My Wish for You (24 page)

“You know, for
being so small, you’re really abusive.”

“And for being
so big, you really get under my skin.”

“Ouch, that
hurts me Sam. To the core. I’m wounded.”

“Good. That’s
what you get for calling me abusive.” I chuckled at him.

Setting me down
on my suitcase, Sean laughed at me. I handed him the book and he stuffed it
into my suitcase before zipping it shut.

“One down, one
to go.”

We made our way
downstairs and outside where the quads were stored. I hadn’t realized how dirty
they had gotten until now. Mud was caked over every inch of them. Cleaning them
would be oh, so much fun. While Sean was around back getting the hose attached
to the spigots, I got the buckets filled up with soap and sponges. I was
sitting in the sun, working on my tan, when someone walked up, surprising me.

“Sam. I’ve been
looking everywhere for you.”

Startled, I
jumped about a foot and opened my eyes.

“Cassie, you
scared me.” I put my hand on my chest, trying to slow down my heart rate.

“Sorry. I’ve
just been trying to get you alone all day. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh?” I said,
worried about the conversation that was about to begin.

“Sam, I want to
apologize. The way I have been acting has been completely unjustified and
downright cruel. Honestly, I just thought that you were a summer romance that
Sean was going to be over by the end of the summer. If I had known otherwise, I
wouldn’t have—”

“Interfered?” I
finished her sentence.

“Yeah, exactly,”
she admitted, ashamed.

“It’s fine,
Cassie.”

“It really isn’t,
Sam,” she disagreed. Whatever she was going to say next was cut off by honking.
We both turned our heads towards the road, where Tasha was sitting in her car
glaring at us. I looked back to Cassie with my eyebrows raised.

“Listen, we’ve
been friends since elementary school. I can’t just stop being friends with her.
I don’t want us to hate each other though, especially if you’re sticking
around.”

“I intend to,” I
informed her, then added. “And I don’t hate you Cassie.”

“Thanks, I can’t
imagine why you wouldn’t though.”

There was
another honk and Cassie looked back.

“I should get
going. Thanks for your time Sam. I really am sorry.”

“Thank you
Cassie. I appreciate it.”

Cassie ran
inside to get something.

I heard Sean
fill up one of the buckets. I could hear him walking up behind me and I turned
around, just in time to see him lifting a bucket of water over my head.

“Sean. Don’t!”

It was too late
though; the water was already flowing over me, soaking me.

“Oh, you’re
going to regret that.”

He tried
grabbing me, but I ducked under his arms and darted straight for the hose. I
grabbed it and pointed it at him like a gun.

“Sam. No. Come
on. We can talk about this. We don’t have to resort to such violence.”

I sprayed him as
hard as the hose would go, soaking him just as much as he had soaked me.

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” I
grinned.

He came towards
me like he was going to attack me and I sprayed him again. Instead, he just
picked me up, making me drop the hose, and spun me around. I was laughing when
he sat me down and looked me in the eyes.

“I love you.”

“I love you too,”
I replied, beaming. He leaned down and kissed me, picking me back up in his
arms so I was his height. Relaxing, I wrapped my arms around his neck. We were
in our own perfect world until a car honked, startling us both.

“What’s Tasha
doing here?” Sean asked, getting defensive. She made no effort to hide the fact
that she was glaring at the two of us.

“She was picking
your sister up,” I told him. Almost as if on cue, Cassie came stumbling out of
the house. She ran over to Tasha’s car and got in. Tasha gave us one last
glower before starting her car and screeching off.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I had an
interesting conversation with her.”

“With Tasha?” he
asked disbelievingly.

“With your
sister,” I corrected.

“Oh. And how did
that go?”

“Good.” I
paused. “I think.”

“Well, that’s
good.”

We stopped
talking about it then and started washing the quads. It took us a while, but by
the time we were finished, the quads looked like new. We stepped back to admire
our work and Sean wrapped his arm around me.

“We make a
pretty good team, if I may say so myself,” he declared, bumping my hip.

“I would have to
agree with that,” I said, leaning into him.

“Okay, let’s get
these things locked up before anyone gets them dirty again.”

Carefully, we
got them into the shed without getting any mud on them. Sean was about to turn
the light off when I stopped him.

“Sean. Wait.
Look at this.” I walked over to one of the walls. I touched it and looked back
at Sean. Trying to see what it was, he walked over to where I stood.

“Is that…?”

“Yeah.”

“From when they
dared us to?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. I can’t
believe that’s still there.”

“What did you
expect it to do? Fill itself back in? It’s carved in there pretty deep.”

The carving
seemed like it was from so long ago. It was a cheesy heart with “S.A. + S.W.”
carved inside it, from the last summer I had come to the camp.

***

After I had
gotten lost in the woods, Sean and I spent a lot of time together. One night,
we were all outside around the campfire playing truth or dare and things got a
little out of hand.

“Sam. Truth or
dare,” Brian asked me. I was always afraid of playing Truth or Dare with him.
He knew so much about me, but he always came up with the most ridiculous dares.

“Truth,” I replied
hesitantly. I rarely ever picked dare.

“Do you like
Sean? And I mean ‘like-like.’”

My jaw dropped.
I couldn’t believe he had asked me a question he knew was way off bounds,
especially in front of Sean. I closed my mouth and looked up at Sean, who looked
eager for my response. I responded the only way a seventh, almost eighth grade,
girl knew how. I lied.

“Uhh. No.” I
tried to sound convincing, but it still came out sounding like a question. Out
of the corner of my eye, I glanced back at Sean. He didn’t really look phased
by my response, but maybe I was wrong; he could have just been hiding it well.

“Yeah okay,”
Brian replied, not buying my answer. “It’s your turn.”

“Sarah. Truth or
dare.”

“Truth.”

“Why did you
hate me so much?”

“I didn’t really
hate you,” she admitted. “I was the only girl, and when you guys moved in, it
felt like you were trying to replace me.”

“Oh. Alright.”

“Sean. Truth or
dare.”

“Truth.”

“Do you like
Sam?”

What was this?
Were they
trying
to get us together or something? I looked down at my
feet, trying to hide the blush in my cheeks.

“Yeah,” he
replied, and I looked up at him.

“Like ‘like-like’
her?”

“Yeah.”

We locked eyes
for a moment before Brian interrupted.

“Come on, get on
with the game.”

“Brian. Truth or
dare.”

“Dare. You guys
are such sissies.”

Sean thought for
a minute.

“I dare you to
streak around the entire camp area and cabin in nothing but your boxers.”

I rolled my eyes
at the dare. They were such boys. I put my head in my hands until Brian’s dare
was completed and he was fully clothed again. Fixing his shirt, he sat back
down and looked at Sean.

“Truth or dare.”

“Dare,” Sean
picked nobly.

“Alright. I dare
you to kiss Sam.”

“What?” I said,
at the same time he said, “Alright.”

Everyone looked
at me.

“I’m not kissing
him in front of you guys.”

“But you’re not
saying no to kissing him?” my brother clarified.

“No. I’m not.”

“Fine.” He
turned back to Sean. “I dare you to take Sam up to the shed for at least five
minutes. And there better be a kiss going on.”

“Alright.”

He got up and
looked at me. Grudgingly, I stood up and followed him, turning around to give
my brother a death glare, which he returned with a grin. Quietly, we walked up
to the shed.

Once inside,
Sean pulled on the little overhead light, illuminating the shed.

“So,” he said,
leaning against the wall.

“So?”

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth?” I said,
wondering where he was going with this.

“Did you mean
what you said about liking me?”

“No,” I
admitted. I looked up at him; he was looking at me funny. I was about to ask
him what was wrong when he took a step towards me, closing the gap between us.

I had never
kissed a boy before, so, the entire experience was new to me. He looked into my
eyes as he leaned down, and I gazed back into his. When there was barely any
room left between our lips, he paused, almost as if he was unsure. I closed my
eyes, taking in the moment: the way the shed smelled, the feel of Sean’s breath
against mine, how close he was to me. Not a fraction of a second later, his
lips were against mine. It was slightly clumsy, slightly uncoordinated, the way
only a first kiss ever could be.

When he pulled
back, I was breathless. He smiled at me and I smiled back. I didn’t know what
to say. How was someone supposed to react in a situation like that? Did they
say “thank you”? Or did they just not say anything and go about their business?

Turned out, I
didn’t have to react. Startling me, Sean pulled a pocketknife out of his jeans.
He walked past me, pulling me by the hand over to a wall. Then, he opened the
knife and started carving. It wasn’t until he took a step back that I could see
what he’d carved…a heart. It wasn’t perfect; the edges were jagged, the curves
of the heart uneven, but inside were our initials engraved into the wood. My
heart thudded and I looked up at him, smiling.

“I know. It’s
kind of cheesy.”

“It’s perfect,”
I disagreed, leaning up to kiss him one more time.

***

“You know, you
were the first girl I ever kissed,” Sean said, remembering the occasion.

“You were the
first boy I ever kissed.”

“Thank you
Brian,” he said jokingly and we laughed.

Sean reached
into his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife. Underneath our initials, he
started carving something. I watched, but his hand was in my way. When he
stepped back to show me his work, I chuckled.

S.A. + S.W.

FOREVER

“You know, that’s
even cheesier than the initials.”

“Yeah, I know.
But it’s kind of perfect.”

Leaning us into
the wall, Sean bent his head down and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his
neck and kissed him back lovingly. In the dim light, the passion intensified.
Heat and humidity filled the small little shed, creating an electric
atmosphere. Sean picked me up, pressing me into the wall, and I put my hands on
his face. When the doors to the shed opened and threw light all around us, ruining
the moment, he almost dropped me.

“Oops. Was I
interrupting?”

Chapter Thirty-One

“Do you really
have to take her away from me?” Sean asked for the billionth time.

“Yes. I do. We
are going to go get ready and you can’t be around for that,” Cara told him.

“Sure I could.”

“I said no!” she
said, pulling me from Sean’s arms and dragging me towards her car.

“You know, I don’t
see the point behind this either.”

“Oh, don’t you
start on me,” she shushed me.

“I’ll see you
later?” Sean asked me, pouting.

“Promise,” I
smiled, blowing him a kiss from inside the Jeep.

“You guys are
sickening,” Cara balked from the driver’s side.

“You’re just
jealous.”

“Oh yes. That’s
exactly it. All of these years I have been hopelessly pining after Sean. Oh the
jealousy!” she mocked.

I laughed at her
as she turned up the song on the radio. Singing along with it at the tops of
our lungs, we sped towards her place.

***

By the time we
got to the party, it was already in full swing. Music was blaring all the way
outside. People were everywhere, leaving little red plastic cups scattered all
over.

I had thought
that what Cara had picked out for me was too skimpy until I saw the girls who
were already there dressed in short shorts, miniskirts, and skimpy, flashy
tops. It made me feel less exposed in my too short, strapless, crème colored
dress, paired up with a pair of wedges that made me Cara’s height when she wasn’t
wearing her ever-present heels.

When we got
inside, it seemed like everything was going on. There were people playing pool,
beer pong, quarters. Straight ahead of us a bunch of people were dancing in the
living room, and I could see Jonathon. I knew that Sean would be somewhere
nearby.

“I’m gonna go
find Sean,” I told Cara, pulling away from her. She rolled her eyes at me,
laughing. “You gonna go find Chad?”

“Oh, no. I broke
up with him today,” she informed me nonchalantly, already scoping the room for
a new guy to hang on.

“What?! Why?”

“He kept asking
me about the rest of the summer and the fall. I mean, we both knew this trip
was going to end, right?”

I laughed. It
was so Cara. Despite her saying he was so wonderful and everything, he was just
a summer fling. And of course, with college looming, that meant there would be
college boys in the future, and Cara could never resist a college boy.

We headed in
opposite directions, and I found Sean standing with my brother watching a game
of beer pong.