Belle 1: Just Two Kids

A little girl weaves through the sheets in the field by the cozy house on the field of a farm. She stares up at the sky twirling as if she was a bird taking flight for the first time. Her name was Sarah Belle Grayson, but the town of Bell Buckle outside Nashville called her “The Little Southern Belle” or “Belle”. Her mama calls her “My Mary-Belle” even though originally her name didn’t have “Mary” in it. The Little Southern Belle running so free then.

But that was me then, and now I run with purpose but still with the free spirit I used to/will always have. My golden-red, curly hair bounced against my back as I ran up the long dirt drive-way up to my friend, Brody’s house. My mid-night eyes set on the goal.

Brody Hammond and I have been best friends since we could walk. Our parents’ farm properties neighbor each other.

Ever since I can remember Brody has always been my best friend. Whether it was starting at the next school up or fights with my parents or even just to go run around the hay field behind our houses.

Though, to be honest, I have liked him since I discovered boys around my tenth birthday, but he never caught on. To this day I still look at him like the stars that shine in the sky. He’d always wonder why I blush when our mamas’ talk about us getting married in the town’s Methodist church. I never got up the courage to tell him, because he clearly saw me as his sister. I say this because he looks at his crush, Miranda Foster, like I look at him. I see a fire in his heart. I stare when he walks by. My heart races at the thought of him. But all of this was directed at Miranda from Brody’s perspective.

I wasn’t sure what killed me more; watching him want her, or listening to her trick to lead him on to make herself feel better. I’m not making this up, she sits behind me in Chemistry and I hear her saying how great it makes her feel to have lower hand reach for her. But the thing was she’s never said more than one word to him. I wish he wanted me the way he wants her, the way I want him.

I knocked on the front door of the little cottage house.

Brock, Brody’s older triplet brother, answered the door, “Hey there, dude!” he mocked Larry the Cable Guy’s red-neck alphabet. It was his favorite on the comedy CD he had.

“Brock.”

“Brody!” he called then turned to me, “Going running again?”

“Yeah.”

And the second my heart started beating faster, there he was. Brody. His wavy brown hair, his shocking green eyes, his elf sweet smile, and his defined muscle arms shown by a flannel shirt with the sleeves torn off; he made me melt.

Watching him run with me around the fields always reminded me of when we were little kids. He’d always chase me around the fields threatening to show me he could beat me up or if I dared him to kiss me like our mamas and papas did but bailed at the pucker of his lips.

There was only one time that he did pucker his lips at me and I didn’t pull away. We were eleven and thirteen. We were tired after a night run and we laid down in the middle of the field. Fire-flies dancing over our heads around the stars and moon. He and I had started teasing each other again we started wrestling until he was lying over me. He stared at me. Off instinct I dared him to kiss me. I closed my eyes to blink when I found his lips on mine. I almost pushed him off, but then I started to like it. I put my hand on the back of his head so he wouldn’t pull away. He opened his mouth alittle, but didn’t slip his tongue. When he pulled away, I got up and ran back to my house unsure of what to do after that. The next day we acted like it never happened, but we both remember we were each other’s first kiss.

That night was the only time he’d ever looked at me the same way he did Miranda. I longed for him to look at me that way. I could never understand why he liked her so much.

Miranda was the mean girl you saw in every chick movie like Mean Girls or A Cinderella Story or even What a Girl Wants. She was your typical dad’s spoiled princess with a black convertible that was always shining brighter than the sun, hair-dresser styled blonde hair, her thin lipped small mouth that looked like she was as pissed off as her green envious eyes did, and her Hollywood designer clothes. I couldn’t understand how someone could be so clean out here in this town, but I guess if your daddy owns a ranch worked by people he hired and not a farm you worked yourself, there’s bound to be a big difference.

When we got back to his house, Brock wanted to go mudding. They stuck me in the middle seat like the “delicate flower a Southern-Belle was meant to be”; their brothers Brian and Brett and brother-in-law Billy in the bed of the piece-of-crap Ford truck.

We drove on up the road out of town limits to the swamp where the boys rolled down the windows and drove through as many mud pits as they could find. It was always so much fun to go mudding and come back with a filthy truck.

Once Brock pulled in his daddy went hay-wire on him.

Brody and I just went and laid our spot in the field. The sun was just barely setting on that last day of summer. I wish it didn’t have to end so soon.

“It’s not gonna be like this starting tomorrow.”

“We still have the weekends.”

“True. But it’s not gonna be this much fun until next summer.”

I liked summers with Brody where he forgot about Miranda within a week. I was the girl he made time to see.

“One more real summer with ya.”

“I know. It’s crazy. Two more years left here, then one more year, then it’s off to the big city for big city parties, clubs, and a big school the size of our town.”

“You gonna miss it here?”

“Of course. Ima miss mudding, smashing mailboxes, cow tipping, swimming in the lakes at night, no police, but mostly running around with my best friend.”

I knew he’d forget about me once he got to the big city. The city always changes a person. They say they won’t forget you, but no matter the relationship, it ends the second he sees the tall buildings and Taxi-cabs. By the time they come back everything they once loved has gone. I didn’t want to see him leave and forget me.

“Awe, look whose being sentimental,” I teased.

“Deal with it,” he laughed, “You must be looking forward to not being a freshman.”

“Yeah! You guys were not nice!”

He started cracking up. The upper classmen decided to take what freshman they could get to the lake by our school and throw them as an invitation. But Brody, Brock and their group of Hill-Billy friends decided to keep doing it to me all year round. I had fun with it, but that meant I couldn’t wear white unless the lake was frozen over.

“It was all in good fun, Belle.”

“I know.”

I guess you could say Brody’s friends became my group of friends in the process, which was great because they didn’t give a crap if I was a girl or not. They were wild country boys, not prissy little girls. I only have one friend who’s a girl, Abigal. She was the girl I could go to for girl stuff like clothes, boys and female stuff, another true southern-belle; but I still preferred my country-boy friends.

Tomorrow started hell and fun times. School was the biggest contradiction ever invented.