"Alright, we're here," Dwayne stated. "You can open your eyes now." It was Saturday evening, and Dwayne had promised to do something special with Sophie.
"Oh wow, it's beautiful!" When they were driving, they had come to a stop at the base of a hill, and Dwayne had instructed Sophie to close her eyes. He led her up the hill to a gorgeous drop off, where he then allowed her to open her eyes.
"I know." Dwayne smiled and sat down at a flat part of the hill. Sophie joined him. From his back pack, Dwayne took two sandwiches, two cans of soda, and a bag of potato chips. "Not exactly a five star meal, but it will have to do."
"Its perfect." Sophie smiled as she began to eat, and they both watched the sunset. Once it was dark, Dwayne and Sophie packed up the meal and headed back down to the VW bus that was awaiting them. Dwayne put the back pack in the trunk, while Sophie climbed in to the passenger seat. He put the keys in to the ignition, but didn't turn them. Instead, he leaned over and gave Sophie a long, hard kiss. Once the kiss ended, Dwayne directed his focus back towards the keys in the ignition, but Sophie pulled him back to her, kissing him with just as much passion as he had just kissed her. This time, they didn't stop. Dwayne found Sophie's seat belt and unbuckled it. She pulled him in to the back seat, and sat on his lap, kissing him fiercely with as much energy as she had. Slowly, Dwayne's hands found their way under Sophie's shirt, running along her smooth back. One thing led to another, and soon Dwayne's shirt was tossed over the seat, and landed on the steering wheel; Sophie's didn't take long to follow. They continued kissing, and Sophie lay down on the back seat, pulling Dwayne on top of her.
"Goodnight." Sophie leaned over and kissed Dwayne before getting out of the car.
"Do you, uh, have everything?" Dwayne asked? She knew what he meant.
"I think so, but just to make sure, do you see anything missing?" Sophie flipped up her shirt quickly, and Dwayne smiled.
"Nope, you're perfect."
"No one's perfect." She smiled and gave him another kiss.
"Close enough." Dwayne shrugged, and gave her another long kiss.
"Alright, seriously now, I really have to go now, I'm already late." She broke the kiss with another smile.
"Hey, it's not my fault."
"You mean it's not entirely your fault," she corrected him with a smile.
"Right, right." He chuckled, and she kissed him again. "Hey, I thought you had to go," Dwayne joked, and he kissed her yet again.
"I do, I'm leaving, see?" she gave him one last kiss and a smile. Then she ran up to her door, looking back to blow him one last kiss before she disappeared into her house. Dwayne pulled away from the curb, but he didn't feel like going home; instead, he decided to drive around for a bit. He wanted to think. So many important things in his life had happened in the back of that VW Bus.
It was in the back of that bus that Dwayne had first learned that Sheryl was going to get remarried to Richard. It was in the back of that same bus where Dwayne had first learned that he had a new half sister. It was in the back of that bus where he had learned that his greatest dream was impossible. It was in the back of that bus that he had learned to get along with his family again. Now, it was in the back of the bright yellow VW bus where he had lost his virginity. What confused him so much was that the bus belonged to Richard. He hated Richard, yet so many of his life's most important and significant events had occurred in the back of a car that belonged to Richard. After a lot of though, Dwayne eventually found his way back to the neighborhood, and pulled the car back into the driveway where it belonged.
"Where have you been?" Sheryl asked. She looked as though she were slightly worried, but not terribly flustered.
"I was out with Sophie, and then I drove around on my own for a little while. I'm sorry if I freaked you out, but I didn't realize how late it was." Dwayne was lying, he knew perfectly well that it was 1:30 in the morning, but he didn't much care.
"Oh, alright, it's ok, it was just getting a little late, and I didn't really know…so yeah, I'm going to go to bed now." Sheryl smiled tiredly and walked off to bed. As Dwayne headed towards his room, he noticed that Frank's light was still on. He knocked on the door, for some reason, he felt a prickly feeling inside of him, he wanted to, no, he needed to tell someone, and since he had no friends other then Sophie really, Frank would have to suffice.
"What's up?" Frank asked, letting his nephew in to his room. "Is something bothering you?" He could tell by the look in his nephew's eyes that something was up.
"I had sex with Sophie." Dwayne blurted the words out right away, he didn't know why they came out so fast, but they did.
"Ah," Frank said.
"I'm sorry to dump this off on you, but you know, I had to tell someone…" Dwayne trailed off after his explanation.
"No, seriously, don't worry about it, its fine. I'm just glad that you trusted me enough to tell me." Frank gave his nephew a small smile. "I do just have to ask you one thing." Dwayne nodded for his uncle to go ahead and ask. "Did you use protection?" Frank's smile gave way to a serious look.
"Yeah, she had…well, you know," Dwayne nodded affirmatively.
"Well, that's good."
"Yeah, it's all well and good, but the thing is, I didn't plan for it, I didn't even think about it, it just happened, I didn't have a single ounce of control over it." Dwayne gave his uncle a funny, uncomfortable sort of look.
"Well Dwayne, this might come as a surprise, but that is usually how this sort of things works," Frank said.
"Yeah, but you know me, I really, really dislike being in out of control of my own life," Dwayne shifted his position.
"Well, I'm sorry Dwayne, but I really don't know what to tell you." Frank shrugged.
"Yeah…I didn't really expect that you would have very much to say on the matter, but you know…anyway, I'm gonna go to bed." Dwayne started to turn towards his bedroom. "Oh, one more thing, please don't tell mom and Richard."
"Don't worry, as long as you keep it safe, you're secret's safe with me." Frank lay back down in bed with his book. "Just be careful, I know you know that, but it's my job to remind you; now goodnight."
"Night." Dwayne left Frank's room, and walked back to his own bedroom, where he collapsed on to his bed in his clothing and closed his eyes for a few seconds, before standing up and taking a shower.
"Dwayne?" Olive asked, knocking softly on his door. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah, sure." Dwayne quickly shut the notebook where he was writing out a list of Pro's and Con's about what had gone down the night before between him and Sophie. "What can I do for you?" he turned to the girl once she walked inside.
"Oh, I was just wondering if you had a good time last night. Did Sophie like the picnic?" Olive had helped Dwayne pack the sandwiches and chips fresh the night before for the date.
"Oh yeah, she loved it actually, more then I thought she would have." Dwayne spoke quickly, and distractedly.
"Are you ok?" Olive noticed the sense of confusion in his voice. "You seem a little offbeat."
"No, I'm ok, or I think I am, just some stuff happened last night, and I'm not really sure how to feel about it, but I think it's gonna be alright, I just have to think on it a little bit more." Dwayne sighed. "It's one of those times where something happened that's going to change your life one way or another, but you have to decide how it's going to change it. Do you know what I mean?" Dwayne asked, Olive looked a little lost and confused.
"Not really…" Olive admitted to her confusion.
"That's ok, you'll understand when you get a little older; it's not really something that I want you to have to learn about before it's your time." Dwayne ran his fingers through Olive's smooth hair in a joking manner.
"Ok. What happened?" She was curious.
"Um, well it's kind of a personal thing, between me and Sophie you know?" Dwayne was definitely not about to tell Olive that he and Sophie had had sex, because that would have involved explaining what sex was, and none of that seemed like a good idea.
"Oh, ok. You guys didn't get in a fight again did you?" she asked, sighing.
"No, no, we're not in a fight at all, don't worry. I'm just confused; really, it's going to be fine." Dwayne smiled at her, though he wasn't so sure that he would be himself. "Did you have something that you needed to say?" he asked.
"Not really, no, I just wanted to talk, you've been hanging with Sophie for most of the weekend."
"I know, but hey, if you want to go out and grab some lunch, I'll ask Sheryl if just you and I can do that." He stood up, discreetly shoving his notebook under his pillow.
"Really?" Olive sounded excited.
"Yeah, come on." Dwayne took her hand and led her out of the room. "Mom, I'm taking Olive to get lunch, is that alright with you?" Dwayne called to Sheryl as they walked towards the front door, all ready to leave.
"Sure, just make sure she ingests something other then junk food, and DEFINITELY make sure she gets something green!" Sheryl called back to them.
"Alright, we'll be back later." Dwayne and Olive left the house, and started walking to the area of the neighborhood that held a cluster of little restaurants. Frank had the bus, so there wasn't much else they could do.
"Where are we going to eat?" she asked, looking up at him.
"I dunno, wherever I guess." Dwayne shrugged, he was indifferent. "You choose."
"Ok, I think that we should eat at Subway." Olive spoke after thinking for a minute. "That way we can get something healthy AND tasty." She smiled up at her brother, who nodded that Subway would be fine.
"So, how's Jeremy doing?" Dwayne asked as they ate their Sub sandwiches at a booth in the restaurant that was decorated to look like a map of the five boroughs of New York.
"Fine I guess," Olive shrugged. "He's a friend you know, but I still don't know a ton about him. I mean, he likes his dad, his mother left the whole family when he was really little, and his 18 year old brother hates his guts.
"Yeah, well, his 18 year old brother sounds like he could use a little fine tuning." Dwayne chuckled a little. "Jeremy seemed like a plenty nice kid, if not a little shy, but you get a lot of that at your age."
"I know, I was really surprised that he wanted to come at all; he seems so branched off from everybody else at school. I mean, he's so quiet that even the bully's don't bother to make fun of him, because he just ignores them completely."
"Does that remind you of anyone?" Dwayne asked her.
"Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of you actually. He just ignores it all when people are mean to him, but when it comes to people he cares about, he makes sure to do something about it." Olive thought for a moment, it had never occurred to her how similar Jeremy really was to her brother.
"Yeah? Well that's a good thing to look for in a guy, I'd say you've got yourself a winner. Maybe not by your father's standards, but everyone has to have their own ideas of who is a winner and who isn't." Dwayne bit into the last inch or two of his foot long turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich as Olive smiled up at him.
"I know, he's cute too." She giggled.
"Now don't you think you're a little young to start all of that?" Dwayne teased her.
"Start all of what?" Olive pretended to be completely ignorant.
"You know, all of the liking boys and stuff, you're in the third grade, I didn't start liking girls until at least seventh."
"But you're an introverted weirdo," Olive argued back.
"Now who taught you that word?" Dwayne asked, impressed that she not only pronounced correctly, and knew the word 'introverted', but that she had used it the right way.
"My teacher, it's on our extra credit spelling list." Olive smiled, glad that she had impressed Dwayne with her vocabulary.
"Yeah? What else is on there?" he asked. They spent the rest of lunch, and most of the walk home going over the words that she had already memorized from the spelling list. Dwayne was blown away; when he was that age, they had never had words like that.