Junie & Jackie - A Love Story

9

Jackie's thumb sat burning on my skin, sitting in the gap between where the waistband of my denim shorts hit my hip and my tank top stopped as he guided us into Grizzly's trailer. The rest of his hand stayed off of skin, on my pants, but he made sure his thumb was grazing me at all times. It felt like he was holding a hot knife to my hip, just ever so slightly moving it back and forth, digging a deeper and deeper pit. I was pretty sure it was going to leave a mark.

"You don't have to have me on a leash, you know," I said, but I didn't remove his hand, didn't even try to. I was such a hypocrite, such a disappointment to all the independent women I had grown up idolizing. He was barely touching me, and I was on fire. Jackie had never been nice to me, had quite literally brought me to tears several times, and here I was, letting him burn me with his touch.

I was never telling anyone about this. Not even my diary needed to know. Too many people could find it. A thousand years from now, an archaeologist may just stumble on it and get a good laugh about how pathetic I was. No one needed to know. Just me and Jackie... and Trey and the hundred other people scattered on the lawn and inside Grizzly's trailer. "I've been to a party before. I'm not ten."

"Not this kind of party," was all Jackie said as he kept us moving, up the stairs of the little screened in front deck and into the trailer. I was still pretty drunk at this point and didn't feel like fighting. Trey led the way, dapping up some people I vaguely recognized from the halls of our high school. Even intoxicated, I knew from the second we entered the house that I did not fit in here.

It smelled like weed and cat piss. The whole place was low lighted, a few lamps and Christmas lights strung up here and there. There were random stains all over the tan carpet, probably a mix of throw up, alcohol, and well... cat piss. There were no cats to be seen.

I recognized a lot of the people there, but only in a "made eye contact with them in the cafeteria one time" kind of way. They were not people I would've interacted with. The other half of the people, the half I didn't know, were older looking, probably closer to Grizzly's age or even older than that. One thing everyone had in common is that they looked scary... and a little dirty.

We ended up in front of a makeshift bar situation consisting of a stack of milk crates with duct tape and cardboard on top. It was covered in half empty liquor bottles—any liquor you could think of—along with various bottles of juice and a cooler with some cans. Trey pulled three out and handed one to each of us. Beer. Ew, but I at least needed something to hold while trying to act normal.

"Chug that," Trey nudged my can, a smile on his face. It was hard to be annoyed about my situation while talking to Trey. He could bring up anyone's mood. I would love to see him angry sometime, though I wasn't sure that was possible.

"Why? I don't know if I can," I tried not to turn my nose up.

"They'll be gone in ten minutes," he replied over the loud music. "Drink it while you can."

"I don't want you standing around with your can open either," Jackie warned as he looked around the place. I knew exactly what he meant, and I was at least glad he was looking out for me. He had no clue about my past experience with drugged drinks, so he couldn't have known what his caring meant to me. "So drink up."

I was scared I was going to be too drunk if I chugged the beer, but with the two boys in front of me staring at me, I didn't have much of a choice.

Together, the three of us popped the tops of the cans. I forced them to cheers with me, which Trey was immediately down for but I could tell Jackie was embarrassed by (which only made me want to do it more). Then, we chugged.

The boys were much better at it than I was, finishing their cans in record time. If beer drinking was an Olympic sport, I would send these two. They'd get us a gold medal.