Summer had fallen upon us yet again. And we had finished Junior High and we were going to move on to high school. After Christmas break, Julia and I went back to being inseparable. We also went back to working on Morty once the snow had cleared out of the junkyard. It was all coming along pretty well. The two of us always together doing our favorite things, and her spending the night with me every night.
Her scent was intoxicating, and that was one of my favorite things about her. It was a delicious sweet smell. Like mangos, which were like her. Sweet, but with a bitter undertone. She was gently, kind and caring to me, but to anyone else she was a vicious and heartless monster that could take down anyone in her path.
And I guess that's why I loved her so much.
"Once you finish up the engine, I've got a surprise." Julia said, leaning in front of me against the hearse, while I put two chords together, seeing a spark come from the two.
"Okay, I'll work fast then." I laughed, trying with the chords again – a bigger spark came this time. "Go turn it on." I said, pointing to the inside of the hearse, as she scampered inside and began to put the key into the ignition. You could hear the sound of a car wanting to start – desperately wanting too – as she turned it several times. You finally could hear the click. And then the sweet sound of an old cars engine beginning again. "Viola!" I yelled, clapping my hands.
"Good job!" she congratulated, taking out the keys and climbing out. I suddenly felt her arms all around me in a big celebration hug. "Ready for a surprise?" I nodded as she moved over to our picnic basket, pulling out a plate of…
"Brownies?" I questioned.
"Not just any brownies…" she laughed. "Special brownies."
"So they're drugged."
"If you want to get official." She threw one into her mouth, and held one out to me. "They're good – try one." I reached out to take it, but for some reason…couldn't. The thought of doing something against the law was weird to me. I had never done anything relatively wrong even once in my life.
"But this is…illegal." I murmured.
"Stop being such a geek, and eat the damn brownie!" she commanded, taking my hand and placing the brownie into my palm. I stared at it. She wouldn't relent. There was no way to get out of this. "Eat it." She egged on. So I did it. I threw the damn weed brownie into my mouth and chewed. "That's my boy!" she squealed, throwing her arms around me again.
And that's really all I remember. The rest was a blur. A big confusing high blur. But it wasn't a onetime deal kind of thing. This became the new norm for Julia and I. She'd pick up some weed and all summer the two of us would chill in the hearse doing it as much as possible. Mondays through Wednesday's we'd smoke it. Then Thursdays through Saturday we'd fuse it into whatever we were eating. Nobody ever seemed to notice, anyway. Not CeCe, or Bullfrog, and definitely not Julia's mother. The two of us went back to being just with each other. A social life evidently resulted in a fight between us. Neither of us knew why that was, but after the first one, we didn't want to risk anything.
Another thing that was normal was Julia spending the night. It was as if she lived with us now, Julia's mother never noticed, and if she did – she didn't even care. Julia and I slept together almost every night. Other nights we'd sleep beside each other, but it was often weird that she and I weren't having sex with each other. Bullfrog always congratulated me, which was not only annoying, but awkward. But for some reason, Julia always found it adorable.
"If he ever treats you badly, Jewels, you let me know and I'll kick his ass." Bullfrog had told her right in front of me, one summer afternoon in the kitchen.
"Oh, I'll do that."
Everything Julia did or said was adorable to me. She was absolutely perfect –her hair, her eyes, her touch, her voice…she was magical.
We spent our entire summer fixing up Morty. The engine was done, so we just had to fix up the rest of the hearse. Replacing the windows, new tires, and a paint job. We figured that by January or February, he'd be all finished.
"Three years to finish him."
"No." I said. "Not necessarily. It took us two summers to get him this pristine, and give or take a few school months…"
"Just say three years, Eli."
I laughed. "Three years it is then."
It took us until the end of summer and early October to come up with the money to buy tires for him. And the windows were worse. We had to keep the tires at my place during winter though, so that they wouldn't pop during the snow.
…
"Maybe it's weird – I don't know, but every day when we'd sit in the hearse we'd discuss our wedding day. I wanted to marry her. She was everything I ever wanted. Everything I needed. She was everything I desired. She told me how she planned for the two of us to elope; all by ourselves in Niagara Falls or some ding-dong place, and nobody would really know we were married. But I voted otherwise. Yes, it was true I wanted a small wedding, but Bullfrog had to be there, CeCe had to be there. It's hard to imagine that the wedding I pictured with Julia was entirely different than how I was really married." I said, bringing a glass of water up to my lips and sipping.
"You're married, Eli?" Miss Emily asked me, with a glistening smile.
"It's…" I bit my lip. "We'll get there, eventually." I tried to smile. She nodded and motioned for me to continue. "Oh, we have more time? All right." I cleared my throat. "There were many times that Julia and I had sex, but none that I quite remember more than our first, and the one on Halloween night…"
