Reignite | Currently Revising

Chapter Twelve

~Melanie~

After spending all afternoon swimming around the lake until we turned into prunes, I climb out of the water and head toward my tent to dress for the evening. As I step out of the tent, I see James coming my way.

"The tent's all yours," I say.

"Thanks."

"Hey, Mellie!" Mrs. Page calls from across the bonfire pit, where she's standing in front of her tent.

I walk over. "Hey, Mrs. Page. How're you?"

"I'm good. It's great to see you. Congrats again on graduating!"

"Thanks," I smile.

"So, I asked you over here because I have a question."

Oh, no.

"You and James have been dating for what? Two years now?"

I nod.

"It seems to be getting pretty serious. Your mom told me you spent the whole week with him at his parent's place in Boston."

"Yeah," I say, wondering where she's going with this.

"Well, so did his parents act any differently around you?"

"What? No. Why?" I ask as my breath quickens.

"Well, because they might know if he's going to ask or not."

I take a deep breath, then ask, even though I have the feeling I already know the answer, "Ask what?"

"Well, he's going to ask you to marry him, of course!" She holds my arm as she chuckles. "Bianca's father barely made it a year of us dating before he popped the question. When do you think he's going to ask? Has he hinted at it?"

I feel the blood drain from my face, and nausea takes over.

"Mom, stop pestering Mellie," Bianca says as she walks up to us.

I look at Bianca, thanking her with my eyes. She grabs my hand and starts pulling me away.

"I just can't wait until you find someone like James, Bianca," Mrs. Page sighs in the distance.

~~~

After dinner that evening, we decide to hang out in the detached garage away from the cabin full of parents and grandparents, where there's an old, barely running fridge stocked with beer and a well-used pool table, among other games.

Graham connects his phone to the Bluetooth speaker to play music, as he's got the best musical taste out of the group, considering he's majoring in music. Sean pulls out seven beers from the fridge and hands them to everyone except Kara and Graham.

"Hey! That's not fair!" Kara says.

"You're not twenty-one," Sean says.

"Neither is Ethan, and you gave him one," Graham cuts in.

"Yes, but he can handle his alcohol. Can you?" Sean grins.

Ethan shrugs, "Come on, just give them one. They're already in college. Not like they haven't had an underage drink yet."

"Okay, but only one," Sean says with his pointer finger jutting out.

Graham nods his head, and Kara claps her hands together with a grin.

I chuckle as I lean against the pool table with James, Bianca, and Charlie.

"Wanna play?" Charlie asks us.

I look to James, who shrugs his shoulders and says, "Sure."

Bianca sets up the triangle as James and Charlie grab us all cue sticks. I take a sip of my beer, ready to kick Bianca and Charlie's ass just like old times.

"So, how're things?" Kara asks me.

"Pretty good. You?"

"Utterly boring. No boys are interested in me in college. I'm always friend-zoned." She pouts.

"I'm sure you'll find a way around that. You always did back in high school, even when everyone just considered you Sean's 'kid sister.'"

Kara smirks, "Yeah, well, what about you? Any exciting, juicy drama to share with me?"

"Nope, everything pretty much is the same, other than graduating, of course," I tell her, ignoring the fact that I have yet to land a job while James has and is already speaking about moving in together in Boston, not to mention marriage...

"Seems too picture-perfect to me." Kara dramatically squints her eyes and poses a finger against her chin.

I roll my eyes.

"Don't you remember the boy drama you had in high school? Oh, I used to love coming to visit and hearing all about how Tim did this, and Steve did that. Remember that one time with David, how you stayed at his house when you thought his parents weren't home, and-"

"Okay, Kara." I give her a sharp look. "That's enough reminiscing."

Bianca, who knows how that story ends, laughs at the two of us as I warily look over at James, who has returned with my cue stick and has an eyebrow raised.

"What?" Kara asks innocently.

I'm not even going to acknowledge it. James doesn't need to know how I almost lost my virginity in a very embarrassing way.

I look over at Ethan and remember the last time we had hung out before college when I had dealt with all the 'boy drama,' as Kara puts it. Ethan was the star athlete on our high school boys' varsity lacrosse team.

The day after that embarrassing incident, Ethan's team made it to the state championship in Burlington, where his family stayed for the weekend of the championship at a local bed and breakfast and invited me along to keep Bianca company.

Thinking about that night still makes me sweat to this day...

~~~