Before You Say Goodbye

6

As far as small towns went, our town wasn't all that bad. I surely liked it here. I could go on for hours about all the beautiful places around here. When I was still a kid, grape picking at the vineyards used to be my favorite thing to do. Come the grape harvest time, sometimes in September, the other times in October, my friends and I could all be found in the vineyard owned by Terry's parents. I could sit on that cliff by the edge of our town and just simply stare ahead at nothing – something was mesmerizing about the view ahead. The people weren't all that bad either. Sure, they were dumb and put their noses in places they didn't belong in, but they were my people. I was born here. This was home.

Most of the people I go to school with were at some point in my life, friends with me. We grew up together until the day we just didn't. Either we would've lost interest in the friendship, or had a petty seven-year-old fight, or we just drifted apart for no reason. Still, I knew every one of them – excluding the new ones who transferred here recently for whatever reason. I knew who everyone's parents were, I knew where their home was, I knew if they had siblings, I knew about the time they slipped off a swing and scraped their knees, I remember all their embarrassing moments. I knew everything about them.

And I knew Ezra Harwood. Or at least that was what I thought, until the moment I heard he was elected as our school's new drama club president.

As far back as I could remember, Ezra had always been the athletic type. We all had high hopes for him; always thought he'd make it big in sports someday. I have a vague memory of him and his brother, Levi playing football in the park. Even at such a young age, I remember Ezra being absolutely competitive and very good at the game. He was Levi's protégé.

"Did you hear Ezra Harwood is the new drama club president?" Piper smacked on her bubblegum, apparently not in the mood to eat her lunch today. Her eyes fixed on the phone in her hand as she scrolled through something – probably Instagram or TikTok, which seems to be her recent addiction.

"Yup."

Terry frowned, poking into her pasta. "Never thought he'd go into drama. Always thought he'd make a great quarterback or a wide receiver someday."

I grinned. Just as we always knew Terry was a sports enthusiast. "Ha, didn't know you knew so much about football, Terry. When did that happen, huh?"

"Maybe since the day she saw Jaxon playing. I remember her gushing about it. When was it? Sometime in middle school, I guess," Piper grinned, a glint in her eyes.

"Oh, God!"

"I don't remember that," I shrugged. I probably did, but my memory was vague, and this was our only chance to have something over Terry's head.

"Really? You don't?" Piper gaped at me, shaking her head in mock disappointment, "Don't you remember how she was gushing about her boyfriend? Explaining in detail to us how she wanted to-" she paused, leaning in and lowering her voice to a whisper, "-lick the sweat from all over his body. How she wanted to-"

"Oh my God, Piper. Stop."

Piper shook her head at me, ignoring Terry's pleads to stop. "I can't believe you forgot all about that."

"I can't either," I laughed looking at Terry's face filled with annoyance. "Oh Terry, you dirty, dirty girl."

"When we're on that note, tell me this. Did you do it? In freshman year? You know when you and Jaxon did have sex?"

"Shut up, Pip." She says but there was no force behind her words, letting us know she was more embarrassed than offended, "You know we only recently had our first time."

"Oh, yes. I remember now," I grinned, "You told us how it was everything you thought it'd be!"

"Ooooh, what else did you do? You also like the push and shove, don't you? You wanted it rough, didn't you?"