As the week progressed, I couldn’t seem to pull myself from the funk I was in.
The girls had been wonderful. I decided to give
them the full story when I came back from my run. Rather than Chelsea
pulling the whole “I told you so” routine, she just listened to what
happened. When I was done telling them everything,
she stood and hugged me.
“You are better than that bullshit, Alya. Someday
soon the right guy will come along and you will realize that you weren’t
thrown away – you escaped.” She hugged me again, grabbed her keys and
left.
Tara and I looked at each other and shrugged. Maybe
Chels was still mad over our incident and wanted to make sure she
didn’t throw it in my face, and needed time alone. However, she was back
in about half an hour, armed with a pizza, brownies,
ice cream and wine. Have I ever mentioned how awesome my friends are?
I had pretty much talked myself out of going on the
camping trip, and started giving vague answers to anything pertaining
to the trip. When Tara realized I was thinking of staying home, she drew
herself up to her full height, and went off
in typical Tara fashion.
“Alya, you are coming on this trip. We are all your
friends and Brandon will be nowhere near us. Come have fun with
everyone. Don’t give him the satisfaction of being miserable. Even if he
doesn’t know if you are home or out doesn’t matter.
He’s not thinking about you, so you need to stop thinking about him.”
Ouch! But she did have a point. Finally I gave in
and said I would go, but I wasn’t promising to have a good time.
Everyone at work had basically ignored what had happened – I suspect
Chelsea asked Gary and Stephen to spread the word. Aside
from a few side hugs and fist bumps, it was like it never happened.
Still, I avoided being alone with anyone for any long period of time,
and I used the excuse of trying to get everything organized for the trip
as a reason to leave as soon as the night ended
on nights I closed.
I did notice Liam looking at me a few times like he
wanted to make sure I was ok, but I made sure I was super upbeat around
him, and always busy.
By the time Friday morning came I was starting to
feel normal and like I could actually enjoy myself this trip. I was so
excited everyone was still coming. I hate when people cancel at the last
minute.
Everyone agreed to meet at our place
around 8:30am. We wanted to get packed and on the road so we could get
there early afternoon and have plenty of time to set everything up
before it got dark.
We were lucky that Ryan, Liam and Gary all drove
SUV type vehicles so we were able to pack the tents and everything else
we needed.
James jumped in with Ryan as they are best friends
and do everything together. I swear they are more like girls sometimes.
Tara decided to jump in to catch up with her cousin and Shelli joined
her so she wasn’t the only girl.
Before we could even decide how to split the rest
of us up, Melissa yelled claim to driving with Liam, and made Kelsey get
in as well. Stephen quickly followed as he has a bit of a crush on
Kelsey.
That left Gary, Chelsea and I in the last one.
We had decided to stay in the tents with the same
people we drove with so that it was much easier to unload and find our
own stuff at the site. This meant we ended up taking most of the food
with us since we had a bit more room. I didn’t
mind at all. This meant I could jump in the back seat and not need to
make small talk the entire way.
By the time we arrived at our spot I was actually
feeling pretty good and happy that I decided to come. We quickly went to
work setting everything up – putting up the tents, getting some
firewood, securing the food and our belongings. This
was a kind of unique site. We were pretty isolated from anyone else,
but we had power and it was a short drive to a convenience
store/building that had some food, ice, general necessities, showers and
laundry facilities. We pretty much had everything we needed
but would make sure our ice was topped up to keep the food from going
bad. Food poisoning in the middle of the woods would be horrific.
Once everything was set up, we were all sweating
like crazy. It was so hot out and we couldn’t wait to take full
advantage of the lake. For the most part we had all hung out before and
were comfortable so no one was too self-conscious.
However, it still was a mixed group so of course we had to wear cute
swim suits. However when Melissa stepped out of the tent my jaw hit the
ground. She had to be wearing the skimpiest bikini ever. It looked so
ridiculous out in the middle of the woods. It
must have had the desired effect though as the group of guys who had
been yapping at each other and play fighting suddenly went silent.
Melissa walked up to Liam and handed him her suntan
lotion. “Liam, can you please cover my back?” she asked. Well more like
she purred. She turned her back to him and pushed her ass out a bit.
Liam turned bright red but took the lotion. He
didn’t really have much choice unless he wanted to cause a scene.
Melissa started faintly moaning as he massaged the lotion in.
Gary and Stephen looked at each other and then
Stephen said, “Time to cool off I think!” He ran off towards the water,
with the rest of the guys close behind. Apparently, they forgot that the
summer had only just started and the water wasn’t
as warm as they expected. Watching them yell and hop all around as they
tried to get their bodies adjusted to the temperature was hilarious.
“You are all a bunch of babies!” Tara cried as she
walked towards the water. She stopped short though when the water hit
her feet. She turned back towards us girls and grimaced. Pretending like
the coldness didn’t bother her she said, “I’d
show you how to take it like a man if I didn’t have plans to work on my
tan today!”
“Oh, hell no!” Ryan roared. “James go drag her ass in here. Then we will see who the baby is.”
“Why me?” James asked Ryan, “She’s your cousin!”
“Exactly!!” Ryan replied. “I’m not risking touching her girlie parts when she tries to get away from me!!”
“Oh so you think it’s better if I touch those spots?” James smirked. Ryan stopped in his tracks and glared at James.
“Umm excuse me? No one is touching my parts besides me, thank you very much!” Tara exclaimed and turned to spread her towel out.
“For the love of God!” Gary grumbled. He quickly
thundered out of the water and grabbed the tiny Tara under one arm,
tossing her towel away from the water. Then with his other arm, he
managed to also snag Shelli. Within in seconds, all
three of them were submerged in the water. The screams coming from both
the girls scared the rest of us, as we edged away from the water.
Within seconds though, we were caught.
Soon Chels, Kelsey and I were all thrown in the
water by James, Ryan and Stephen. That only left Melissa not in the
water. She started freaking out and demanding we don’t get her wet.
Something about how her bathing suit wasn’t made for
the water….err umm what??
I think she secretly was expecting Liam to come
chase her as he was the only guy who had yet to throw someone in. At
first some of us started walking in towards shore like we were coming
after her but she threw such a tantrum we let her
be.
Once we got adjusted to the temperature the water
was quite refreshing in the hot sun. We played like kids, chasing each
other, dunking people under and even pairing up with the girls on top of
boys shoulders to try and knock the others
down.
Every now and then Melissa would call out from
where she was laying on her towel and say things like “You better not
come after me!” or “Promise me you guys won’t throw me in”, so I pretty
much confirmed she just wanted the attention. We
pretty much ignored her and continued to act like children. It seemed
like our throw back theme was already in action.
Finally we were all exhausted and we emerged from
the water to lie on the towels we had spread about. As I looked around
at my friends, stretched out with no cares, faces slightly red from the
sun and hair all messy I couldn’t help but
smile. I wish we would have thought to take a picture but I think the
moment was captured forever in my mind.
Looking over at Tara, I caught her eye and said, “I love you!”
“Uh…what do you want?” Tara asked back cautiously.
I laughed and tossed a pebble at her. “Nothing you dork! I’m just in a good place and wanted to tell you I loved you.”
“Aww!” She cooed and then jumped up and came over to my towel, bent down and hugged me.
I turned to my other side. “Chels, I love you too!”
Ok I was feeling sappy now. Chelsea, ever so gracefully rolled over so
she was now on my towel too and joined our group hug.
“Hey!! What about me?” Ryan hollered. “Save room
for me!”
He ran over and lay across us. Then suddenly everyone was
jumping in, not wanting to be left out. I was getting a little squished
being in the middle, but hey it was a nice feeling.
Melissa started complaining that we were
getting her wet. Gary and Stephen looked at each other, and then they
raised an eye in Kelsey’s direction. Kelsey gave a slight nod and
lowered her head to hide her smile.