Late Summer Rain

Red Stained T-shirts

CHAPTER THREE ~*~*~ Red Stained T-Shirts

 

I didn’t know when, but I must have fallen asleep on top of Ryan’s car hood. It was probably past noon and the sun was beating down heavily on us. I was hot – he had draped his jacket over me when it was still cool that morning and had fallen asleep beside me with one of his arms resting on top of the side of my hip.

I poked my head up. Crescent View Hill was swarmed with people now.

Our town might have been a small one, but it had mountains, fields of greenery and lakes all around, not mentioning numerous festivals that occur throughout summer so it wasn’t that out of the ordinary to see tourists around this time of the year. Crescent View Hill was known for spectacular sightseeing and since the cliff was now flooding with people, curious and annoyed stares were inevitable.

I turned my head to look at a little girl with blonde curls as she pointed excitedly at us. “Mommy! Mommy! What are they doing?” The mother hushed her and glared at me angrily before storming off with her daughter in tow.

I only shrugged in response. It didn’t matter to me since it wasn’t the first time a mother has ever glared at me. Mothers seem to glare at me a lot these days – even more so then when I sent their little boys running back home crying when I was young. They used to call me Danger Dannie. I controlled the playground.

Throwing Ryan’s jacket over my shoulder and back inside his convertible, I sat up before shaking him on the arm. He had a bit of drool rolling down the corner of his mouth and I could only imagine what he must have been dreaming about. “Wake up pretty face,” I laughed. “You better have been thinking about cake.”

Ryan popped his eyelids open and gazed at me blankly, still in the midst of his dreams. “What?” He rubbed his eyes and then his mouth, sitting there completely dazed before smiling stupidly. “Oh, hello Dannie. Good morning.”

I gave him a noogie to wake him up.  

After Ryan finally got his brain working, we drove down half an hour to a vegetable and fruit farm and picked up an enormous watermelon before driving down to the beach for the rest of the day. We found an empty platform where they docked boats and decided to bring the watermelon there before setting up our much anticipated watermelon contest. Ryan had packed a picnic clothe from his sports bag as well as a knife in a safe carrying case and after chopping the fruit into several pieces, we got fired up to bring the other down.

“Get ready to lose,” I screamed. “Nobody can eat watermelons as fast as I can.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said with a smirk.

We got on our mark and began, each of us with three big slices of watermelon. Ryan took big bites, laughing and spitting the occasional black seed in the air so that it fell in the deep blue water that was below us with an extremely delicate splash. My basic concept was to mow it down and eat it like I was brushing my teeth with it. The cool, sweet taste of the watermelon ran down my throat and trickled down my face staining my oversized white T-shirt red.

I won of course!

Bolting up, I danced around, rubbing it in his face as he playfully glared at me. Our faces were covered with watermelon juice and Ryan had a couple of seeds stuck on his face although oddly enough it just made him look that much more adorable. “Only because I let you win,” he said.

My mouth popped open to retort, but was rudely interrupted by a painfully annoying sneer. “Well, look who it is? If it isn’t Dannie Andrews and Ryan Proud!” It was like nails clawing down a chalkboard. “Hellooo reject club!”

I shuddered and looked up to find the school’s most obnoxious girl, Courtney Robins, standing there in the skimpiest diamond studded bikini – one that looked like it was stolen right out of Paris Hilton’s closet.

Courtney had just stepped off her daddy’s new yacht with some older boys that obviously didn’t go to our school. I sighed and rolled my eyes at her. I didn’t want to deal with her today. She was always such a pain whenever I saw her, most likely because she still held a huge grudge on me from way back during our simpleton days.

It was completely ironic, but Courtney and I met in kindergarten and actually used to be quite good friends. One day when we were seven or eight, she teased me by daring me over and over to push her into a swamp on a school field trip. So I pushed her.

Courtney has been out to destroy me since. I have no idea why she hates me so much – I only did what she asked.  

Sighing, I started walking away just to keep a large enough distance between us. I wasn’t a pushover, but if I could just walk away from something, I’d do that. Save me the annoying drama.

“Why, don’t just walk away Dannie. Oh look at you, helping us recycle trash.” She glanced at Ryan, smirked. She was part of his inner circle. “I didn’t know you liked the manly type Ryan. Honestly, if I were you, I’d just go for an actual guy instead of someone that’s halfway in between.”  

“We’re just friends,” I said a little bit too quickly before rolling my eyes. “And please Courtney, if you’ve got that much time on your hands, why don’t you book another appointment with your plastic surgeon? Maybe this summer he’ll actually give you a face that doesn’t look like crap.”

Ryan laughed. “And then you’ll finally be 100% made from plastic Courts! Congrats!”

Courtney growled and threw us both a menacing glare. “It’s no use talking to you pathetic people. It’ll lower my standard.” She flipped her extremely long blonde extensions that must have cost a fortune before walking away, swaying her hips so far out with each step that I’m not quite sure why her body hasn’t detached.

Ryan grinned at me from ear to ear before throwing a watermelon peel in Courtney’s direct path. My jaw dropped as Courtney stepped on the peel as predicted, slid on it like a skateboard to the edge of the dock and fell – plunk – into the deep water. Ryan and I burst into laughter and even the guys that Courtney were with, fell into snorts and cackles.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” I laughed. “You’re horrible!”

“I know,” he snickered. “I am!”

A loud, piercing scream brought our laughing to an immediate stop. “Dannie Andrews!! Ryan Proud!!!! I’m going to kill you once I get up there!” An arm shot up from beneath the docks and then another before Courtney’s head suddenly popped up, hair covering her face with a piece of seaweed on top of her head.

I stared at her completely baffled. She was one heck of a quick swimmer – probably from that swamp incident – and before I knew it she had clambered back onto the dock, huffing angrily at me and Ryan. “You’re so dead,” she hissed.

I stuck my tongue out at her as Ryan jumped to his feet; half chuckling as he quickly stuffed his things back inside his bag. “Oh crap! Run! Run!” His hand quickly grabbed onto mine as we ran as fast as we could – still laughing as Courtney chased us – screaming from one end of the beach to the other until we finally lost her.