White is for Virgins

Chapter 37

Lily was an amazing friend; I commended her efforts. I really did. Every day after graduation she'd come over and we'd do something. To be honest, at first I didn't want to do anything. I didn't feel like I was capable of being fun. However, there were several key factors that prevented me from staying at home all day eating ice cream and microwaved pizza. For one thing, it wasn't my house. The last thing I wanted to do was sulk in front of my parents and grandparents – no way in hell was I explaining my situation to them, especially prom night. Secondly, my grandparents didn't even have ice cream or good, high quality junk food. Something about not having enough enamel to stand the pain? Thirdly, I got a car. It wasn't anything special, but for my first car a used '06 Chevy Cobalt was pretty alright. I wanted to drive it.

So we went places – the mall, the park, the lake, the beach, the movies. We did whatever there was to do at least four times over in less than a month's time. By late July I was pretty stable in terms of going on with my summer. I couldn't very well just sit in bed. One breezy July afternoon, I was driving around with Lily and Nick, looking for some place to hang.

"OHMYGOD," Lily exclaimed, her face pressing up against the window.

"What?" Nick and I asked at once.

"It's the carnival!" She pointed to a giant Ferris wheel and a cluster of colorful machinery off in the center of town. "Oh my God, I can smell the fried dough as we speak."

"Wanna go?" I offered nonchalantly.

"Like you even have to ask," she laughed. I signaled right and headed for the fair while Nick and Lily whipped out their phones and started texting more people to come join us. Within half an hour our three-some had morphed into a seventeen-some.

"Do people really have nothing better to do in the summer?" I wondered aloud, getting in line for tickets.

"Guess not," someone smirked behind me. I know that voice from somewhere... I looked over my shoulder hesitantly. The guy I saw was staring right back at me intently with a playful look on his extremely tan face. I didn't know what to make of his presence. We weren't exactly friends.

"Miss me, Em?" he asked jokingly, motioning for me to move up as the line moved up.

"No offense, Justin," I muttered, "but not really."

"I figured," he said truthfully. "We didn't exactly hit it off."

"Ya think?" I smirked, finally in front of the ticket holder. "20, please."

"That'll be 25 dollars," the girl said behind the Plexiglas.

"What a business," I muttered, looking down at the scarce amount of dollar bills I had. "Um, can I actually just have 10, then?"

"She'll get 20," Justin insisted, reaching his arm around me and handing the girl a fifty-dollar bill. "And I'll get the same."

"Are you sure?" she confirmed, evidently trying to be funny. Or maybe she was just flirting with Justin.

"The tickets?" Justin asked expectantly. I bit down on my lip as she frowned and carried on with her job. Justin handed me my set of purple tickets and I followed him off to the side while we waited for everyone else to buy their stuff. Lily was out in search of fried dough.

"Thank you," I told him, "for these. I shouldn't have let you buy them, though. I don't really even want to be here."

He grinned. "It's no problem. And don't worry, you don't owe me anything. Even if you don't want to be here, you deserve to have some fun. 10 tickets wouldn't get you shit around here."

I laughed at that one. "It'd get me at least one Ferris wheel ride," I shrugged. "I'd live."

"Well now you can ride it twice, maybe even three times," he said, winking flirtatiously.