Chapter 3

College arrives and they're going their separate ways... graduation and going away to college parties fill Jessie's life until she decides what she wants to do with her life.

Chapter Three

 

 

 

July 1^st 2003

 

Mara and Dakota had to leave last night mom and dad reached the final straw with their s**t, they’re currently staying with friends, but my parents are going to get them an apartment a few blocks away. I don’t have to worry about seeing them much though, I’ll be going to college next year I’m spending this year working.

 

The house has been quiet for a week, I haven’t had to worry about who would be waiting for me at the end of the hallway or at the bottom of the stairs. They’re not home anymore, the only person I have to worry about is Claire but she’s too stupid to do anything. I get the occasional, ‘I miss Mara and Dakota, I wish SOMEONE didn’t get them thrown out of the house,’ thrown in my face but mom or dad are quick to tell her how wrong she is, every time she tries to guilt trip me.

 

Trisha’s leaving to Texas soon, she invited my family to her goodbye party, I don’t know how many people will be there but I know that Aileen and Natasha are going as well. Attire is somewhere outside the realm of casual but not formal, in fact she doesn’t want anyone to worry about formal dress, just show up in something nice and you’re good. I hope a cobalt striped sundress will work, I know she won’t throw me out of her house if I’m not dressed appropriately, but it would be embarrassing to show up overdressed or underdressed for the occasion.

 

We arrived at Trisha’s white mixed with a little grey three-story classic Normandy inspired house at twelve in the afternoon. Her house is like a miniature version of a mini castle. It feels that way when you walk up the walkway that extends down the small hill their house sits on. My mom and dad wore red outfits; my mom wore a white strapless dress with red and pink floral design and a red ribbon in the middle with red ballet flats and ruby red earrings. My dad wore a red and white striped V-neck T-shirt with jean shorts.

 

We entered through the side gate, as instructed to do so by a small makeshift sign they stuck in the front lawn. They already had barbequed food ready on a table and were in the process of making more, another table hosted the other foods, I like to call them munchies, but I’ve never really said this out loud before, they consist of chips, dips, the bagged popcorn in many varieties. Doritos, many brands of potato chips, Cheetos, you name it, there's a bowl for it. Right next to the munchies is the endless supply of drinks. Balloons held down by paperweights with congratulations and good luck written on them decorated the sides of the tables.

 

“You’re here!” Trisha squealed I turned to where I thought I heard her voice come from but I didn’t see her until she nearly knocked me over with a hug.

“Hi Trisha,” I hugged her back.

“You look great, you parents do too!” She shook their hands once she let go of me, “I’m going to miss you all when I leave!”

“You can visit us whenever you’re free, I’m not going away until next year, and you have a phone use it wisely.”

“You’re not going to college?”

“Well I am but I’m staying local. I’m not ready to leave home yet.” I spent most of my life struggling to get along with my siblings; I don’t want to leave when I’ve just started living.

 

* * *

 

 

“Would it be weird if I called your parents to say hi to them occasionally?” She asked while we were inside making more iced tea and refilling bowls of chips in the Snowy kitchen I don’t know where the nickname originated from, but they called it Snowy kitchen when I first visited her house when I was ten. I think her family started it and it caught on within our little circle of friends. Nearly everything is white with the exception of the floors and counter tops. There are two dark brown black beams above the table where three dark brown chairs sit. The middle of the kitchen decided to have three random dark brown things, the wood beams, the chair, and the light fixture. Everything else is white and the counter tops are golden yellow.

“You still have a crush on my dad?” I sighed and she blushed.

“I’m sorry you’re dad’s just this tall mass of sexy!”

“He’s my dad!”

“He’s hot!”

“He’s married!”

“I know!”

“No it wouldn’t be weird, my mom thinks you’re awesome despite the fact you want to sleep with her husband.”

“I never said I wanted~”

“I don’t believe that you don’t want to have some sort of sexy time with him so stop lying to yourself.”

“Fine, don’t believe me! I was going to tell you that someone should be stopping by later but I haven’t heard from said person so I don’t know if they’ll make it in time.”

“Trisha I’ve never really met most of your extended family so I don’t care about you dangling that in my face.”

“You’d care if you knew who I was talking about, but I’m not going to tell you!” She stuck her tongue out at me and carried the pitcher of iced tea outside the back her light purple smocked tie-top dress floating out behind her.

Once I refilled the pretzels and Cheetos bowls, I brought each one out separately so I didn’t drop them. I walked back in to get the second bowl and ran into a rather short man with shoulder length frizzy red hair with a blonde tint.

“Hey have you seen my cousin Trisha?” He asked scanning the crowd of people outback through the door.

“She just ran outside, she’s wearing a purple dress if that helps at all.”

“Thanks a bunch.” He said and headed outside, but not before stealing some pretzels.

 

 

After everyone got sick of lunch, Trisha and her parents brought out the deserts. Some they made from scratch, others they brought at the store, but all of it looked amazing. I’ve never seen so many cookies and brownies in one place before. They laid the cookies out on three different silver platters, the chocolate chip in one row, sugar right next to it, and next to that, sugar cookies with icing on them. On a separate platter were the nuts, peanut butter without pieces of peanuts, macadamia nut next to it, and walnut cookies. The last platter of cookies had oatmeal cookies some other kind of cookie that looked like a sugar cookie, gingerbread cookies, snicker doodles, and chocolate cookies with white chocolate or butterscotch chips. I decided to take a sample of everything, one of each cookie except macadamia because I hate them. I put the brownies on top of the cookies and had to wait until I ate some of the deserts to go back for the cakes.

 

I noticed the cooler full of soda cans had more ice than soda so I headed inside to get some more. I put my plate of cookies and brownies on the dining room table and headed into the kitchen. The case of root beer sat underneath a case of Pepsi and Sprite. I tried moving the cases but they hardly budged. I didn’t want to ask for help but I really wanted a root beer. I continued trying to move the box of Sprite, the box on top of the Pepsi, but nothing I did worked in the slightest bit. I decided that I’d have to hope for the best and pray there’s a stray root beer buried in the ice, only to have a man reach down and pull out the box soda.

“Thank you so much!” I said and managed to shove the other box back.

“You didn’t want the Sprite?” He asked as I slid the box of root beer out of the cabinet.

“Nope, I wanted root beer.”

“Did you check the cooler?”

“I wasn’t sticking my hand in all that ice.”

“So you took the hard way and tried fighting with the other two boxes even though you knew you could have checked outside first.”

“It made more sense in my head than it does out loud.” I thought about turning around to see who I was talking to but now I’m too embarrassed to look, I kept my head down to avoid looking at the man who helped me with the box of sodas.

“Thanks again for helping me.”

“You’re welcome stranger.”

“I’m Jessie.” I said and tried to leave the kitchen before the conversation could get even more awkward than it already is.

“Hey are you Trisha’s friend?” he asked and I nodded. I completely forgot about my plate of sweets, I used them as an excuse to continue avoiding the man who helped me.

“Yes, I’m her friend. Why do you ask?” I’m not sure why he wanted to know. Does she talk about me to her extended family members? Why would she do that, I’m not that special.

“You’d know if you stopped finding reasons to avoid looking at me.” He teased again only this time he walked over to me and didn’t move.

“Well stop teasing me and maybe I will.”

“It’s not like I don’t know what a girl blushing looks like,” He laughed when I continued staring at the plate. I glanced over at him, but I couldn’t see his face, just the upper half of his body. He bent down and moved my hair out of my face.

“Hey there’s your pretty face.” He smiled and I nearly fell over. He caught me and pulled out one of the chairs.

“I’m fine, Ben I’m fine.” I don’t know if those words came out of my mouth the way I wanted them to, but I knew that’s what I wanted to say.

“Do you randomly faint or almost faint, on a daily basis?” He asked and I shook my head.

“No, I don’t randomly faint there’s usually a reason.”

“Well then your reaction makes perfect sense.”

“Well you could have told me you were just standing there the whole time!”

“How was I supposed to know you weren’t going to look at me?”

“Well if you’d stop teasing me maybe I would have looked sooner but I didn’t because in my mind I made myself look like a dumbass in front of a random stranger!”

“So making yourself look like a dumbass in front of someone you listen to on a daily basis is a completely different issue?”

“No that makes it worse!” I never thought this would be my first conversation with Ben Burnley. Every word I say makes me sound like an idiot, I should just stop talking, but I can’t sit here and ignore him.

I figured food was my best defense, so I started eating one of the brownies with caramel on top.

“You’re not going to talk to me anymore are you?” He asked and I shrugged my shoulders until I managed to swallow the brownie bite.

“This brownie is really good, I might go get more and since it’s rude to talk with your mouth full that means no talking for me.”

“I see what you did there.”

“I didn’t do anything, Trisha’s dad made these brownies. He always makes them for special occasions. I am doing the right thing and enjoying them. Other than that I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I took another bite of the brownie. We sat in silence for quite a while; we sat there in silence because he wanted to see how long I could go without saying something. He knew I wasn’t going to get up and walk away, and it wasn’t until Trisha’s mom walked in that the silence was broken.

“Oh you made it!” She smiled at Ben.

“Yeah, I called Adam a little while ago and told him to tell Trisha.”

“Well she’s looking for you, and there’s the root beer. There’s no left in the cooler.”

“Look who’s the smart one!” I laughed and he sighed.

“You didn’t know there wasn’t any root beer until she came in here and said there wasn’t.”

“Well you didn’t know either so I win!”

“Did I miss something?” She asked carrying the case towards the door; Trisha’s dad walked in and grabbed the case of Pepsi and Sprite.

“He was making fun of me for trying to fight with the other two boxes of soda when I could have stuck my hand in the ice and dug around for a can of root beer while getting frostbite in the process.”

“Why didn’t you just ask for help?”

Ben burst out laughing. I picked up my plate and walked back outside.

“Where the hell have you been?” Trisha asked when she found me hiding off to the side away from everyone else.

“Inside, fighting with the boxes of soda,” I mumbled while eating another cookie, a gingerbread cookie. It tastes amazing.

“Why were you fighting with a case of soda?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I blushed.

“Well Adam and Ben arrived and you need to meet him!”

“I already did.”

“When did you meet him?” She asked upset she didn’t get to see the expression on my face when I saw Ben. Unfortunately, for me he happened to overhear the conversation and decided to tease me even more.

“I walked into the kitchen and she was struggling with the box of Pepsi. So I helped her out only to see her move the box of Sprite and get the root beer out.”

“Why didn’t you~”

“We already went over that!” I cut her off before she could finish her sentence.

“She thought it was a better idea to try and move boxes too heavy for her than stick her hand in ice.”

“This is why I was hiding over here!”

“Why?” Trish asked wondering why I was hiding from someone I previously wanted to meet.

“Because he insists on teasing me when I knew what I was doing!”

“You might have known what you were doing but there were other ways of going about getting another can of root beer.”

“I’m ignoring you for the rest of the party!”

“No you’re not you just met me. We haven’t known each other long enough for the cold shoulder.”

“Watch me,” I said and got up to get some slices of cake.

 

 

Author's Note

I feel like this is a cheap way to go about introducing him to the story but it seemed kind of cute in my head...