. He had no expression on his face.

"I thought you were golfing with Paul!" Alana said as her chin rested on his shoulder for a quick second.

"I was," Trey said. "Before he completely destroyed slash humiliated me. When I got back to your aunt and uncle's house, Leo was there helping your aunt out with her car and offered to drive me over."

"That was nice of you, Leo," Alana said quietly.

"Not a problem," Leo said coolly. "I was just telling Trey all about the fun times we had growing up as kids here."

To others, Leo's previous statement probably sounded completely innocent. He was merely and old friend there specifically to tell Trey some old fun stories about them growing up. But Alana knew exactly what Leo was leaning towards with his words.

"He told me that some kid named Scott Grover tripped you in the 6th grade in art class and you had to walk around with paint all over your face before someone told you," Trey said. Abigail laughed.

"I remember that!" She said.

"What, where was I?!" Mackenzie asked.

"You were out sick with the flu," Leo replied.

"Yeah, I remember, Leo, and I had all my classes with you that day and you never told me once I had a huge blue blob all over the side of my face," Alana said bitterly.

"Well, it was entertaining to say the least," Leo replied back icily. Trey laughed at his statement, which once again seemed completely innocent to everyone else but Alana.

"Trey, we'll definitely have to sit down and talk sometime and I can tell you all about the Lake Vedleu Alana, not the New York Alana," Leo said to Trey, even though he was looking straight at Alana.

"I'd love to. I don't know anything about where she grew up," Trey replied and placed his arm around Alana's waist. "She doesn't talk about it much."

"Oh she never told you about the car accident or anything?" Leo asked nonchalantly.

"The car accident?" Trey asked.

"Trey, why don't we go take a walk down the lake," Alana said quickly and grabbed Trey's arm to pull him away. As they started to walk, Alana looked back at Leo who looked after her with the same look he had on his face when he threw her off the wakeboard.

She grabbed onto Trey's arm and began to lead to him away from Leo, who had the full potential to tell Trey every dirty deed from Alana's rebellious past. Alana was hoping to God that he wouldn't dare to stoop that low, but Leo was always known to stoop low to prove a point.

And later that evening, it was quite obvious that that was nothing but true.

A bonfire was in full view, casting an orange glow on everyone's faces as the moon from the clear night sky shared the light. Everyone was sitting around the pit, talking and laughing about something or whatever. Julie was drinking a beer and talking animatedly with Weezer, who laughed at some joke she made about a kid who peed his pants when she tried to take his picture at the studio. Mackenzie was talking in low voices with Abigail.

"We should play Never Have I Ever!" Julie said excitedly and half the group groaned.

"We've already heard almost every naughty detail of everyone's past in this group," Weezer explained but Julie scoffed.

"Who cares! I haven't!" She quipped and put both of her hands in the air. "Never have I ever kissed a girl."

The whole group laughed. "That's not even fair for us guys!" Trey rebutted but Julie shrugged.

"The game is the game," She replied. All the boys put their fingers down and Alana and Mackenzie looked at each other, and with a shared laughter between the two, put there fingers down as well.

"WHAT?!" Abigail yelled and Weezer barked in laughter. "When? Why? WHAT?!"

"Christmas Eve party circa Junior year of high school. It was a dare and we were drunk off wine coolers," Mackenzie replied. "It hasn't been brought up until now, thank you very much, Julie." She said with a laugh, but her eyes seemed to bear themselves at Julie, almost as if she was saying her statement with a small ounce of despise.

"I had no idea," Trey said to Alana who pushed him away.

"One time, never happening again, don't get any ideas," She said with a smile on her face.

They all laughed again, all except Leo, who quickly spoke.

"All right, well, gee I guess I'll go next!" He said in mock enthusiasm. "Never have I ever.. cheated on my significant other."

Everyone stayed silent for a second and Alana's irately narrowed her eyes at Leo.

"You're daring, I like that in a man," Julie said jokingly and Leo winked back at her.

Julie put her finger down, but everyone else kept their's raised. Including Alana.

"Please, Leo, we all know you can't say that statement with truth," Alana said and began counting off with her fingers. "Cassandra Wesselman, Amy Bandy, Natalie Gornivitz... should I go on?"

"Hm, I don't know, Alana," Leo replied. "Should you?"

There was silence between the group again as they watched Leo and Alana have a complete stare-down over the flames of the fire. Alana immediately rose from where she was sitting and dusted the sand off of her jeans.

"Leo, can I talk to you alone for a second, please?" She asked. Leo stood up as well.

"Oh, my pleasure," Leo responded. Alana angrily turned her back and began walking down the beach, not even turning back to see if he was following her. She made it down far enough to where the group wouldn't be able to hear them, concealed herself behind a large tree limb and then turned around, only to take a step backward because Leo was inches away from her face.

"Are you having fun?" Alana asked. "Is this what you do? Just because he came you're going to try to ruin everything?"

Leo shrugged. "Well, I can't stay it isn't fun watching you squirm."

"Oh shut up!" Alana said. "Look at you, you big hypocrite! Aren't you supposed to be with Kelly, huh? You're the one who gave me that halting speech about how you've been back together with her this whole time. You shouldn't be the one to talk! Condemning me for what we did but there were two parties to what we did yesterday, Leo. It was a mistake."

Leo stayed silent and Alana's deep, furious breaths filled the air.

"I don't think you thought it was a mistake," Leo said in a low voice.

"Of course I did!" Alana almost yelled while throwing her hands up in the air. "Look at us, Leo! What we did last night and what's happening now is just proof that we just can't do this. We can never do anything together for more than two seconds before you try to ruin my relationships or make me cry. Why wouldn't I think it was a mistake?"

Leo took a step forward and before Alana could even comprehend the situation, pressed his lips tightly onto hers. Alana's stomach flipped and she pushed him away.

"Get off!" She yelled.

"You know what this is, Lan," Leo said. "You know. You may think you love him - "

"I do love him," Alana interrupted.

"No you don't."

"Who are you to tell me who I love and don't love?" Alana said with a bitter laugh. "The guy who has had more failed relationships than I can count and the only person he had ever come close to loving was a bitch like Kelly Paltron who likes to wear Chanel and says 'like' every two seconds. You wouldn't know a thing about love."

Suddenly, Alana heard the sounds of feet pushing through the sand coming towards them and a few moments later, Trey was standing in front of both of them.

"What's going on?" He asked. "Is everything all right?"

"No, everything is not all right, Trey," Leo responded, probably without thinking. Trey raised his eyebrows.

"Shut up, Leo. Sorry Trey, he's just being rude," Alana said quickly.

"No I'm just being honest," Leo replied.

"Okay, I don't know what's going on between you two but I'd appreciate it if you stop treating my girlfriend the way you are."

"Really?" Leo asked back, obviously still fuming.

"Guys, it's fine," Alana said and grabbed onto Trey's arm, who yanked it away from her grasp.

"No, it's not fine," Trey said back, looking straight at Leo. "Right when you guys walked away I was told by your group that you've never exactly been nice to Alana since the day you two met. In fact, I bet you've been nothing but terrible. As her boyfriend, it's my obligation to make sure she stays away from people like you."

"Excuse me?" Leo asked back.

"Guys, stop it," Alana said.

"You heard what I said," Trey spat and took a step forward.

And then it happened not in slow motion, but in a flash. Leo's hand in a fist, connecting to Trey's face, a loud popping noise when the hand connected, and Trey falling to the ground.

"LEO!" Alana screamed and kneeled down to Trey, who was holding his nose. She put her hand over her mouth and looked up only to see Leo completely out of sight.