“Shh,” Taylor put his finger to his lips. He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the woods without saying a word. When we’d gone far enough so that I had no idea which direction we came from, Tay said, “This should be good.”
“They’re so gonna know that we’re out here. Like they’re not gonna notice we’re missing.”
“You saw how involved they were with fishing. They wouldn’t notice anything right about now.”
“But what about the rest of them… all the kids… Avie, Carla…”
“You worry too much,” he said, taking my face in his hands and kissing me softly. Despite the fact that I could feel the kiss in my toes, I still managed to keep one eye open just to be safe.
“Would ya stop?” Tay laughed, feeling me tense up as we heard a squirrel run by.
“Taylor,” I mumbled because his mouth was still on mine.
“What?” he asked impatiently.
“Sexual frustration, much?” I couldn’t help laughing at his disgruntled expression.
“Well, what do you expect?” he pouted.
“Fine then,” I laughed as I yanked off my t-shirt. “Is that better?”
“Actually…”
“What the f&^k is wrong with you?!” I asked, grabbing my t-shirt from where I’d thrown it just a few short minutes before. “Did you forget to take your medication or something?!”
“Robinson, it’s okay,” Tay said calmly, although the look on his face said other things.
“You stupid crazy whore!” I yelled.
“I told you I’d get you back,” Carla said calmly, smiling viciously.
“I’m gonna kill you!” I lurched at her, but Taylor caught me and held me back. I was so pissed, my face was burning hot. If Tay let go of me, I really was going to kill her.
“Calm down, Tayler,” Tay’s grip was tight on my shoulders. It occurred to me that that was one of the few times he’d ever called me by my first name. I calmed down a little. Tay’s grip eased up. “Put your shirt on,” he reminded me. As I did so, Tay spoke calmly to Carla, “What are you going to do with that?” he pointed to the camera dangling from her hand.
“Jerk off to the pictures,” I scowled.
“Tayler,” Tay elbowed me, but he couldn’t help cracking a smile.
“You won’t think it’s so funny when your mother is the one that gets the film developed.”
“You realize that you’re the pervert here…” I glared at her.
“Robinson,” Tay eyed me warningly. I knew I was only getting us into more trouble. Still, I thought, I could jump on her right now and rip the camera out of her hands…
So I did. While Taylor was rationalizing with her, I threw myself at her, knocking her over. I surprised the hell out of her, and ripped the camera from her hands. She started screaming, but I was able to open the back of the camera to pull out the film.
“You f&*king retard! What, did you forget your medicine today?” I burst into laughter as I let the camera fall to the ground. She was able to shove me off her easily because I was laughing hysterically. She started to wail on me, but I was laughing too hard to notice. “She didn’t put any film in,” I managed to choke out as she hammered my stomach.
“Shut up, b!tch!!!” her cheeks were flaming red.
Since I was making no attempt to defend myself, Taylor pulled Carla off me and held her back as I wiped tears of laughter out of my eyes.
“This isn’t over,” she said as she ran off into the woods.
I sat on the ground, my stomach aching from Carla’s punches and side-splitting laughter.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Taylor offered me his hand to help me up.
“Why not?” I continued laughing.
“Called her a retard, I mean,” he was totally serious, and I tried to wipe the smile off my face, “Or said anything about her medication.” He shook his head, “Carla has ADD.”
I stopped giggling. I almost felt guilty. Almost. “Tay, come on now. Just because she has ADD doesn’t mean she has license to be a sneaking b!tch.”
“I know, but still,” he looked downtrodden. I knew I had just insulted his childhood friend. “We should head back,” he looked away from me.
“I’m sorry, Tay,” I felt genuinely bad.
“I know. You wouldn’t have said that if you’d known. But now she’s only angrier. I guess it’s only a matter of time now…” his voice trailed off.
“Matter of time before what?”
Taylor only sighed and started walking back toward the river.
I wanted to ask him what he was talking about, but he really looked like he didn’t want to tell me. On the way back I pulled bits of dead leaves out of my hair and buttoned my pants, returned myself to normal. My stomach was aching from where Carla had hit me, but I wasn’t about to admit that to anyone.
The people in the fishing party were scattered all along the bank of the river, so it wasn’t hard to blend back in. Taylor picked up his pole from where he’d left it without a word and cast out his line.
I figured I must have pissed him off quite a bit, because he didn’t even look at me. Taking the hint, I wandered off and found Ike around the bend of the river. “Hi,” I waved. “Catch anything?”
“Nothing good,” he sighed.
“That sucks. How are the dads doing?”
“It’s hard to tell. They’ve been very quiet.”
I nodded.
“What’s up?” he asked.
I suddenly found myself blurting out the whole story to Ike. When I was done, I let out a huge sigh and plopped myself down on the sandy rocks of the bank.
“That sucks,” Ike half-laughed.
“I know. Plus I think Tay’s pissed at me.”
“I doubt it.”
“He seemed pretty upset.”
“Most likely because now it’s only a matter of time.”
“What the hell is that?!” I asked, almost laughing. “A matter of time until what?”
“I dunno,” Ike shrugged, a concerned look on his face.
