Page 2 of Reckless Youth
My commands went completely ignored as the two boys continued to wrestle and kick, knocking each other around, creating a spectacle of themselves in front of our new classmates. So, I did the only thing that I could think of to break up the fight.
I joined in.
The bigger blond headed boy was on top of the small lanky kid, so I jumped on the back and yanked at the blond boy’s hair.
“Ow!” he howled, trying to buck me off his body with a wiggling motion, but I wouldn’t give up. I kept at him and his arm came back behind him and he ended up grabbing a piece of my long pony-tail, taking a chunk of it in his sweaty, dirty fist and pulling my head to the side.
While it stung and brought bright tears to my eyes, I wasn’t that easily immobilized. I’d fought with my brothers and picked up some good tactics along the way since I was old enough to walk. This was nothing in comparison.
Leaning down over my opponent’s head, I bared my teeth, getting a good piece of the earlobe on the boy.
He wailed loudly and we both landed in a heap, his back ending up on top of my chest, crushing me and getting blood on my pretty new dress.
It was then that the teacher finally realized what had been going on and she came running over to the sandbox and wading through the gaggle of kids who were still hooting and hollering over our interesting little scene. Had we been a few years older, the kids probably would’ve been placing bets, like I’d seen at the illegal cockfights at a neighboring farm.
“What do the three of you think you’re doing? This is not how we treat one another or make new friends.”
Miss Lund took a giant step into the sandbox, and grabbed hold of tiny, flailing arms, pulling us up to our feet one by one. With a swat to our rear ends, she marched us into the Principals office as the other kids giggled and squawked behind us.
What happened next will forever cement our loyalty and friendship, even though it eventually led us in opposite directions.
The Principal, Mr. Schuler, with his gruff face and graying hair, sat at his desk and eyed us each with pointed stares. I sat in the middle between the two boys, our feet dangling over the chairs above the blue carpet. I still hadn’t even learned their names.
“Who would like to tell me what started this fight?”
I glanced side-to-side to each boy to see if they were going to fess up to their actions. When it became clear that neither of them would speak up, based on their bent heads and downcast gazes, I stretched out my hands, grabbing a hand of each boy, holding them tightly as I spoke.
Surprisingly, my voice didn’t wobble or shake, and I didn’t cry. For some reason, being in the middle of these two boys made me feel strong and confident. Like they propelled me and held me up in some manner.
I had no idea what it really meant when I said what I said, but I’d heard it mentioned before when a man does a solid for a woman. And at that time, I felt it was my responsibility to speak up for these two rough-necked boys. Something inside me felt a connection worth holding on to. And worth lying about.
“They were defending my honor.”
And thus, our friendship began.
Through thick and thin.
Good times and bad.
Until our worlds were ripped apart and they broke my heart in ways that it could never be salvaged. Burnt beyond recognition in a blazing fire too devastating to collect the pieces it left behind.
Chapter 2
By seventh grade, our worlds revolved around each other like planets to the sun, and every free moment we were together. It never seemed to matter to Cam and Sage that I was a girl and they were boys.
Until the summer break between seventh and eighth grade. That’s when it became more than a little apparent that as a female, I was made different.
At that point, our bodies began developing. I was no longer the skinny, knobby-kneed girl with pigtails. Cam’s voice had dropped an octave and his chubby-cheeks and pudgy boy body began to fill out into a more muscular build, especially since he was working out with his junior high football teammates all the time.
And Sage…well, not only did he shoot up a foot to six-foot but the Halloween before, he’d dressed up as Jack Sparrow and found that the smudged eye-liner look appealed to him in many ways. He never wore it around his dad, though, for fear of being smacked around for looking like a “faggot.”
As for me, I began trading in my grungy cut-off shorts and baggy t-shirts for more “acceptable” feminine clothing, as my momma called it. Throughout grammar school, I learned that fitting in with the boys was easier if I looked more like one. As I hit puberty, it also helped to conceal my growing breasts. So, momma was happy as a Georgia peach that I was becoming interested in fashion and would take me shopping every chance she got.
One lazy Saturday afternoon, while Cam was off at some football camp, Sage and I moped in my basement, playing video games, when my momma asked us if we wanted to go to the mall. Had it not been for the way Sage’s eyes lit up with the opportunity, I would’ve politely declined. But seeing as he was excited to go, we all piled in my momma’s red sedan and drove the thirty miles to the one shopping mall in the county.
She dropped us off in front of Dillard’s, giving us each a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. The look on Sage’s face was one of appreciation and mortification.
Trying to hand it back to her, he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Moriety, but I can’t take this from you.”
