Page 42 of Chasing Fireflies

“What?” I ask.

“Just don’t think it’s a good idea, is all.”

“Oh, leave her alone, Maci. Let the girl have some fun.” Leigh puts her drink down and reaches on the other side of the pool for her float with the bug net. Maci removes her shoes and slides her socks off. I see a bruise on her leg, but I look away. She could have just run into a piece of furniture. I do it all the time. My hip has a bruise on it now because my brain can’t remember where the bedpost is.

Leigh screams when she tips over on her float, and Maci and I laugh when she comes back up. Wet brown hair covers her face, and she huffs. “Man, I didn’t wanna get my damn hair wet. Now I gotta wash it again for date night with Mark.”

“Date night?” I ask, waiting for details.

“Yep. Mark is taking me to see a movie.”

“Sweet,” I say. Leigh regains her balance on the float and takes hold of the edge of the pool so she can grab her drink.

“Well, it’s the least he can do,” she says.

“Why do you say that?” Maci asks.

“’Cause I, you know what, in his truck today.”

“What?” Maci says.

“You know,” Leigh repeats with a quirky lift of her brow.

“I seriously don’t.” Maci looks over at me, and I grin.

“I think she means a blow job.”

Maci scrunches her face. “Gross, Leigh.”

“What? Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to keep the ol’ husband happy.”

“Yeah, but your husband is friendly Mark.”

“He’s friendly all right.” Leigh winks, and I laugh again.

“But for real. You can’t tell me you’ve never given Lucas a blow job.”

“Not in a car.”

“What about you, Sara? Cash get any fun action out of you in a car before?”

I bite my lip and look down at the water. After prom night, Cash and I could hardly keep our hands off of each other. I remember the smell of his mom’s air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. Cash took us down to Lake Side, and we parked the car and got in the back seat. His hands were all over me and anywhere else they could fit. Our lips were like magnets, drawn to each other and hard to break apart. He kissed every inch of my body that night, and I remember thinking this is what love is. This feeling in my chest when I hear his name. These crazy emotions of not knowing if I want to laugh or cry because he makes me so damn happy. The desperate need to feel him and have him near me as much as possible.

“I’ll take that blush as a yes,” Leigh says, and I notice her and Maci looking at me.

“You’re lucky to find someone you love so deeply and they return that love just as much,” Maci says. I give her a small smile before I take a sip of my drink.

I didn’t fall in love with Cash. It was something that happened slowly, like a vine growing up a fencepost. We were so young when we met that I hardly remember a time when I didn’t know him…

The school bell rang, and the sound of kids jumping up from their desks echoed through the classrooms, while laughter and loud mouths filled the wide hallways. I still remember the smell of cigarette smoke coming from the girls’ bathroom. The sounds of my science teacher’s heels against the hard tile floor. Coach Dudley’s short shorts as he walked through the maze of excited-to-be-out-of-school kids with a big smile on his face because he was on summer vacation, too.

I walked up to my group of friends just like any other day, but it wasn’t any other day. Cash leaned against the wall, one knee bent and his foot flat on the brick his back rested on, while the other was planted firmly on the ground. He was slightly smirking at something one of his friends was saying. His hand was slid into his jeans pocket, while his books were carelessly stacked on the ground beside his leg. I walked up, his eyes looked to me, and that’s the moment I fell for him. I don’t know why. It was something about the way he looked at me, like he saw me for me. Not the quirky, popular girl who was weird sometimes. He saw the girl who was confused with her emotions, the girl who cried behind closed doors and one day felt no need to get out of bed. He saw me––the actress without her lines. After that, I was nervous around him and got butterflies, but I didn’t tell anyone because this was Cash—sweet guy, cuter than all the rest, and my friend.

But soon, he started asking me if I wanted to grab a bite to eat, just the two of us, without our friends. He asked me if I wanted him to carry my books or if I wanted to keep some things in his locker so I wouldn’t have to walk all the way to mine because all my classes were closer to his. Sometimes he put his arm around me or brushed his hand against mine. Little shows of affection here and there. Then one day, after a night of hanging out at Lake Side and a stomach full of beer, he grabbed my hand and told me he wanted to show me something. We walked away from our friends, and he took me around the backside of an abandoned building. I was laughing at something, and then all of a sudden he pressed me up against the wall. My lungs stopped taking in air, and I felt swarms of butterflies in my belly. He told me he wanted to kiss me, and I let him. I let him kiss me in the moonlight up against an old building with our friends’ laughter in the background, and it was the best kiss I’d ever had.

*

The sound of the ball hitting the metal bat echoes in the air, and I stand up, clapping my hands excitedly as Cash runs. Leigh sits beside me––gum chewing, baseball hat on her head with her brown hair pulled through the back. I’ve gone and had my hair fixed, and now I’ve got a Meg Ryan look going on. It’s short, and I love it. I look back at the cars parked and see Maci walking up with her new habit between her fingers. Smoke blows from her mouth as I give her a wave, letting her know where we are. She flicks the cigarette and turns her head away so not to blow smoke in anyone’s face. She sits down beside me, and I look over at her. “You know smoking is really bad for you.”

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