The Impact of Intimacy

Prologue - All the Shiny People

Plopped in the middle of West Texas, is Vertie. Population two hundred and forty-seven. A town where windmills were more populous than people. The dirt kicked up in the spring, the summer topped one hundred and ten degrees of "dry heat", football ruled the crisp fall nights, and despite it's southern zip code, there was a heavy snowfall or two in the winter.

Almost as predictable as the weather, were the people. They worshipped zealously at the local baptist church, when they weren't idolizing their true crowned jewel - Vertie Senior High. Population fifty-eight, minus the twenty-two of us who were slated to graduate in ten days. We were deemed 'The largest graduating classes ever!' by the Vertie Gazette.

Twenty predictable, small town teenagers, going to parties on Saturday nights and church on Sunday mornings. Kids who sped down 'the strip' from one fast food joint to another, and listened to country music, while knocking boots.

Twenty normal kids with names like Tiffani, and Emma Leigh, and Kenzi. Southern, practiced, rail thin, and beautiful. They wore their diamond crosses, and prayed on their knees...when they weren't already down there blowing their football playing boyfriends. It was all so very...wholesome.

Of course, every town like Vertie had its outliers. First, was my best friend, and next door neighbor, Hudson Kincaid. With his black fingernails, and affinity for any and all heavy metal music, he was an automatic target for the popular crowd. Not that he cared. He was too busy stalking around with his headphones on, and his head buried in a book - studying his life away to get out of this "dead end town". Which had ultimately worked out in his advantage. His acceptance letter and full scholarship to NYU came in the mail last week, and his bags were already packed and waiting by the back door.

The other outlier, was a little harder to spot...unless I looked directly in the mirror - which I tried not to most days. I looked normal enough. I was petite with big boobs and an ass, both of which I'd hid like my life had depended on it. My monochromatic blue and white wardrobe consisted of sports bras and baggy basketball shorts, but my collective disinterest of my overall appearance, was why I was one of the outliers.

In a town like Vertie, you were celebrated for the clothes you wore, and the car you drove, and your family's reputation. So, my beat up, early 2000's Volvo, and second-hand wardrobe weren't exactly sexy. Neither was the fact that my mother, and her nasty meth habit left me when I was ten, resulting in me living with my elderly grandparents - Gran and Pop.

Not that I minded. I loved them, and their small red brick house that was situated directly next to Hudson's. The proximity made it easier for him just to sneak over and sleep on the cot on my floor. Every night. For years since his mother had died. Breast cancer. The nastiest version of it. One day she was perfectly healthy and happy, and two months later she was gone. Coincidentally, around the same time my own mother had left.

Hudson's father, Mister William "Buddy" Kincaid and his affinity for long cut Copenhagen, and Budweiser tall boys had never been the same. Hudson's intermittent black eyes were proof enough that coping wasn't exactly in his father's vocabulary. Neither was peaceful or conflict resolution.

That was the thing about living in Vertie. Consistency was crucial, both in the good things and the bad things. People didn't change. They just continued on - dating the same people, doing the same jobs, living in the same toxic environment, until eventually they just...died.

For example, my entire existence in Vertie had consisted of being on the women's basketball team, and being Hudson Kincaid's best friend. But as graduation rapidly approached, I couldn't help but feel like I'd missed out on something. Or rather a bunch of somethings. Hell, I'd never even been kissed!

At least not until that night, in the shed in my backyard, when my entire life changed. Some of it for the better, and some of it not...