Ditching

Chapter 15 of Banished for Love

Okay, so I knew ditching was wrong. But it was as I’d said when I first met Devin in the meadow, the dude exuded an irresistible bad boy vibe; one that I just couldn’t help but follow. And I had to admit, I, or at least this new darker side of me (which seemed to be growing more prominent every day), enjoyed the thrill of being bad.

 

We sneak out to the student lot and Devin leads me to a sleek black Camero. I stand by it for a moment, admiring the design. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not into cars, at all. Try to talk anything vehicular to me and I’m totally lost, but I can still appreciate the apparent beauty of a car. Devin unlocks the doors and I slip into the black leather interior. He turns the key in the ignition and the engine purrs to life. We roll smoothly out of the parking lot and onto the tree lined road. Devin turns on his fancy schmancy looking stereo system and pops in a burned CD. Comatose by Skillet comes pumping through the massive subwoofers.

 

“Burnt disk of only the best of Skillet,” he explains with a smile.

 

“Does Skillet ever make bad music?” I counter, glancing at him. He laughs heartily, and the sound draws me even deeper into his mysterious world.

 

“I guess not, but some are certainly better than others,” he admits, still chuckling.

 

“I’ll agree to that,” I say, joining in his laughter.

 

After a few miles, Devin steers his car off to the side of the road and cuts the engine. I follow his lead when he steps out of the vehicle.

 

“Where are we going?” I ask as he heads off into the forest.

 

“Just trust me,” he smiles and offers his hand out to me. I hesitate only a moment before taking hold of it and letting him lead me into the tall trees. We walk through the unmarked vegetation, Devin pushing back the webs of ferns that get in our way. I realize after a while that I had never let go of his hand. I feel a smidge of guilt for holding his hand, especially after Jeremy showed such distaste toward him earlier. That smidge, however, is not enough to make me want to let go. Especially as some black part of me enjoys this small ounce of payback for treating me like prized cattle outside the history classroom. After all, it was just hand holding, friends hold hands platonically all the time. Big whoop.

 

After what seems like an eternity of walking, accompanied by the sounds of Black Veil Brides, Avenged Sevenfold, and Breaking Benjamin pumping from the headphones around Devin’s neck, we break into a small clearing. In the dead center of the nondescript round space is an absolutely massive tree. I look up, and up, and up in an attempt to see the top, but the tree is just too tall, at least twice the size of the ones surrounding it. Boards of wood have been screwed to the trunk as a makeshift ladder leading up to the lowest branch. Devin pulls me toward the tree and drops my hand when he sets off to climb it.

 

“You brought me out here to climb a tree?” I ask skeptically.

 

“I told you to trust me, didn’t I?” he smiles down at me, hoisting himself onto the lowest branch. I smile and shake my head before climbing the ladder myself. Devin moves up to the next branch so I have room to get onto the one below it. I climb onto his branch and pause to look at him.

 

“After you,” he says, gesturing to the limbs above. I stand gingerly and swing my leg onto the next highest branch, pulling myself onto it. I work my way up the tree cautiously but quickly, Devin close on my heels, until I see something strange above me.

 

“What is that?” I look down to the branch Devin is hanging upside down from. He looks past me at what appears to be a wall halfway up the tree.

 

“That is where we are headed. Keep going, there’ll be a ladder like the one at the bottom,” he says, continuing his climb. I stop so he can pass me.

 

“You go ahead and lead the way,” I say as he reaches the branch I am perched upon, our crouched knees barely touching. He pauses to smirk at me and begins to lean closer. I freeze, my brain going into overdrive wondering just what he thinks he's doing, but he just reaches past me to grab the next branch and hoist himself onto it.

 

I blow out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding as he forges ahead and I follow suit, avoiding beams anchoring the wooden wall to the tree trunk. Soon, the ladder he spoke of comes into view and he begins his ascent. I follow behind, taking his hand when he offers to help pull me up. I step through a hole in what I can now see is the floor of an absolutely massive tree house. The trunk of the tree shoots straight through the middle of the structure. All the branches once growing on the inside have been shaved off. A few torn and dusty bean bag chairs and an ancient battery powered CD player sit against one wall. Opposite that wall is a massive doorway leading to an equally huge balcony. It almost reminds me of a low budget version of the tree house in Spy Kids 2. Dumbstruck with awe, I walk out onto the balcony. The tree house is just high enough that it rests above the tree line of the forest. Not far off, I can see the shimmering gray-blue of the Pacific Ocean. A breeze blows the sweet scent of salt and pine across my face, and I inhale deeply.

 

“Cool, huh?” Devin asks, breaking the spell cast over me by the breathtaking scene I have been brought to.

 

“Understatement much?” I look at him incredulously as if he’d just said the moon was kinda chilly. “How did you find this place anyway?”

 

“I’ve taken a few trips into the forest ever since I moved here. A couple times to that meadow I met you in, and once out here. At first, I just thought it was a big tree, but the boards screwed into the bottom made me suspicious so when I decided to climb it, I found this place,” he replies, gesturing around him.

 

“It’s amazing,” I say softly, as if not to disturb the peace. The look on Devin’s face says “Understatement much?” and I roll my eyes at him.

 

I notice that the ladder we had come in on goes further up the trunk to a hole in the roof of the tree house. I walk over to it and climb up onto the steeply sloped roof. Devin follows my lead to stand next to me. The roof has tiles laid atop the wood, making for uneven footing. I take a step forward to get a better view of the roiling clouds above, but step wrong on a loose tile and crash to the floor. My feet slip out from under me; I land on my back and keep sliding down.

 

You know how they say in a life-threatening situation, your life flashes before your eyes? I can safely say it didn’t for me.

 

With a scream I roll onto my stomach and try to claw my way to a stop. Sheer panic rips through me as I realize I no longer have wings to save me, and I’m quickly running out of roof.

 

As I tip over the edge, a blood curdling scream bursts forth from my lips. I reach my hands up in one last ditch effort to save myself. I grope around for anything to grab onto, but my searching fingers come up with nothing. Suddenly, something catches my wrists. I cut the screaming when I realize I am miraculously no longer falling to my horrible demise, though my breath is still coming in panicked gasps.

 

I look up to find Devin’s strong hands locked around my wrists. His face peers down at me with a look of complete shock.

 

“Plant your feet on the wall and start walking, I’ll pull you up,” Devin instructs, a determined edge in his voice. I follow his orders quickly as Devin hoists me back up onto the roof. I plop down next to him, wheezing heavily from my near-death experience.

 

“Are you alright?” Devin asks, his tone dripping with concern.

 

I turn my head toward him, mouth open to answer, only to find his face mere inches from my own. Taken aback by his nearness, my answer leaves my lips as a barely whispered “yes”. I look up and meet his eyes, partially obscured by his dark hair. Without thinking, as if in a trance, I reach up and lightly brush his hair aside, revealing his hypnotic deep blue eyes. His eyes bore into mine with an intensity that was almost tangible in the small margin of space between us. Ever so slowly, Devin’s face leans closer to my own, and I feel myself moving forward to meet him in the middle. As his lips brush ever so lightly against mine, an electric current jolts beneath my skin, and that time I’m sure I feel it. Not near as much as I felt things before the fall, but more than I have been. Our lips move together, soft as a whisper, and the charge within me intensifies.

 

A flutter at the back of my mind cracks into the spell Devin has placed over me. I try to ignore it, enjoying the warmth of Devin’s lips gliding against mine, but it is insistent on gaining my attention. Begrudgingly, I focus on what my mind is nagging me about. The one-word crashes through my mind and turns my blood to ice in my veins.

 

Jeremy

 

I pull quickly away from Devin, gasping and scrambling crab-like up the roof. He looks back at me, shock and awe are the dominant emotions on his face.

 

“I-I’m sorry,” I stutter, trying to catch my breath.

 

“Don’t be, that was my fault. I shouldn’t have done that,” he responds, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

 

“It’s alright. Chalk it up to a thank you for saving my life,” I reply with a bemused smile. 

 

"Right," Devin says, appearing deep in thought.

I shake my head to clear the last of the adrenaline rush and grope around inside my brain for a change of subject. “What say you we get some gelato?”

 

“Sounds good to me,” he takes another long moment to look me over before he smiles and leads the way back down the tree.

 

As we walk through the forest back to Devin’s car, we must pass back into cell phone range, because mine starts going berserk. I pull it out of my back pocket and check the screen. According to this, I have four new text messages and two voicemails. All from Jeremy frantically asking where I had disappeared to.

 

Devin snorts out a laugh beside me, obviously reading over my shoulder. “Little overprotective, is he?”

 

“He’s just worried. I could’ve been kidnapped by some crazy person for all he knows,” I say, looking pointedly at Devin.

 

“Whatever you say,” he smiles condescendingly at me. I give him a shove toward a tree and walk on. He laughs and falls back into step beside me. I scowl, which only causes him to laugh harder. A smile cracks through my scowl and before long, I am laughing right along with him.

 

We break out of the forest and step into his car. He drives us into Big Sur and parks in front of La Dolce Vita, an amazing little gelateria. I step up and order a small waffle cone of cinnamon gelato, and Devin orders the same but with crème brûlée gelato. We walk outside and sit on the hood of his car, gazing up at the fast-moving clouds and enjoying our gelato.

 

“Is that cinnamon any good?” Devin asks, skeptically eyeballing my cone.

 

“Try some,” I reply, holding it out to him. As he reaches for it, I pull back slightly. “But only if I get to try yours.” He smirks at me and we trade cones.

 

“Mmm that is good,” Devin says after taking a rather large chomp out of the top.

 

“So is yours,” I reply. A thought pops into my head and I look at Devin. He is looking back at me with a similar light bulb over his head.

 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Devin inquires.

 

“If you’re thinking of trying them both together then yes!” I say excitedly.

 

I pluck the spoon from Devin’s gelato and scoop some of each flavor onto it. He does the same with my spoon. We place the spoons in our mouths at the same time and ponder the cacophony of taste sensations. I roll the gelato around my tongue for a bit before finally deciding that it is the best flavor ever.

 

“That’s ten times better than each of them separate,” Devin says blissfully. I murmur out a sound of agreement around another spoonful of gelato. Too soon our delectable frozen treat is gone.

 

“I should probably get you home, huh?” Devin asks, leaning back against the windshield and lacing his fingers behind his head, making no move to actually take me home.

 

“Not just yet,” I say, lying back beside him. I feel his gaze on me and turn my face to gaze back. He turns his face away just as I do. He closes his eyes and lets out a heavy sigh.

 

“What’s wrong?” I ask, propping up on my elbows to look at him.

 

“Just thinking,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.

 

“About?” I press gently, curiosity getting the better of me.

 

“It’s really complicated,” he says, turning to look at me again. There is a tired look in his eyes that makes him appear far older than seventeen. That gaze stops me from pressing any further, knowing that if he wanted to talk to me about it, he would.

 

“Come on,” he says, hopping off the hood of the car. “Let’s get you home.”

 

He pauses as I slide off the hood of the car and tosses me something. I catch the keys clumsily, fumbling them between my hands to keep them from falling to the ground.

 

“Why don’t you give her a go? Just be gentle,” he says, slipping into the passenger side.

 

I cautiously get behind the wheel, silently praying I don’t total his car on a tree. I start up the car and put it in gear smoothly. I thank my few lucky stars the vehicle is not a stick shift, considering I’ve barely mastered automatic. I press down gingerly on the gas pedal and the car takes off down the road. I weave through the intricate path back to Jeremy’s house and cut the engine once we make it there.

 

“Wow, it sure dives as smooth as it looks,” I say in awe of the vehicle.

 

“Indeed, she does,” Devin says, unbuckling his seatbelt and stepping out. I do the same and he walks me up to the front door.

 

“Thanks for today. It was a lot of fun. And you were right, I needed fun,” I say with a genuine smile. Hanging out with Devin almost made me feel normal again. Like for a moment I could forget my trauma and just be.

 

“Yeah, we should do it again sometime,” he smiles back. I turn the doorknob to head inside, only to be faced with a locked door. I check my phone clock; still a few hours until someone with a key will be home. I groan.

 

“Want me to wait here with you?” Devin offers. I think of Jeremy coming home to find me with Devin and shudder.

 

“No, it’s alright. I always leave my window open,” I say, pointing up the wall at it. I notice his eyes follow my finger up to the location of my room, and curse myself slightly for the information I just revealed. For all I know Devin could be a cat burglar in his spare time. 

 

“Alright, well then I will see you tomorrow,” Devin wraps me in a tight hug and I return it. As he releases me, he turns his face to plant a kiss on my cheek before walking back to his car and driving out of sight. I sigh and shake my head, contemplating what to do about him, before turning and climbing the plant grate to my room.

 

I shut the window and head for my desk to finish up my homework. I realize that my backpack is still in Devin’s trunk and smack the heel of my hand into my forehead. I grab my phone out of my back pocket and hunt through the contacts, hoping Devin’s number will by some miracle be there. But of course, it’s not, because that would be too easy, right? I groan and fall back on my bed.

 

Well, this should be fun.