If tonight ever makes a difference
The way that I feel, the way that I’ll remember it
I’ll take this down until the glass remains
Swallow the words that I was meant to say

---Vegas Nights, The Cab

“You won’t get a score just by sitting in the bleachers, dude,” Chuck gave me a nudge. “You have to go out in the field and play some ball.”

Chuck and his football rhetorics. Tch. “Look who’s talking?” I muttered bitterly. “If it wasn’t for me, Becky won’t have talked to you in a gazillion years.”

It was sort of an accident that Becky talked to him just because I said that the umbrellas were Chuck’s idea. But he’d gotta admit that I gave him the head start. He’d been wanting to talk to the girl for like forever. He just couldn’t come up with the guts to do so.

Chuck rolled his eyes and grinned. “Psshyeah. You’re Superman. You can do everything. Carry the world on your shoulders. Shoot lasers from your eyes.”

I grunted heavily. It was near noon. The sun was blazing and the beach was full of babes in bikinis and guys trying to pick them up. Reed and the others were having a dip. Only Sarah and Becky were left turning the barbecue. I adjusted my glasses and kept looking at them from my seat.

Lame.

All I could do was watch Sarah from a constant five-yard distance. Otherwise, she’d scramble away from me as fast as she could like I had some contagious skin disease. Being unwanted wasn’t something new to me.

Even my mother picked Nathan over me, didn’t she? And Arthur… he almost got rid of me when I was a kid. I never really took it out on Dad before because he’d been such a good dad to me, but still… I kept wondering what was wrong with me.

So I worked harder than every other kid I’d known. In the long run, I learned to stand out, not knowing when to quit. I got the recognition I’d so very much wanted. People actually wanted me. Loved me. Even though I knew none of it was real. But Sarah was different. She saw me for who I am. Accepted me despite my messed up life.

Of course, there was this option of running after her. She wasn’t really good at running. Literally. And then I’d never stop following her until she’d ran out of choices but to talk to me. Stalker-ish. But maybe, it’d work. The only problem was how to begin. Suddenly, I couldn’t think straight. Chasing girls isn’t really my thing.

That Doom’s Day feeling was rumbling in the pit of my stomach again. But I stood up, my mind blank. All I got was eighteen years worth of grit and hopefully, lots of luck.

“Watch carefully, Ferguson,” I muttered through my teeth. “I’ll show you how to do it.”

With heavy steps, I headed to Sarah and Becky. I could barely hear anything besides my breathing. I took in Sarah in her oversized white shirt, imagining how she’d look like in the blue two-piece swimsuit which was a bit obvious underneath. Her long dark brown hair was up in a loose bun with a number two pencil keeping it in place. A few wavy locks fell on her neck as she so intently flipped the steak.

She dropped one to the ground and pouted at it for three seconds. She was clumsy that way. Before Becky could see her fault, she quickly kicked sand over the piece of meat and forced a wry smile.

The corners of my lips twitched up. It was childish, what she did. But kind of cute. I stopped my thoughts from wandering too far and tried to focus.

You can do this, Leon. Or else, consider your life doomed.

I was just a few more steps away from Sarah when Chuck yelled, “Look out!” pointing up at something.

Annoyed, I looked at him and was about to yell back when something white and gluey dropped on my shoulder. When I trained my eyes up, a seagull cackled as it flapped away. Laughing at me, I guessed.

“Oh, come on! My luck couldn’t be that bad!” I hissed to myself as I hurried back to where Chuck sat laughing.

I pulled off my stained shirt and threw it to him angrily. The back of my ears grew hot. Getting pooped on by a bird wasn’t exactly on my to-do list.

He didn’t even look grossed out when he caught the shirt and waved it in the air. “Yeah! You totally showed me.” Then he laughed his throat out, doubling over.

Discreetly, I looked left and right for signs that anyone else had seen what happened. Looked like everyone was so busy trying to look fab in their bathing suits or hitting on each other to notice.

Just as I thought I was safe, I saw Becky pressing a hand over her mouth. And she was laughing. Ugh, Crud. Could this day get any worse?

I stormed my way to the truck to get a change of clothes. While I was rummaging in the CarryBoy, I toppled down the drum set, messily shoved inside the trunk of the car. The percussions clanked while I tried to pull out my backpack.

Whatever was Nate planning to do with those? Our band was over. My life was over.

The sides of my eyes burned and I had this sudden urge to throw up. All I could do was kick the tire closest to me.

Not the best idea, actually. I thought I broke a toe.

The rest of the day went on slowly. And I spent the whole time sulking on my recliner. Pretending to sleep. Sneaking a look at Sarah every now and then through my lashes.

I heard people wondering what I was doing sleeping in such a fine day and in the beach too. But I didn’t try to explain or care.

I was in no mood to act normal. Not while Sarah was always with Matt. Not while they were always sitting beside each other under the umbrella as Sarah flipped through her paperback of Countess Downstairs. Not while I could see them smile at each other every minute possible. Sarah’s smiles were supposed to be mine.

It was so excruciating I thought the ground would crack and swallow me whole. Maybe that’d be better than this.

Way later than that, Nate jerked my chair and threw me a jacket. I lifted my head to glower at him. He had that animated look on his face again. The same look he makes when he’s having a good time playing Grand Theft Auto on PS. And believe me, you don’t like it when he has that look.

It was already dark and the beach was slowly becoming empty. The guys were making a small bonfire in the middle of three tents they’d set up earlier in a secluded corner of the beach. I’d no idea if night camping was allowed in Gloucester. I couldn’t bring myself to care either. The beach might as well have been overrun by man-eating monsters and I won’t have noticed.

“Whaddaya want?!” I growled, half-dazed.

His fist collided with the side of my head. It wasn’t that hard of a hit but enough to bring me back to my senses.

“I’m still older. Don’t you forget that,” he replied in a laid-back tone.

Normally, I won’t have let him get away with it. But today, I’d no energy to hit back.

“I… can’t do it anymore. I figured maybe she’s miserable without me…” I muttered mostly to myself, still staring blankly at the moving silhouettes of my ‘friends’ against the flickering firelight. “But she isn’t. I know I’m supposed to be glad she’s doing okay but I’m not.”

He chuckled a bit and crossed his skinny arms in front of him.

“You’re a horrible, horrible person and you hate yourself. Is that it? How pathetic.” He stared down on me, looking a bit amused at my silence. “If you’ve still learned nothing, brother, let me tell you. You want something, grab it or others will. That is just how things are. Now get your lazy bum off that chair and do what you came here for.”

When I didn’t budge, he kicked the foot of my chair. As annoyed as I’d been, he got me up. I stared at my feet as I stepped to the bonfire.

Sarah and Matt was a blanket away from me. I thought I saw her storm-blue eyes flicker up at me but maybe that was just my imagination. So I just scooted on the dirt between Chuck and Ricky. A girl from school sat beside Reed to my left. I think her name’s Charrie but I never really talked to her. Then there was Becky, Larson, Mike and Leigh. Drake was out with some girl he’d met earlier.

Just imagining roasting marshmallows with this bunch already got me miserable. That was when Nate stood up in the middle and cleared his throat to get the others’ attention.

“Okay, guys!” he clapped his hands together, grinning. “Let’s play a game, shall we?”

Groans of protest filled the air. Something told me Mike and Matt weren’t at all okay with Nate taking charge. I dropped my head down in between my knees, letting out a tired sigh. I just wanted this day to end and mope for the rest of my life. And maybe get drunk while I was doing that.

Seeing the others’ reactions didn’t faze my brother a bit. Instead, he took a deep breath, removed the baseball cap he was wearing and leisurely dropped it to the ground. He pulled out his wallet, a confident smirk on his face.

“I got…” he counted the bills from his wallet. “Six hundred… thirty-eight dollars… and sixty-two cents on me. Anyone in?”

Mike got up, brushing the sand off his shorts. “Count me in.”

Cha-ching!

He looked pleased. If he honestly thought he’d outsmart my brother when it comes to money, he must be nuts.

The other guys stood up one by one except for Matt. No one gave him the second call though. It seemed like the scandal Chuck and Reed orchestrated in Matt’s after-grad party really ruined his chances of dominating the popularity ladder. I’d have preferred for him to join, if that was what it’d take to tear him away from Sarah. But it looked like Nate wasn’t bothered at all.

Becky, Leigh and Charrie huddled in a corner, giggling excitedly as they whispered at each other’s ears. Girls. I’d never know what was going on in their heads.

I took my place between the Fergusons, just beside Sarah and Matt who were still sitting on the blanket. I tried to not look at them, or else I might get all choked up again.

“One who gets the most points, gets the money,” he announced, dropping the money to the cap. “I have here, a box. There are about fifty pieces of paper in here, every one of which contains a challenge. If you are able to do the challenge you pulled out, you get a point. If you’re not…” he paused and eyed at Matt and went on “man enough, to do the challenge, you can pass.”

Mike grunted, nudging his way to the front and drew a piece of paper from the box. There was the slightest hesitant look on his face after he read what was written on the paper. A few seconds later, he smugly handed the paper to Nate.

“Piece of cake,” he muttered as he made his way to the beach running. Next thing we knew, he was already taking off his shirt, then his pants. It wasn’t long before he reached the water and threw away his underwear. “Yeeeaaahhh!” he yelled like a maniac.

“Seriously?” Chuck burst out laughing before racing to where Mike dropped his clothes. He picked the clothes and waved them at us like a victory flag.

Mike suddenly turned pale, shouting curses at Chuck when he realized what Chuck was about to do.

“Ferguson! I’ll kill you!” he shouted, the waves pushing him back and forth. All he could do was flail his hands in the water. He started running after Chuck but thought better of going out of the water butt-naked.

“Catch me if you can!” Chuck teased.

Reed just gave the really embarrassed Leigh what seemed to be a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Shame on you, Mike. Shame on you.”

“Oooh… That’s so BS,” Ricky winced, averting his eyes from the commotion.

Larson just gave Nathan a really weirded-out look. “What’s that all about?”

My brother grinned and read the challenge aloud. “Go skinny dipping.”

Ten seconds of silence. Everyone looked at each other uneasily, having second thoughts about joining up in Nathan’s sadistic game. Only Chuck was laughing his insides out as he buried Mike’s clothes in the sand. Mike kept calling at us but no one moved a muscle.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Nate began. “Let’s continue.”

I gulped. I got the message: If you don’t do it, you’re a big clucking chicken. If you do it, you’re a stupid jackass.

Strangely enough, Chuck practically threw himself in front of the line to pick his challenge. Eager beaver. I sometimes wonder how I became friends with him.

His challenge was to walk upside-down using his hands all over camp, which he did all excitedly. Larson had to kiss his best friend’s feet—he passed. Scaredy-cat.

Reed had to eat molten marshmallows on Chuck’s belly and without using his hands. It was hilarious. Chuck gets tickled so easily. He screamed and I mean scream really loud like he was being eaten by Godzilla alive, we had to hold his arms and legs to keep him from kicking and hitting his brother.

That’d got everyone cracking up—even Leigh who looked as if she was about to cry from the embarrassment Mike did. Still, no one helped poor Mike get his clothes back. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I wasn’t that scared anymore when it was my turn to pick from the box. Still chuckling a bit, I read my challenge.

Something blocked my throat when the words written in the small piece of paper finally sunk in. The heavy tugging in my stomach distracted me as I looked around.

Should I really do this?

Why couldn’t I have picked Drown yourself  or better yet, Jump off a cliff?

Nothing registered but the satisfied look on my brother’s face. He’d planned this all along. I didn’t want to do it. Not anymore. I’d chosen to stop torturing myself. Stop chasing after her.

“What’s wrong, Leon?” he scoffed at me, his eyes narrowing. “Jumpy, aren’t we? Want to pass?”

Every muscle in body ached to strangle him. I drew a sharp breath, clenching my fists to my sides. The expression on my face must’ve said it all. I couldn’t seem to act cool like I usually did. My head felt like it would explode if I so much as moved a finger.

“Or maybe,” Nathan stepped to me, shaking his head disappointedly. “He’s scared. Aww… poor little brother, cuppy-cake.” His baby-talk irked the hell out me.

“Shut your trap,” I muttered through clenched teeth, turning my back on him while I still had some restraint. “I’ll do it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At long last! Here I am again. And I'll be back after 5 days. Please do support my Watty Award entry--Reapers-Thirteen Brothers. Voting Starts tomorrow so please please show your support. Dedicated to the genius who made the trailer to the right. XDD If you know the song above, please do play it as you read this :)

xxx,

~shim :)