Frostbite

"Oh." Clary abruptly stopped in front of me, making me ram the cart I was leaning over into her back. We were shopping for the few things we still needed for the camping trip -junk food mostly- then heading straight to the site, only about a hour and a half away. I don't know what kind of calendar shooting was going on today, but the place was swarming with cute guys and one in particular was smiling at Clary, almost reluctantly, as he inspect the prices of two different packs of marshmallows.

"Hi." She smiled, standing up straight and trying to seem older in her too-big jeans, white and green tennis shoes, and Soul Eater T-shirt. Her eyes batted so fast I couldn't tell if it was my imagination or she was having a eye seizure."The generic marshmallows are cheaper but burn real easy. I'd suggest the other kind."

Without skipping a beat, he blinked at her and responded with. "I'm gay."

"Well then." Nudging Clary aside with the cart, she huffed and stood beside my, ready to move when I was. "Hi, I'm Benjamin."

The shocked look on his face made me want to laugh and pick up the glass jar of jam and knock him the fuck out at the same time.

"Oh, I'm not -I-I'm-" He stuttered, looking between me and Clary. "Um-"

"Save it." I smiled as I started to push past him, patting him what I knew was too hard on the head. "Just a simple moment of discomfort would have sufficed, jackass. You could have at least amused me for a moment and talked to her. Whatever. Eat shit, cutie."

Clary snickered for a moment as we walked down the isle, throwing random boxes of candy into the cart, but soon stopped in her tracks to glare at me. I kept moving, only stopped when I realized she was just going to stand there in the middle of the isle, blocking trafic until someone acknowledged her.

"What?"

"What do you mean amuse you!?"

"Aw, you know what I mean." I waved her off and turned the cart, headed to the cereal isle to find mom and Izzy. "You're only fourteen."

"Benjamin Thestry!" She stormed after me. "Do not walk away from me you butt munch!"

"Butt munch." I mumbled. "I wish."



"Did you hear the one about me being a prick?" I growled with the music that was coming through the speakers of the cramped car. No, it was only cramped to me. Everyone else got the luxury of being five foot six and not having their knees shoved into their fucking chests for hours on end. Is making a car with room in the back seat impossible? Do we need to hire more Asians? And there's no fucking way I would let any of these estrogen ridded midgets even think about buying a mini-van, hell no. "Did you know I don't care? You can suck my-"

"Benjamin Denis Thestry!" My mom shouted at me, assuming before she heard the next word. Doesn't she know that assumptions are for jackasses?

"He doesn't actually say it, mom."

"I think it's time we listen to something else. Clary, give me your Ipod."

"Wohohoh! Heck no! She's gonna have us listen to some Japanese cult music or some crap!"

"You had us listen to your scremo crap!" Clary shot at me as she passed her Ipod up.

"It's not screamo, it's metal! Learn your genres before you open you mouth, nimrod!"

"Benjamin and Clarissa! It does not matter what kind of music it is, we will listen to it and not complain! Now I want you two to hug and make up."

Isabelle help her camera up to us, expectantly. Having been taken pictures since we left the house, even at the store, we were sure to have a few more photos to add to the collection and override the computer again. But, seeing we had no intention of touching each other, she lowered it and was halfway turned right in her seat before mom spoke up.

"If you don't hug you're both sleeping without sleeping bags or blankets!"

Normally, we'd accept this and spend the night just a little less comfortable on the ground. But, since it was colder outside, we decided not to risk frostbite and reluctantly leaned over the boxes and bags of opened candy to awkwardly wrap our arms around each other, Izzy's camera clicking rapidly.

When I looked at her she smiled at me so sweetly I almost couldn't be annoyed. "I always want to get a lot of those, they don't happen too often." She said.

"You want to get a lot of everything."

"And she does." Mom said as she reached over and slid a hand up Izzy's thigh.

Me and Clary both made disturbing, disgusted sounds as we looked away from our mothers, trying to get the burning images out of our minds.



"Poop this crap!" Clary shouted as she threw the rod to the ground. "I want to go home!"

"We've only been here for a hour." I counteracted as I picked up the discarded rod. "Come on, I'll help you with the tent."

"What about your tent? You finished setting it up already! What is this!? How come he got all the camping genes!?" She asked Izzy who only shrugged and went back to taking pictures of Clary's fallen pile of tarp and rods.

She shrugged. "He didn't come out of my uterus, ask Molly. No, that sounds gross. I didn't birth him. Is birth a word? He's not my baby? But you are, just no literally. Biologically,-"

"He gets it from me." Mom came back from the car with a few bags and the pans I miraculously remembered. "I'm the camp master and he is my protege."

"Your protege took a waz in the spot your standing in." Clary informed her.

Slowly taking a step to the side, mom looked at me questioningly.

"I had to pee." I shrugged. "There wasn't time to find a tree."

"What are we surrounded by, Benji!?" Clary shouted. "Lamp posts!?"

"Whatever." Waving Clary off I picked up the rest of the rods and pitched the larger tent while mom and Izzy started on the fire, Clary unloading the rest of the car into the tents when I was done. Mom, Izzy, and Clary always shared the larger tent, leaving me with the smaller of the two. Not necessarily because I was a boy, but mostly because they complained about how much space I took up. Many times have I woken up from a late night game of cards with Clary and have my legs sprawled over hers, pinning her down.

"Forget it!" Clary yelled. Having accidentally kicked out the fire, she was made to start a new one. "I'm eating raw bacon!"

Looking over, I saw Izzy and mom too busy with something over by the tent to even turn to Clary's frustrated cries. I took the lighter from my pocket and walked over to Clary, looking back every few seconds. Our moms wanted us to learn something at least semi-useful while camping so they made us start fires by hand, no lighter or anything like that. I can now make one relativity easy, but Clary still has some major trouble with even getting a spark.

"Here." Quickly handing her the lighter, she flicked it a few times then lit some of the leaves and kindle on fire, eventually getting them to flare into something semi-sturdy.

"Thanks Benji." She gave me a relieved smile as she handed it back. "That would have taken forever."

"I think your pronouncing never wrong."

Hitting me in the stomach, she went off to find the food that she'd obviously forgotten.

"Clary made this!?" Izzy, suddenly beside with camera in hand, exclaimed when she saw the decent sized fire in front of us. "She's getting the hang of it!"

Smiling, I nodded and held my hand up to avoid her lens. "Yeah. It only took fourteen years."

"Oh, don't be so.....so...um...such a...downer? No, so...unbelieve...ing? Don't be..-"

"Babe, I think Clary needs some help." Mom informed Izzy as she joined us and admired the fire. As soon as Izzy hurried off to help her daughter, mom held her hand out to me. "Give me the lighter."

Giving it over, I shrugged at her look. "She looked like she was about to have a aneurysm."

"Next time, just teach her how to make one."

"Okay." I laughed. Like Clary would ever be able to make a fire. "Whatever you say."



Looking up, the sky seemed overrun with white and yellow dots. Like looking at the back of someone's head when they have dandruff. Only the sky supposedly painted out pictures that were so fucking impossible to find! Honestly, what where they even thinking when the said there was a goddamn bear in the sky? There is no fucking bear, it's all just imaginary stick figures. Old people are retarded.

"I just want to pee on everything." I announced.

"So do I." Clary said. "But I'm too lazy to stand up."

Looking over, I gave off a small smile at her as she squinted her eyes, trying to make out the same fucking bear. "Are you sure we're not related?"

She nodded. "Yeah, if we were my mom wouldn't complain about how painful my birth was. You would have stretched that thing so far out, Nemesis Q could have fit through."

"You're a bitch, you know that."

"Yeah." She yawned. "I live with you, what did you expect?"

"Nothing short of a smart-ass." After pushing myself up, I held out my hand to help Clary off the grass. "We should go to bed, mom's planed a death hike tomorrow."

"Those are no fun!" She groaned and complained, even though tomorrow she's be running ahead of us with a huge smile on her face. "Why can't we just go on a short one, I love those! Well, at least we don't have to carry anything this time."

"We? I carry your stuff for you."

Smiling up at me, she shrugged. "It throws me off balance."

"Mhum." Wrapping my arms around her shoulders, we said good night before heading to our separate tents.