Page 1 of Thick & Thin

1

Jenny Michaels

It was scorching outside.The kind of heat where dumbasses would try to do stupid shit like bake cookies on the dash of their truck or cook an egg on their hood. The summer before, a guy in town put steaks out on the tailgate of his truck and let them cook all day. He had the balls to eat them, too. Used steak sauce and everything as if he had grilled them himself on a charcoal grill.

Again … stupid.

The month of May in South Carolina wasn’t usually hot and suffocating. It was the exit of spring on the verge of welcoming summer, which meant cool nights and warm days, but that changed when the rainstorms rolled through. The moisture in the air made it feel hotter and sent the humidity skyrocketing. It had been raining every other day for the past month, so the humidity was extreme.

The good news was, lots of rain also meant tons of mud, which Josh, my best friend, and I loved. His truck, which had recently been painted black, was covered in it. The dried mud was crusted around the wheel wells, chipping off and into the wind as we drove the backcountry roads.

The day before, we spent hours getting bogged down and pulled out. We had on boots and jeans, and my ponytail stuck out the back of a trucker hat I had stolen from behind Josh’s truck seat. There was laughter and mud fights—tires rolling through the brown sludge surrounding us until we caught a dry spot that was thick enough and climbed our way out.

Afterward, when I got home from playing in the mud, you couldn’t even see what I was wearing. My jeans were caked in mud, my shirt covered, and my bra full. It had taken me nearly thirty minutes to get the mud out of my hair later in the shower.

Good times.

We pulled up next to a group of familiar cars, and Josh put his truck in park. Vaughn, a friend from school, popped his head into the driver’s side window and pushed playfully at the side of Josh’s head.

“What’s up, fuckface? ’Bout time y’all got here. What took so long?” he asked.

Vaughn was a beast on and off the football field. His height alone was scary, but he was also wider than your average high schooler. He lived in the gym, but I had once heard his size had more to do with steroids than with the weights.

“You asked for beer. We brought beer. Help me get the shit out the back.”

Josh popped the door open, the hinges screaming out with age, and climbed down. Vaughn stuck half of his massive body inside the truck with me.

“You got the good shit?” he asked.

“We aren’t in the middle of a drug deal, Vaughn. It’s just beer.”

Reaching between my legs, I grabbed the twelve-pack of beer and held it up.

“Good girl. That’s a good girl.” He spoke to me as though he was talking to a dog.

I set the beer down on the floorboard and pretended something had my hand.

“Something’s got me!” I called out, acting as though my hand was being pulled beneath the truck seat.

Vaughn’s eyes went wide. “Oh, shit. What is it?” he asked, ready to climb into the truck and help me.

I pulled my hand up with my middle finger in the air. “It’s this.”

He sighed and leaned back, shaking his head. “Smartass.”

And then he was gone, leaving me alone in the front seat while he helped Josh at the tailgate. My eyes traveled over the road we had just pulled off. Foggy waves of steam rose from the asphalt like a mirage in a movie. A short shower had passed when we were on the way to the river, leaving the streets sizzling and the humidity unbearable.

My skin felt wet, and my ponytail had become a frizzy mess. Quickly, I slid the tie from my hair and smoothed it down before pulling it back up. I tugged at my T-shirt, hoping to let some cool air under it, but no matter what, I couldn’t cool off. I had on a bathing suit, but I had never been comfortable showing my body. So, T-shirts and shorts it was.

I climbed from the passenger side of Josh’s lifted Ford and slid on my flip-flops. I rarely wore shoes in Josh’s truck, instead opting to rest my bare feet on the dash while we rode through town with the windows down. He didn’t mind. At least, he never said he did. I think he secretly liked how comfortable I was in his truck. I was the only person in the world he would let drive it on occasion. I had dibs on Josh, and his passenger seat was my spot. Everyone knew it.

The space where everyone was parked wasn’t technically a parking lot, but the top of the hill over St. John’s River was right off the road. People had parked there for years, and after years of teenagers doing the very same thing we were here to do today, an easy walking path to the water had been cleared.

Senior skip day.

It was a rite of passage. At least that’s what Josh said to talk me into going along. To me, it was just like any other day I decided to skip and hang out on the river, but I guessed since the entire senior class was coming along, it was a party.

Usually I was there with a fishing pole and some worms, but this was an entirely different event. Everyone brought floats, some people linking their floats together with rope, and coolers full of cold drinks sat on floats and were tied together for everyone. We would float the river with our feet dangling in the water and the sun on our legs.

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