The Bucket List

The First Night of summer

"Liv" I shouted but no response "Olivia!" I said again finally getting her to look up from her phone.

"Sorry, what?" she asks looking at my partially illuminated face.

"Can you scoot over, you are blocking the fire and that is my only source of light. Unless you guys want this list to look like an eleven year old boy wrote it?" I joke addressing the rest of my friends sitting around me.

"Calm down Rory this summer is going to be amazing, and it all starts with this list. Doesn't exactly matter how it looks."  Kennedy smiles beside me, always the optimist she is. But I couldn't help it, this was our last summer together, and despite what we have all said I know some of us are bound to lose contact with each other.

I smiled at my group of friends: Olivia would be going to Indiana University to study business, Kennedy to Vanderbilt for political science, Eleanor would be staying in our home town and going University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois majoring in psychology, and I would be going off to University of Connecticut for nursing . None of us would even be in the same state come this fall. "You guys this is our last summer, before we go off and make new friends in far away places"

"Well not all of us" Ele interjects and Olivia nudges her causing her to laugh. I look up from our small circle of friends and stare at everyone else sitting on the grass. We were in the woods off a non paved road with a huge camp fire roaring. It was our last get together as a school, its tradition for the night of graduation. Lots of people were laughing with friends or drinking, or both. I keep scanning the crowd when my eyes fall on a girl sitting with Charles Warder.

"Hey, you guys" I say not breaking my eyes away from the scene in front of me, "Do you see that girl over there with Charles?" I say trying to discreetly point. All my friends stop there laughing and turn around to see what I am looking at.

"Who is that? There is no way she was in our class I have never seen her before." Olivia says mirroring my own thoughts.

"Yeah she definitely did not go to school with us" Eleanor confirms

"It looks like she is not so in to Charles as he is to her." Madison says as we all watch him continually trying to hold her hand or sneak some sort of kiss. The girl is pushing him off more and more by the second. Most girls here knew to stay away from Charles once he started drinking, he could be a little handsy, but this girl was politely trying and failing to get away. 

"Okay, I'm not watching this anymore," I state standing up from my spot and walking up towards the two. Deciding against confronting a very drunk and popular boy from our school I chickened out and took the easy way out. "OMG hey I have been look for you all over!" I smile to the girl who glances back at me with a look of relief. "Do you mind if I steal her away from you for a minute Charles?" I ask sweetly already pulling her by the hand up and away from him. Charles just responds with a drunken grunt, that all but confirms my thoughts of him being completely trashed. I pull the girl back towards Olivia, Eleanor, and Kennedy. Plopping her down on the ground next to Olivia.

"Thank you so much" she smiles embarrassed.

"It's no problem at all. Most girls just know to stay away from Charles when he gets like that." I respond trying not to sound judgmental.

"Yeah I did not get that memo, I am staying at my grandparents for the summer. He invited me out here tonight and I thought it would be a chance to make friends. I had no idea he was planning that." She tells us.

"Girl don't worry about it. I'm Kennedy, this is Eleanor, Olivia, and your savior Rory." Kenny introduces us all pointing as she says our names.

"Oh I'm Madison, I'm actually going to be a senior in high school next year. I'm assuming you are all going into college?" she asks and we nod in response. "This is totally a compliment but has anyone ever told you guys that you look like a friendship group pulled right out of a movie?" She asks us and we laugh. Its true Kennedy is your preppy blonde smart student who was involved in student government and planned all the school events, Olivia was Asian with black hair with fading blonde tips she was almost valedictorian and was in national honor society, then Eleanor played the sports she played volleyball once season and basketball another all with her short cute red hair, and me I was kind of the leftover friend. I was in student government with Kennedy although not an officer like she was, I played tennis and did yoga in my spare time and go decent grades, my hair was dirty blonde and I was probably the least put together of my friends. But I didn't mind because I never felt like an outcast with them.

Well except at senior prom when I was the only one without a date. I had sworn off guys by then, not that I had ever really had a serious boyfriend before. But the girls never got that part of me, so we didn't talk about it much.

"Here give us your number, you can totally hang with us this summer. We were actually just making our bucket list for this summer." I say showing her the piece of paper I had tossed onto the ground. She looks it over smiling.

"No summer romance?" She asks and I try not to make a face.

"Nope. We all for once don't have boyfriends and this is about girl time not some boy we will meet get to know then end up hundreds of miles away from in less then 3 months." I state.

"Isn't Rory just such a hopeless romantic?" Olivia jokes and I elbow her in responses, "Plus it looks like you already had your short and sweet summer romance with Charles over there." She says to Madison who turns around to see him in the same spot throwing up besides the fire.

Madison covers her face as she laughs, she then hands her phone to us where we all take turns putting in our numbers. As I finish typing in mine a text comes across the top of her phone. "Oh who is Matty?" I ask in a sing song voice. My tone falls off at the end as I read the text.

From Matty:

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!

Then another,

From Matty:

DO NOT EVEN LIE BC I CAN SEE YOUR LOCATION

Madison's face falls, I hand her back the phone and she swipes to read the messages. She then stops and I look over her shoulder to see she has an incoming call from him. She sighs then swipes to answer it. "What's wrong?" she asks and I can hear a rather commanding voice on the other side. They argue back and forth until she sighs and says "okay" hanging up the phone.

"What was that about?" Kennedy asks.

"That was my brother, he is a little protective of me. He is actually picking me up, he tracked me on find my friends." She says bitterly. Looking at Madison now I kind of undertood it, she had average length brown hair and a face that made her seem closer to a freshman than a soon to be senior. I get why her brother may have worried. But then again I was the youngest of all girls so I never really had that.

"Oh well text us and you can totally come with us canoeing this weekend, we are going to go once Rory and Eleanor get off work in the afternoon." Olivia tells Madison and she smiles.

"Thanks guys, I was super worried I was going to be stuck in the house all summer." She replies as we hear an engine roaring down the dirt road. Soon follows the light and we can see from the one light that it is a motorcycle. "That would be my brother" she sighs standing up, "thanks again!" She shouts running off towards the light. I can see the shape of a boy get off the bike through the shadows of the campfire.

"Holy crap he is hot" Eleanor says first.

" For sure" Kennedy agrees.

"I can't even see him, all I see is his silhouette." I say struggling for a better view.

"That is a hot silhouette" Olivia adds and we all start laughing as the engine roars back to life and heads the opposite way.

I smiled, summer had officially begun.