~ Summer Rain ~

Part Two

The Sowing

We were at camp for a single day, when the rumors started. I heard it rumbling under the surface like a bad dream.

I had a boyfriend. Ridge was Cuban with thick wavey black hair, that lovely hint of olive toned skin, straight black brows, chocolate eyes surrounded by the longest thickest lashes I’d ever seen on a boy, full lips, strong jawline, and a lanky body like most teenage boys. There was only one thing Ridge didn’t have that most of the boys I liked had, and that was height. He was nearly a head shorter than me. How I let him talk me into dating him, I’ll never know. We hadn’t done anything other than kiss, and he’d feel under my shirt, but I wouldn’t let him go further than that. We went to school together during the school year, and this was a change to be in a place without as much supervision. Only my so-called friend, Aubrey, was being accused of having sex with him in the chapel the first Sunday morning we were at camp.

The news ran through the campers like a wildfire rushing through brush. Everyone was talking about it, and all the girls were livid and annoyed. She’d done this before. She was always after someone’s boyfriend. She was a slut. She was a ho. How she didn’t have every disease in the book, no one knew.

The rumors, crude innuendos, and constant heckling were nearly endless.

I wanted to strangle her. I’m not sure why. I never really cared about Ridge like that. I think it was the principle of the thing. I would never have done something like that to her. Everyone was right about her. I thought we were friends. I’d thought I could trust her. I never would have tried such a thing with Raiman, the, so-called, love of her life.

At fourteen, none of us fully understood what that meant, but we thought we did. The thing of it is that I never thought of Ridge as mine. Instead of taking my anger out on her at first, I took it out on Ridge. I would punch him every time I saw him. Every time he talked to me, I’d just go off on him, punching him in the face, in the back, and occasionally, I’d get him in the balls. I didn’t understand that what I was doing was abusive and hateful. I didn’t understand why I did it. I wasn’t jealous. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I felt like a fool, and it was Ridge and Aubrey who made me feel that way. 

That rumor of Ridge and Aubrey having sex on the pew in the back of the chapel hit like battery acid. It burned, festered, and twisted beneath the surface. Every time I saw Aubrey, I wanted to punch her, but she was smaller than me, and I couldn’t bring myself to harm her physically. My other friends: Piper, Maggie, Hannah, and Naummi had no qualms smacking Aubrey around. It didn’t’ occur to me that we were little assholes. Every time I saw her, I struck out verbally. I called her names.

“Ho,” I call to her the day I remember now so vividly, as if I fully understood at the tender age of fourteen what that meant.

Aubrey ignored me and kept walking.

Piper shoved her and shouted in her face, “Didn’t you here Cassie, bitch!”

Aubrey took the push and turned in the other direction. I laughed at her pain and watched eagerly, as another set of hands pushed her from person to person in our group.

Maggie shoved her into Hannah.

“Watch where you going, slut, I don’t want to get your cooties on me.”

“She’d have to put her mouth on you for that, wouldn’t you, Aubrey?” Naummi asked, as she shoved Aubrey back to Piper.

Piper shoved Aubrey back to Hannah, and the round robin started all over again. I never touched her, never laid a hand on her, but I relished in the other girls’ abuse of her. I laughed and jeered, egging my friends on.

Every one of us had a beef with Aubrey. Maggie felt like she was after her boyfriend, Julian. Hannah and Naummi didn’t have boyfriends, they just didn’t like Aubrey because of what they saw as her slight against Piper, Maggie, and me. I was the only one who really had a right to be pissed at her. She’d slept with my boyfriend, after all.

Julian, Maggie’s boyfriend, flirted with Aubrey, but Julian flirted with all the girls. He even flirted with me. Piper liked Raiman, and for once Aubrey and Raiman weren’t together, so Piper scooped him up and decided Aubrey couldn’t have him back.

“What are you girls doing,” Jared, the camp director, was drawn to the noise of our group.

“Just having a little fun, Jared,” Maggie smiled, as she surreptitiously shoved Aubrey into me.

I gave Maggie a nasty look. She knew Jared liked me and wouldn’t say anything to me. She also knew, I’d never touch Aubrey, so the temptation to push her back in Maggie’s direction didn’t even come to me.

“Y’all need to keep it down,” he admonished.

I fluttered my lashes at him like the little minx I was. He was a grown man, and he was worse than a teenage boy. I saw the lust for me in his eyes, and every other girl there did too. When he blushed and walked away, we all giggled.

I stepped away from Aubrey.

“I have to go take a shower,” I sneered with all the implied nastiness shoved in Aubrey’s direction I could push into my voice.

“Why are you being so mean to me?” Aubrey finally broke, her eyes shedding tears I was sure she’d been holding in for days.

“You don’t’ want the answer to that.” I glared at her and began to turn away.

She grabbed my arm, trying to pull me back to her. “What did I ever do to you?” she asked, her cheeks awash in tears.

“You slept with my boyfriend.”

She recoiled from me, dropping my arm, and looking more shocked than I’d ever seen before. It couldn’t be feigned, but I sneered anyway. I stayed the course of my actions. If I was wrong, if I was lied to, if I’d harmed someone without compunction and all the information, I don’t think I could have borne it.

“I didn’t,” she said, those big brown eyes imploring me to believe her.

But I couldn’t believe her. Because if I did, that meant I was unjustifiably cruel to someone that I had called friend, and that made me a lousy friend. Better she be lousy than me, and so, I ignored her pleading eyes and stunned tone, turned my back on her, and walked away to do just as I’d said. I took the longest shower I had all summer. I felt like someone had thrown mud on me. The dirt of my actions and those I’d allowed to occur around me wouldn’t wash away as easily as the dust from the ground, but I certainly tried.

Thank you for joining me this week for the second installment of Summer Rain. There is only a little left to tell of this part of the story, but the saga continues in another series of what I like to call shortsies. Let me know what you think in the comments. Have you ever been bullied? Have you ever bullied someone? Bullying is a big deal these days. The thing of it is that bullying has always existed; it’s just handled differently these days. The media influences society’s opinions and public opinion of the subject is far different now than it was during my school years. Another thing to consider is that we had to do our bullying face to face. There was no Facebook, Twitter, Tick Tock, or Instagram in my day. We only got it in school, and we had a bit of a reprieve in the evenings and on weekends. That’s not the case now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my shortsy concerning not only the bullying but how things play out. Tell me your stories and tell me how you’d like this troy to end.

Till next we meet, stay well & keep creating!

CSA

E-mail: Nell@letsgetpublished.com

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