about a boy,
who was lost,
and thought he was found,
until he meets a girl,
the same girl,
who makes him wonder
if there's more to life
than just getting by.
-
[a Jem-centered novella/sequel to The Girl Who Saw Through Jem]
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Chapter Five
Arizona's Calling
Jem
Heath Burnwood was still the same old beautiful bastard I remembered from high school when I landed in Phoenix Sky Harbour International airport. With his quintessential golden boy good looks and bright blue eyes, he was not hard to pick out of the crowd in the arrival hall. And of course, he was dressed in an obnoxious striped Guess t-shirt, three quarter denim shorts and that fucking Lacoste backwards cap. So again, not hard to miss.
"Jem fucking Leighton," he crowed out and embraced me in the tightest bear hug when he saw me, attracting a bunch of dirty looks from a travelling group of elders due to his profanity. I grinned, widely and beaming.
"You're still ugly as I remember," I smirked when he pulled back.
"Hmm, that's not what your mom said," he retorted but he helped me with one of my duffel bags by slinging it across his buff shoulders.
"Where's Caleb?"
"The fucker's just waiting in the car, pretending to be the driver so we don't have to pay for parking."
I laughed, my whole body felt engulfed in light and sunshine by Heath's personality. It was like coming back into a place that never stopped having its arms open for you. I might not have a perfect home life but with my friends, it was always home.
We skipped across the metallic chrome world of the airport, up in arms with the discussion of what we've been into. Heath filled me in on his exploits at his fraternity in Arizona state, telling me wide-eyed and big-grinned the crazy alcohol-fueled benders he and his frat brothers would get into and all the hot college girls he got involved with.
I listened, patiently while commenting and ad-libbing my opinion and amazement. A wave of nostalgia hit me as I recognized my own adolescent in Heath's conversation and I couldn't believe I would ever once think it but seeing Heath made me realize how much I craved for the days of high school.
It had been almost a year since Heath and I saw each other. So much has happened since then but at that moment, it felt like not a single second has moved.
-
"Does this look blue to you?" Caleb asked and cocked his head, staring pensively at the massive bucket of mysterious jungle juice they mixed up. The Youtube tutorial they searched in how to make cool blue jungle juice had told them to just pour in cheap vodka, Blue Curaçao, Malibu and every discounted beer they could think of.
"It looks green," Heath said, though I suspected he didn't even bother to look over.
"It could be blue," Jacob Luong, a fellow member of Heath's fraternity, said bracingly. Unlike Heath, he inspected the potion carefully and I found my personal space dangerously invaded; Jacob leaned in entirely too close for comfort.
