She giggles, taking me by the hand and leading me back towards her room.

"Your parents," I murmur, casting quick glances down the hall.

One of her hands entangles itself in my long, dark hair. The other is trailing down the small of my back, occasionally pausing just below the waist of my skirt. "They won't be home for hours."

She nudges me down onto her bed, a twin sized she's had since she was in middle school. Her lips are at my ear, and I tilt my head back, my lips parting of their own accord. "God, I love you," she whispers, in a voice so soft yet fiery electricity runs down my spine.

Her hands are everywhere, touching me, making me feel as I never have before. I make a trail with my lips down, down down. The room blurs together. Her loose blonde hair, her sly grins, making the world disappear. Afterwards, we just lie there, hands intertwined, sprawled across her floral bedspread. There's no need for talk. The finality of our act fills the space far better than words could.

I don't notice the sound of the front door crashing open at first, I'm in such a daze. Then it all registers. Her father's come home. Before I can scramble about in search of my blouse and skirt, his voice calls down the hall.

"Ginny? Where the hell are you!?" His voice is loud and bellowing. I can tell he's been drinking again.

"One second dad!" she calls. "Don't come... in yet." She trails off as the door flies open. Her father stands, a hulking figure in the door frame, bottle in hand.

His eyes go wide, more with anger than surprise. "Ginny, get out of the house."

Her hand touches my shoulder. "No, daddy, you don't understand."

"I understand well enough," his words slur together, and the bottle shatters against the wall as he swings his fist at nothing in particular. "You commit this abomination in my house and have the nerve to tell me I don't understand? Get out. Get out before I throw you out."

She stands, her fist clenched and shaking at her side, and for a moment I think she'll defend me, but she bows her head. "Yes, daddy."

I watch her leave, knowing all hope of reasoning with this man is gone. I glance toward the window, waiting for an opening to make an escape. Her father walks up to me and places an arm around my shoulder. I jerk back at the sudden contact.

"We're going to take a little drive, you and me."

"That's very kind of you, sir, really, but I ought to be heading home. My mother's just coming home from work and..."

The arm tightens, so it's almost squeezed around my neck. "I wasn't asking a question."

I gasp for breath as he drags me out towards his old rusted pick up. Ginny is no where to be seen as we pass through the living room and outside. She knows how to make herself scarce.

I don't notice the drive, only that it took hours and that the scenery blurred. I'm tempted to leap out of the moving vehicle, but up until we reach the lake, I don't think he'll actually do it. He pulls out a handgun and points it at me.

"Get out of the truck." His voice is low and growling.

My eyes go wide. "Let's think this through here. We didn't mean anything by it."

"She didn't. I know my little girl didn't. Now get out of the damn car!"

I open the door slowly and step out onto the bank. I realize for once, there's no one at the lake. I've never been here in the dark. He's trembling now, from the rage or from the alcohol, I don't know.

"You did this. You made her like this!" his shouts echo through the empty forest.

"She's always been like this. You just didn't notice."

"Shut up! Shut up!" He waves his gun around wildly, but I have to say my piece. For her.

"Pull yourself together and leave her alone! Let her make her own choices!"

He walks toward me and presses the cold metal against my forehead. "I told you to shut your damn trap."

"Maybe she fell in love with me because no one else in her life would love her," I whisper, my voice shaking in fear.

The sound is what gets me, not the pain, not the bullet tearing through my brain, not the dirt shoveled over me six feet under, not the years of enclosure in a thin wooden coffin.

She smiled impishly at me, then took the strawberry lollipop out of her mouth. The last of the warm August sun glinted on the tendril of saliva bowing between the pink head of the sweet and her slightly open mouth. It parted deliciously. A tiny swarm of shadows flitted across her tanned skin as insects intersected the space between her and the sky.

Time became honey, sweet and slow, as I sensed my friendship with Jayne was about to change. Nerves crackled and flutters teased my guts. The thoughtful mist over my eyes sharpened immediately upon her delighted laugh, half snorted through her freckled nose. 

She was looking at me in a new way. Into me. I watched her bright eyes taking me into her mind fully for the first time then down at the daisies threaded together that I’d just pushed softly into her sticky palm, and back up through the safety of her long lashes. 

Jayne sighed so deeply it heaved her recently budded chest. My stare followed her moistened tongue as it shined her plump lips. A bee bumbled by and the river babbled to my right and her left. No one else in the world existed.

Her head lifted from the slight yellow and white reflecting off the held daisies, and with her eyes, she absorbed this shy boy that sat in front of her, with a leg either side of hers; hers which were crossed with grass stained knees peeking over sock tops.

Have you ever kissed anyone, Paul? she breathed, pretending to be the confident girl she read about in stories in her teen magazines.

My pulse took my voice, until I coughed it back into action. No. Not really. I lied. Then, realising time had paused and was waiting for me to seize the moment, I added, but I’d like to. I immediately regretted the slight question mark I’d added to the end of the sentence meant to be as cool as The Fonz.

Her delighted giggle tinkled through heated air to tickle my heart, the one she now held in her pretty hands. I could see blushes creep up her neck to join their friends on her sunkissed cheeks. 

Then let’s help you out she barely whispered and sprang forward, trapping my sharp intake of surprised breath with a soft mouth that tasted of sugar and long summers. The ice of uncertainty that held me melted and instinct tilted my head so that noses no longer clashed, tongues touched then wrestled as confidence and nature took hold. I smelled the sun on her skin, her hair’s clean shampoo scent and the slight hint of sweat from a day playing together by the river.

Moving from her kneeling position, Jayne climbed onto my lap and straddled me and my young stiffness that was more sensitive than I’d ever remembered being before now. I glanced down as she started moving against me, her summer dress hitched up her thighs, showing her white knickers, a mound of secrecy I’d yet to see outside of magazines peaked in private. I saw a vertical line of darker material and a cleft, a wetter place, and my air was held prisoner in my chest.

She broke away from our kiss and huffed in my ear, her hips moving faster, her head down. My instinct was to lift my hips higher to increase the rubbing sensation through my shorts. Hair swayed in my face as she muttered oh god, oh god, almost hurting me with the urgency of her grinding, pushing material and rough seams against my aching erection.

I felt a wave build and rise through me, different to when it was just me touching myself, entirely new, making the hairs stand up all over and the world disappear around me; tunnel vision making this beautiful girl, my past friend, all that I saw. Then her bright blue eyes locked with mine, her upper lip twitched slightly on one side and then she began to judder, pushing her hot pudendum roughly against me. I tipped over the edge, and a long moan I couldn’t hold in escaped as I pumped hot wetness into my shorts. Her shaking increased then was replaced with trembles and hot, wet kisses full of spit and gleaming smiles.

She pulled her face away and held mine in her hand, squeezing my cheeks and staring into my dilated pupils, laughing as my body spasms quieted. Then she playfully slapped me. Oh, you naughty boy, Paul, uttered through a dazzling toothy grin. We held onto each other and what we had been, our sexual scents lazily rising between our interlocked bodies, and we knew everything had changed as dusk began to fall.

Counting  rain drops on the window...

As I fix my headphones on.

Dazzling red light makes the bus stop,

My thoughts going deeper...

Getting curious over everything...

Observing. Thinking. Wondering.

Staring alone at the rain drops...

As I listen to another 80’s song.

Traffic light signals the car to get ready.

My lips starts hummin’.

Recollecting memories slowly fading...

Questioning. Realizing. Waiting.

Smiling, best feeling when it’s raining.

As Guns N’ Roses sang November Rain.

The wheels starts moving, when lights said go.

My heart beats sadly.

Missing something like home.

Remembering. Sighing. Wishing.