My Bully, My Love

Chapter 15

   The day of celebration had come. On the 3rd, Sam's Mom took her and Jessi to the mall to find some clothes for them to wear. When they were trying stuff on, Jessi noticed what she thought was her size, was a bit smaller than she remembered. She then realized that she practically knew the future when they were at the theater, she was still growing a bit.

   Obviously she didn't know how much more, for all she knew that could have been it. But she brought it up to her two comrades, and Sam's Mom helped out more, trying to find the right sizes for her. As lame as it sounds, Sam and Jessi decided to wear matching outfits. White t-shirts, red jackets, and blue jeans.

   Sounds plain looking, but they didn't want anything extravagant, simple was fine. Her Mom unfortunately had to work on the day, but Dan did not, he accompanied them to the gathering, Jessi drove herself and Sam while Dan followed.

   They got there in the afternoon, still daylight, giving everybody a chance to hang out, eat, party before the lights how. It was a little outside of town, near a lake. They would fire them around the lake in case anything went wrong.

   But where everyone else was, cars and trucks and various vehicles everywhere, grills here and there, and red, white and blue whereever you turned. Face paint, hats, accessories, the place was as festive as you could get.

   Jessi and Sam stood side by side, hand in hand as they braved the crowd. Dan hung back by his car, giving Sam's mom a call to let them know they made it safely. They both wondered if they'd meet anyone from school here.

   With as big of an event as it is, the chances of them seeing someone was high, however Jessi and Sam never made any friends for the rest of the last school year. Maybe there'd be some new students they could get to know when it starts back up.

   As the current situation stands though, they're perfectly content with just eachother.

"Hey, you wanna mingle some, or try to find somewhere quieter?" Sam asks, looking up at Jessi. Jessi seems to ponder on the question a few seconds before answering.

"As much as I'd love to participate a bit more here, I kinda wanna find somewhere a bit quieter honestly."

"No problem, let's go take a look around, find a secluded tree or something." More to the north eastern side of the lake was the beginnings of a forest, nobody was over there and the fireworks were scattered on the opposite side from that point. Sam starts to pull Jessi, although she gives some resistance and Sam turns around. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm just gonna go tell my Dad real quick where we're going."

"Oh, ok. I'll be right here then."

"Back in a flash." Jessi takes off back to their vehicles, finding her Dad still on the phone. She gets up to him and gets his attention. "Hey Dad, me and Sam are gonna head over towards the treeline, just letting you know where we'll be." He gives a thumbs up and a smile before going back to whoever he was on the phone with. Jessi didn't press on knowing so she started to head back to Sam, going at a more normal pace.

   She got back to Sam in no time, however as she got closer, she saw she was talking to someone. Their back was to her so couldn't see their face, it was a girl though, taller than Sam but shorter than herself.

   The closer she got, she thought she recognized her hair, then she started hearing their conversation, and recognized the voice. She felt a spark of a fire light in her chest, frustration rearing it's head. She didn't think she'd hear from her again till school.

   Sam finally noticed her, and the girl turned to see what she was looking at. It was Lily. Upon making eye contact with Jessi, she seemed to tense up, her eyes widened a bit, a mix of surprise and, a little fear. She turned back to Sam and hastily said goodbye right before Jessi made it to them.