(Hey everyone! Here's a new story. It's going to be JJ/Spence centric, no Henry storyline. I'm planning for it to be more romantic and humorous than Nothing Left and Home, and I hope you enjoy! As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks!)
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd."
William Shakespeare, Sonnet
Pennsylvania, 2004
The soft crash of the waves against the sand filled the darkness. The light from the bonfire gave off giant shadows that danced across the trees, giving the entire night a wild and magical air. I sat huddled in a lawn chair, arms clutching my sweater close to me as protection from the chill of the wind. As May had progressed, the days had gotten longer and warmer, but the nights were still cool, especially this close to the lake.
Jason Green had brought his stereo and was blasting an Usher CD. My classmates were all tipsily dancing around the bonfire, plastic cups and bottles loosely clasped in their hands. I knew it probably wasn't smart to be drinking this close to both an open flame and a giant body of water, but we were seniors! Eighteen long years in our tiny Pennsylvania town and we were finally graduated and free to live our own lives. We were straddling the line between the life we had been born into- our working class upbringings, everyone attending the same elementary school and playing in the same junior sports leagues, dutifully shouldering the expectations of our parents., and the life we would go out and build. The only thing that stood between me and the promise of the future at the University of Connecticut, where I had earned a spot on the women's soccer team, was a measly few months working in the family hardware store. My stomach fluttered with butterflies at the thought. All the hours training and working my ass off had paid off. I was getting out of this stupid town.
I took a drink from my own cup and grimaced slightly at the taste of warm cheap beer. I didn't drink much; I had always gone with my friends to the Friday night, post-football game parties, but the knowledge that I had to be up at seven am to go running with my dad had made me content to serve as the driver. But this was a special occasion so I had accepted the drink pressed into my hand by classmates. I tipped it back and finished it off, throwing it in the metal barrel someone had thankfully had the sense to drag close to our campsite. I turned around to find Sean Abernathy looming over me.
"Jenny!" He bellowed.
I smiled and eyed him warily. "Hey Sean."
"Why aren't you drinking? You never drink." His slurred words were once again way too loud, even for my tipsy state.
"I am, I just finished my drink." I explained.
"Well have more!" He shoved a smirinoff into my hand and lumbered off toward where the stereo system was set up. I looked down at the drink in my hand and shrugged. Why not? I unscrewed the cap and took a sip. The fizziness and sugary rush assaulted my tongue but it was nice after the awful metallic beer.
I stayed standing off to the side, observing my classmates. We existed in the sort of camaraderie that can only come from knowing each other from preschool. In a town this small, everyone knew everyone, the good, the bad, the ugly. Which meant I didn't feel bad thinking that for the most part, they were done. Some would go on to study at local universities or community college, but most, like Sean, would stay here. They would go to work in the factories and on the surrounding farms and marry way too young. They would have children shortly after, dooming themselves to never do anything great. Not that I was judging them. Hell, that's what my parents had done. High school sweethearts, he proposed the night my mom graduated from high school. He had graduated a few years earlier and they were married late that summer. He worked at my Papa's hardware store, taking it over once he passed away. Mom worked as the high school receptionist for a few years before getting pregnant with my sister Rosalind. 26 years later they were still married, which had to speak for something.
But that's not what I wanted. I wanted to go out and explore. I wanted to see what the world was really like outside of rural Pennsylvania, and I was determined to get out no matter what took. Just like Spence.
Remembering my best friend I glace around, trying to find him among the dancing teens. Not that Spence was the drink and dance type. He was the farthest thing from it. But he had promised that he would come and I couldn't see him. I was beginning to feel a little anxious for his well being when I stumbled to the edge of the clearing and saw a figure sitting on a log further down the beach. As I walked closer I found myself missing the intense heat of the fire. The wind whipped my long blonde hair into my face and I rubbed my hands up and down my arms in an attempt to stay warm.
"Whatchya thinking about, boy genius?" I called out as I came closer.
He glanced over his shoulder, pushing his glasses further up his nose.. "I was thinking about how foolish it is to place this many intoxicated teenagers in such close proximity to not one but two dangerous catalysts."
I couldn't help but laugh as I took a seat next to him on the log. "Me too. Maybe not in such fancy terms, but it's definitely a stupid idea." I took a deep breath of the fresh lakeside air and pushed my hair away from my face.
"You've been drinking," he observed.
"Yeah." We regarded each other in silence for a second. "You've seen me drink before."
"Not this much."
I shrugged. "Well, for once in my life, I don't have to train tomorrow so I figured I might as well live it up a bit."
He nodded. "Where's Lindsey?"
I sighed deeply. "Who knows. Probably plastered, off somewhere professing her love to a tree trunk who she thinks is Jesse Travis." My best girlfriend had been infatuated with the football star since we were kids. He had never returned the feelings so she had responded by always being the drunk, crying girl at parties, making out with anyone she could get her hands on.
"Shouldn't you be watching her?"
"Spence it's my graduation too! I deserve to enjoy it!" I leaned closer and rested my head against his shoulder as we looked out on Lake Erie. "Can you believe it? We graduated Spence. We're finally done. Just a few months until we are out of here for good."
"It's hard to believe it's finally here." He agreed. "I wish we weren't going to be so far apart, though. I mean, don't get me wrong, you're going to love it at UConn, and the team is lucky to have you, but I'll miss you."
I butted my shoulder against his. "Don't forget that you are going to have a great time at Caltech. Finally getting to study underneath competent teachers instead of burnt out coaches that can barely remember how to open a textbook? It's gonna be awesome." I softened my voice. "But I'm going to miss you too."
"Are… Are you ever nervous about the future?"
"Well yeah, who isn't?"
He shook his head and his long brown hair flopped into his face. "No just, the sheer magnitude of the unknown. Who knows where we'll be a year from now."
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. "Yeah I get that. I guess… You just have to trust that everything will end up the way it's supposed to, y'know?"
"Yeah but it's terrifying! Especially if you start to look into the theories behind modern quantum mechanics-"
I let my head fall back as I let out a loud groan. "C'mon Spence you know how I feel about that crap."
He let out a soft chuckle. "Yeah, sorry." We fell back into a comfortable silence as the rapper on the stereo began to sing about everyone in the club getting tipsy and our classmates let out several loud whoops.
"What if I don't fit in? What if it turns out that once you take me out of this tiny town I'm really not any smarter than the next guy? What if I don't make friends? Jayje, I don't know if I can do this."
"Spence. Hey. Don't sell yourself short. You're awesome. And of course you're going to fit in, you read 20,000 words a minute and taught yourself AP Physics. You were made for Caltech. But you're more than just smart. You're funny and caring and kind, and you're going to make all kinds of friends."
"But what if I don't? And what if…" He trailed off, eyes far away.
"What if what?"
"What if I spend the rest of my life alone? Just me and my books?"
"What?" I gave his shoulder a playful shove. "You are not going to die alone, you drama queen."
He adjusted his glasses and turned to look at me. "I'm serious, Jayje. What if I never meet anyone?"
His face was so serious and concerned that I felt slightly taken aback. Spencer was one of my best friends, but I had never seen him like this.
"Well… Then we'll get married," I replied.
His eyebrows furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"If you're really worried about it, we'll make a pact. If when we turn thirty, neither of us are married, then we'll just marry each other," I explain, a satisfied grin on my face.
H rolled his eyes at my brilliant plan. "But Jayje, you'll definitely be married by the time we're thirty."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, I only had one boyfriend for the entirety of high school and it was Craig Casey and he broke up with me like two months in."
"Well yeah, because you've been dating soccer since you were practically old enough to walk. You never gave anyone a chance."
"That's not true!"
"It's so true."
I held up my hands in defeat. "Either way. I mean it. You and me. If we're not married by the time we're thirty, then we will get married. Church, white dress, and all."
"You don't want to marry me."
"Spence you're my best friend! If I have to spend the rest of my life with someone, it might as well be you. I'm serious. Swear on it." I extended my pinkie towards him.
"Okay fine. But when which of turns thirty? Because my birthday is four months before yours."
I rolled my eyes. "My thirtieth birthday. Do we have a pact or not?"
He finally locked pinkies with me. "It's a pact."
Just then, I heard Lindsey's voice from the clearing. "Jenny!" She wailed, obviously crying.
I sighed and stood from the log, dusting off the butt of my jeans. "That's my sign. Time to hold her hair while she vomits everywhere. We'll hang out next week though, okay?"
He nodded and smiled. "Sure thing."
"And don't forget about our pact!" I yelled over my shoulder, running towards the flickering light of the bonfire.
"I won't!" He called after me.
