by Willow Rose
I felt like I was in a movie and had to pinch myself on the arm to make sure I wasn’t asleep. Did he mean he was going to give me a car? I could hardly believe it. In Denmark, you didn’t get your driver’s license until you were eighteen, and since there were enormous taxes on cars, they were so expensive that young people couldn’t afford them until they were in their mid-twenties or the beginning of their thirties. Most of the time, people had to take loans from the bank to afford a car. Only extremely rich people gave their kids cars. “You…you’re giving me a car?” I stuttered.
Heather was still smiling while she ate. Whether it was me or my stuttering she found amusing, I never knew.
“Wasn’t that what I just said? Do you have problems hearing? Yes, son. You need some wheels. How else are you going to go to Jacksonville every day?”
I hadn’t thought about that yet. I guess I figured I was going to take a train or a bus or something, like most people did where I came from. I really didn’t know anything about how things worked in the States.
“Well, thank you very much, sir.”
“You’re welcome. I promised your dad I would take good care of you. I never had a son of my own, so here is my chance to see what it’s like.”
I was surprised at this statement coming from him. Speechless, even. It was amazing to me to realize that behind his tough exterior he seemed to be much gentler than I had given him credit for. I was expecting to meet a great man and that was exactly what I had done.
Chapter Four
AFTER DINNER, WE DROVE back to the mansion to change cars and get my guitar. The little girl in front of the house on the corner was no longer there, I concluded with great satisfaction. I went a step further and decided that she probably never had been there at all. It had just been an illusion caused by my jet lag. I was getting tired. No wonder, I thought to myself. It was almost morning in Denmark now and I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours. But Heather was insisting on dragging me to meet her friends, and I felt that there was no way I could escape it. She had that gift. It was impossible to say no to her.
Soon I found myself in her open red Jeep, which I later learned was only one of her many cars. The wind still felt incredibly warm on my face, even that late in the evening, and I started wondering if it ever got cold in these parts. I loved the feeling in my hair and face and couldn’t wait to get me some wheels of my own, as Dr. Kirk had said. I could only hope it would be some sort of convertible, so I could ride with the top down and get wind in my hair like this. It was extraordinary, and for a few seconds, I felt really happy. This new life, this new world that had been generously opened up to me had turned out to be a gift. For the first time since my mother died, I felt like I was born under that lucky star again, like so many people had said to me when I was a child. It was like the universe was making up for all my years of sorrow and grief. I welcomed this gift. I felt I deserved it. For a moment, I felt invincible, like nothing could ever hurt me again. Like the hard part in my life was over and it was time for me to enjoy myself again. I released a sigh of relief as we drove north towards The Twelve Mile Swamps. Little did I know that the hard part had only just begun. Little could I have known that this was where I was supposed to meet my destiny in the shape of a savage beast.
The Twelve Mile Swamps was, as the name implies, a collection of swamps connected by a trail and planted pine forest. It was open for public hunting season, where people could go in and shoot the white-tailed deer, foxes, and alligators or catch a snake. The entrance was closed at night, but that didn’t seem to stop Heather and her friends, who had already arrived. Two guys and two girls sat in a big expensive-looking truck. They jumped out of their car when they saw us coming.
“I want you to meet Chris,” Heather said, as she stepped out of the Jeep that was now muddy and sandy from driving on the bumpy road there. I grabbed my guitar and followed her.
“Chris, this is Regina, Jim, Danielle, and Mike.”
“Hi, Chris,” the girls said with flirting smiles, while the guys just nodded with a, “How’re you doing?” All of them had that upper-class, slightly snobbish appearance that also surrounded Heather. The boys wore polo shirts and plaid shorts, making them look like they had just left a British boarding school, while Danielle was wearing a little dress like Heather’s. Regina was the only one of them wearing stonewashed jeans like me.
“Chris is the one I told you about. The guy from Denmark who is going to live with us for the next year while he’s in med school in Jacksonville.”
“Like that German girl Elke who was here a couple of years ago?” Mike asked.
“She was really something,” Jim said, signaling big breasts with his hands in front of his chest.
“Wasn’t she the one who got arrested for sunbathing topless in your parents’ yard?” Danielle asked, while we started walking towards the entrance of the trail.
It was pitch-dark ahead in the forest of pine-trees, and Jim lit a big flashlight that illuminated the trail and trees ahead of us. A barrier indicated the area was closed, but Heather and her friends just climbed under it and kept going. I felt a pinch in my stomach as I followed them. Something inside of me was telling me this was a bad idea, but I didn’t listen. I had come to Florida for adventure, and now I was getting it.
“Yeah, my parents did not see that coming,” Heather said, while the others laughed. “Apparently, that’s normal in Europe.”
“I hear they are all topless at the beaches over there,” Jim said with a goofy grin.
“Is that right, Chris?” Regina asked. “Are the girls really topless at the beach?”
I nodded. They all looked at me like they wanted me to elaborate. Heather put her arm on my shoulder.
“You’ll have to excuse Chris. He doesn’t talk much,” Heather said. “He’s an artist. He plays the guitar.”
I felt a look from Jim walking next to her and immediately sensed that he disliked me. I guessed he was into Heather and I was in his way. He was clenching the flashlight in his hand like he was trying to crush it. He was almost as tall as me, his face was aristocratic with high cheek-bones and he had short dark brown hair that looked like Clark Kent’s in the Superman movies.
“He looks like a wild person with that hair,” Jim said. “Is that a European thing too, or is he just a faggot?”
“Jim!” Heather said. “He understands everything.”
“I thought you said he didn’t speak English.”
“I said he doesn’t talk much. He understands everything. He’s just the quiet type. A sensitive artist. Something you wouldn’t know about.”
“Still a faggot in my book,” Jim continued. “He might even have the plague. Have you asked him about that? The Gay Plague? Has he been tested for that?”
“Stop it, Jim.” Heather snorted, and that made Jim stop talking immediately.
I was happy she got him to shut up. I felt like a child when my parents would discuss me even though I was still there. It made me quite uncomfortable. I didn’t mind the gay part. I had heard that so often it was getting old. Mostly from elderly people, though, but prejudice doesn’t have an age.
“So, you are an artist trying to become a doctor?” Mike said. “That’s a first.”
I shrugged. “It’s in the family. My dad is a doctor as well. He wants me to follow in his footsteps. I play the guitar for fun. Like a hobby.”
“It talks!” Jim said with a laugh. “And even in entire sentences.”
I ignored his remark while it got a lot darker the deeper we went into the forest. As a city boy, I wasn’t that familiar with the sounds of nature, so the longer we walked, the more uncomfortable I felt. The forest was alive around us. Every step we took I heard the crackling flight of other living things that fled from us. It felt as if there were eyes in every tree and bush we passed, and I knew that on each side of the trail there was nothing but swamps where all kinds of animals lived and hunted at night. The loud sound of tree frogs reminded me constan
tly of the swamp’s presence.
We stopped close to the river that went through the entire area. Danielle had brought a blanket and put it on the ground for us to sit on. Her backpack also contained a couple of wine coolers for the girls, while Jim had brought beers for the guys. He threw me one and I grabbed it. Drinking it made my muscles relax and my unease go away, but also left me massively dizzy. The combination of jet lag and alcohol wasn’t sustainable, I soon realized.
When Jim pulled out the joint, I no longer had any resistance left in me to say no. I wanted to get drunk. I wanted to get high. I was sick and tired of being the quiet pretty boy. I wanted another image; I wanted to be different “over-there,” and I knew if I got high I would start talking. That was the effect smoking had on me in the past. I was even sometimes funny when I was high. So when it was my turn, I accepted the joint and started inhaling it like a man desperate for nicotine. I kept going until I was so dizzy I could hardly take it. When I passed it on to Mike, I had to lie down, so I did. The stars above us were dancing in a spectacular show that seemed to be for my eyes only. It looked like beautiful women circling and dancing to slow music, trying to lure me into their arms. I felt good. I felt relaxed and happy. Everything was going to be great here. I just knew it.
“So, are you going to play for us on that thing or what?” Danielle asked. She and Mike were in each other’s arms. I raised my head and looked at them. I felt a smile on my face. I had no idea where it came from. Then I grabbed my guitar and sat with it in my lap. How I loved this instrument that had brought me through so many sleepless nights of thinking about my mother. How I adored the woman that had held it between her soft hands before I did.
“Don’t be sad, Chris,” Heather said, stroking my hand gently.
I looked into her spectacular green eyes in the light from the flashlight. Her cheeks were blushing from the wine. Then I leaned over and kissed her cheek carefully. She was startled, I could tell, but she didn’t dislike it. Then she laughed and so did I. We laughed the laughter of a high person or a mad man—the kind of laughter that doesn’t stop and has no cause or trigger other than maybe a funny word or a look from someone.
“I don’t even think he knows how to play that thing,” Jim muttered and caused us to laugh even harder. Mike and Danielle sensed nothing, since they were all tangled in each other’s kisses and only had eyes for one another.
Once the laughter had worn off, I finally managed to start playing. Tears were still rolling down my cheeks as my fingers danced on the strings. Notes floated out of my mouth like water from a fountain, and my music temporarily drowned the many sounds of the surrounding forest and swamp. Regina and Heather looked at me with their heads slightly tilted, smiles on their faces, while Jim had turned his back on me. He obviously hadn’t expected me to actually be able to play. I sang one of my own songs and received huge applause from the girls once I was done. Even Mike and Danielle had stopped to listen to me sing and applauded me afterwards. My music did that to people, I have been told on several occasions. It touched their hearts.
The only one whose heart seemed unwinnable was Jim. As the rest of them encouraged me to keep playing another song, Jim got up and started walking towards the river with his beer in his hand.
“Come on, Chris, just one more,” Heather said.
I shook my head and put the guitar down. I saw Jim empty his bottle and throw it in the water.
“What’s the deal with you two?” I asked Heather.
“We dated for awhile, but it was nothing. Really.”
“That doesn’t look like nothing to me,” I said and looked in Jim’s direction. “I don’t want to come in between something here.”
She smiled and stroked my hand again. Then she leaned over and kissed my cheek as gently as I had hers. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “He is not important.”
I looked into her eyes and felt indecisive. Heather was beautiful and I was certainly attracted to her. But she was also the daughter of the people with whom I lived, who had taken me in and were taking care of me. If I broke her heart, I would ruin everything. If I let this go any further, I knew I would be in over my head. On the other hand, I was certain that she would soon grow tired of me. Right now, I was the new and interesting guy, the sensitive European pretty boy, as she called me. But that wouldn’t last long. I figured she would grow tired of me very quickly once she realized that I was a pretty normal guy and even boring at times. I knew her type well. Heather was the kind of girl that owned things and threw them away once she was tired of playing with them. I was nothing but a new toy.
Heather grabbed my hand and held on to it as Jim came back with a defeated look on his face. Then he sat down next to Regina, while I let the joint and alcohol that were rushing in my veins like a river, take over my decision making. I leaned over and grabbed her neck and pulled her closer. I put my lips on Heather’s, feeling her soft breast press against my arm. She didn’t turn away. Her lips were so incredibly tender and I felt passion spark in me.
We kissed like we didn’t have a care in the world.
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