Burn Your Local Church

The Difference

Chapter 11:

Once we had walked through the damp forest, we arrived at the bus stop, which was a few minutes away from the forest exit. I decided to show Zach the way I always trespass...The tunnel underground.

As we were walking, I could here Zach humming casually. He seemed comfortable; that's good. We waited at the bus stop for a while before the bus actually appeared. Zach was the first to step on, "You coming?" He motioned for me to come, but I shook my head and took a step back. "It's okay," I said, "You go, I'll hang back." Zach seemed hesitant, but he got on the bus and it pulled away. I left the bus station, and followed the side walk into mid town. I didn't know where I was heading, but I saw Cameron about a block away. I tried to make it look casual, but I ended running up to him. "Jamie!" He said with a big smile on his face.

"Hey!!!" I said happily.

"What's up dude?"

I giggled. "Not much, what about you?"

He shrugged. "Just chillin' in town for a while I guess."

I nodded and started walking with him. "So where are we walking to?"

He laughed and shrugged again. "We can go to the park if you wanna?"

"Okay, yeah sounds fun."

"Chill."

"What?"

He laughed. "It means 'cool'."

"Oh," I blushed at my stupidity, "Yeah."

He must've picked up on my curiosity. "It's fine, no one really understands all of my slang."

I smiled, and looked down at the ground. "What's the park like here?"

"Uh," he laughed a bit, "you've never been to the park?"

I forgot I told him I was a Christian citizen. "W-well yeah, I just thought they did construction on it, and like I didn't remember."

"Oh, no they haven't changed it for a while."

I was looking down at the ground and realized I was walking into the middle of an extremely busy road. Cameron's arms quickly pulled me back to his side.

"Ohmygod." I said just as a giant transport truck sped by. Cameron kept his arms wrapped around me. "I have a bit of a habit of walking into streets." His grip around me loosened, but his arms remained around me.

"Well I won't let you do that, but since I'm not with you 24/7, you should work on it."

I laughed quietly. "Probably should." We walked into the park and it was empty except for a group of younger children around the slides. Cameron and I walked over to the swings and I sat down on one. I started swinging and then he sat down on the one beside me. "So did you hear about the shit that went down in the freaking Satan village last night?"

"Uhm," I slowed down on my swing. "Yeah I heard."

"Some guy got sliced across the throat and people started sticking matches into him."

"What?!" I exclaimed getting off of my swing. "That's not what happened."

"Um then what happened? I mean it sounds pretty accurate, the people there are fucked."

"No, they're not." I froze a bit and tried to calm myself down.

"How do you know?"

"I don't," I lied, "I'm just guessing."

"Headstrong."

"What?"

"You are."

"Is that bad?"

"No, not at all."

"Oh, um okay." I smiled and sat down on the swing seat beside him.

"Yeah, it's nice for a change. Everyone else here has no spine. They just go with it, don't take a stand. They don't stand for anything."

"Too much apathy." I added.

"Yeah, you know what I mean."

"I do?"

"Obviously. You live here too, you see it first hand."

"Y-yeah." I said and ran my hand through a stand of my hair.

"You seem so weird when we talk able our city." He said.

"Well like, it's just, there's so many things to talk about other than that."

"Yeah, for sure." He said then smiled. "I bet I can get higher than you."

"Um I'm not really down for that type of stuff."

He laughed. "I meant on the swings, you dork."

I giggled to myself. "I bet you can't."

We both started swinging and laughing at each other. We both seemed to lose track of the bet we had and we just laughed at nothing and stared at the cloudless sky.

"What's your favorite thing to do?"

"Uh," he slowed down, "surfing, rapping, boarding."

"Surfing? In Pennsylvania?" I questioned.

"No," he laughed, "I used to live in Santa Cruz," he paused, "in California."

"Oh..that sounds sweet."

"Yeah it was pretty rad while it lasted."

"What happened?"

"Family."

"I'm sorry."

Cameron jumped off his swing. "Don't fucking say sorry."

I was a little taken back, but I'm sure there was a reason behind it. "Okay." I hesitated; I seriously hated when people only respond with "okay"...But I really didn't know what else to say.

"My mom fucking killed herself, my dad doesn't even excist, and I live with bitches." Cameron looked up at me with hurt, innocent eyes. I had to sit back down on the swings to keep myself from falling over. It was as if his words were knives and a thousand were just thrown at me.

"I- I, don't know what to say." I fumbled my words, trying to find the right ones.

"No one ever does."

"I'm relieved you trust me enough to tell me..." I let my sentence linger in the air, bracing myself for him to tell me that he tells everyone and I'm no different. But he didn't.

"Yeah, I trust you. You're all I got."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're all I got."

"No no no, don't fucking say that. I'm just a girl you've only known for like two days."

"Maybe," he paused and smirked at me, "but you're different."