A Wink and a Smile & the Land is Ours

Chapter 6

"I don't know man, it looks like a moose to me." Jay confessed, referring to the cloud we were currently studying.

"Are you high?" I burst out. "It's totally a frog!"

We were lying on our backs on the roof of our school, cloud gazing.

He let out a snort. "Yeah, a frog with ginormous antlers and four lanky legs!"

Jay and I had a tradition. Whenever we both were skipping class, we would climb up onto the roof of the school, and hang out. I know what you are thinking, how on earth could two sixteen year olds get on the school roof? A few years ago Jay's older brother, Nathan, had attended our high school. In Deep Cove there were basically two groups of people; the typical, preppy, tennis playing, yacht owning crowd and the second group, the alternative, mountain climbing, hippy who only ate organic food. Nathan pretty much defined the second group. After he graduated high school, he moved to Nepal to climb the Himalayas and learn the ways of the Nepalese monks. 

During his last year in high school, him and his friends had scaled the wall of the three-story school and attached a rope to the roof. On the last day of school, they made a pulley system and brought up lawn chairs and booze and sat up there all day, laughing at the teachers who tried to get them to come down. For a small town, it was a pretty legendary event; people still bring it up to this day. Nathan and his friends never told anyone how they did it, and of course they hid the rope they had used to climb the building. But to keep the 'Ashton tradition' going, Nathan had told Jace where to find it. It was hidden behind a gutter that was attached vertically to the wall and we could only reach it if Jace hoisted me up on his shoulders.

 We never brought anyone else up, not even Lucy and Gabriel. It was kind of our thing. We weren't as ostentatious about our roof privileges as Nathan was, we always made sure no one saw us on the roof and that the rope was hidden. We would come up here when we wanted to escape everything, or just felt like skipping class. I normally didn't like skipping because I felt like I was letting my parents down, but I was still mad at them for ditching me. Jay, on the other hand, was the opposite. He would take any chance he could get to not go to school. As much as I hate to admit it, Jay was a genius. He is one of those naturally smart kids who can never study a day in his life and still get 100% on an exam. It frustrated me because I would work my butt off while he lazed around, never going to class, and he would always get better marks than me.

"You have ginormous antlers and four lanky legs." I muttered in a weak attempt at an insult.

"Well you look like-" Jay cut off, getting distracted by a second cloud. "Oh! That one looks like you when you're angry!" He pointed to a cloud resembling a grumpy looking Buddha.

I rolled on to my side, facing him. "You sure know how to make a girl feel special Jay!" I exclaimed with mock affection.

"That's my only goal, babe!" He replied in the same tone.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "I'm going to throw up on you, I hate that word."

"That's exactly why I always use it, babe!" He snickered.

I grumbled in response as I rolled on to my back. We sat in silence for a few minutes, gazing at the sky.

"Eliza, I need to talk to you about something." His voice was serious, which was shocking for Jay because he had the maturity of a twelve-year-old boy.

"Ok, which one of your bimbos is stalking you now?" I asked.

"No I-" He tried to continue.

"Wait! Let me guess. Is it Ashley?" I said, smirking.