The next morning we woke up rather early considering how late we were up. The sun warmed our tents and was our alarm clock for the day. We all got up with mild hangovers and started making eggs and sausage for breakfast. Bebe and Wendy cooked while Token and Stan made coffee over the fire.
Kenny loaded up a pipe and started passing around the weed. Kyle had a book open and was leaning against a tree reading of all things. Craig and I were blissfully sitting close together just silently enjoying each other's presence.
The pipe gets passed to me and I take a deep inhale before passing it to my boyfriend. Clyde walks over to the vodka and to my astonishment starts pouring shots for everyone. Bebe having noticed her boyfriend's antics is horrified.
"Babe, what are you doing? It's like eight am and we're all hung over!"
"Well you know what they say… The best way to get rid of a hangover is to drink some more!" Clyde exclaims with way too much energy. I glance over at Craig and our eyes meet. He has a horrified expression mixed with impressiveness.
"Dude, I wish I had your energy. You're like a chihuahua," Craig deadpans. Clyde scoffs and shrugs off the comment.
"Get all your asses over here and take this shot with me."
"I'm game," Token says much to all of our astonishment. He stands up from the fire and walks over to Clyde. After a moment Stan joins him.
"C'mon Wendy, it's just a part of the fun of camping," Stan coaxes. With some hesitation Wendy joins him and once she walks over there Bebe and Red can't resist joining them. Kenny without a doubt joins the group.
That just leaves Craig, Kyle and I.
"We might as well join the fun," Craig says standing up. He holds his hand out towards me to help me up and I reluctantly take it. I didn't know how I felt about taking a shot this early. But if it made me feel nearly as good as I did last night I suppose I could deal.
"Kyle," Stan whines. "Put down the book and don't be a party pooper."
"You guys realize we literally just woke up, right?"
"It's in the party spirit man. You just got to go with it."
Wendy marches over to Kyle and grabs his arm, forcing him up. She drags him over to the group with many protests from Kyle. She pinches his arm and crosses her arms.
"You never have any fun with us. Just go with the flow for once Kyle. You won't regret it," Wendy chastised.
Kyle in the end relents and we all take up a shot glass and hold it up in the air. Clyde toasts the party gods and then we're throwing back the liquid fire. A few people choke slightly on the shot and even I'm wishing I had something to chase it with.
Now that the shot was done with everyone splits up to go back to their delegated tasks. It doesn't take much longer for breakfast and coffee to finish up. We all eat in companionable silence with a few comments from Clyde here and there.
After breakfast we wait a little while for our food to settle. After another two hours had passed it was nearing noon and Clyde called out that it was time for the shot olympics.
"It's simple. We line up a total of ten shots and then we each take turns taking as many shots as we can. Who ever takes the most wins," Clyde explains. I grimace at the prospect but to my surprise everyone actually seems down.
Clyde pours out ten shots and then Wendy decides she'll go first. People cheer her on as she throws back a total of five shots before she's coughing and cringing. She backs away from the cooler covered in shot glasses as she waves her hand in front of her face.
"Nice effort girl," Bebe tells her.
"I'll go next," Stan declares as he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. Clyde pours out the remaining five shots and then Stan takes position. He throws back seven shots before he has to call it quits.
This goes on in a similar fashion. Bebe takes six shots, Red takes four, Kyle takes four, Token takes six, Clyde takes eight, I take six, Craig and Kenny manages to take all ten. Everyone declares Craig and Kenny the winners which they look unsatisfied about. It'd seem they'd only be satisfied if there was only one winner.
After playing shot olympics we're all pretty tipsy and the girls decide we should all go swimming. Everyone agrees and changes into their swimsuits. The girls run into the water first as they squeal about the frigid temperatures. Kenny follows them in as he carries one of the freshly opened half gallons of vodka. One by one everyone gets in the water until it's just Craig and I standing on the shore.
Craig glances at me with a shy smile and takes my hand and squeezes it. "Shall we?"
I watch as to my surprise Craig peels off his shirt. I admire the sight in front of me that I rarely get to see. I was honestly amazed Craig took off his shirt and was revealing his staggering row of scars on his torso. Our eyes meet and his smile warms my insides. Feeling rather bold and admittedly intoxicated, I work up the courage to take off my own long sleeved shirt.
I rarely showed my scarred arms to the world and I feel self conscious being on display but Craig helps give me the courage I need. Craig grabs my hand again and takes a step towards the water, tugging me along.
"Atta boy. You got this. It's not so scary, is it?" I want to nod my head yes at Craig's question but instead I shake my head no.
We wade into the water and I watch with amusement as the girls splash each other. Kenny hands the vodka to Clyde who starts to take a shot. I look away from those two and watch Token, Stan and Kyle who are conversing calmly as they stand in water up to their chests.
Suddenly I feel hands on my shoulders and my legs give out as I'm dunked underneath the water. I pop up sputtering and swivel around to see Kenny laughing. His laughing is interrupted when Craig retaliates for me and dunks Kenny back. Kenny emerges from the surface as he coughs up water.
"You deserved that McCormick," Craig points out with a smirk. He wraps his arm around my shoulder and I lean into the warmth gratefully. I felt ten times colder now that I was completely soaked.
Clyde waddles over to us and he reaches out and rubs the top of my head. He has a lazy grin on his face.
"You know Tweek, I think your hair is even more wild when it's wet. And here I thought you styled you hair everyday."
"J-Jesus, no way man. Do you k-know how much work that'd b-be? I'm no g-good at that kind of s-stuff," I point out nervously with a small smile. Clyde laughs and shoves the vodka into my arms that he had taken from Kenny a few moments prior.
"Take a shot Tweekers!"
I look down at the bottle hesitantly but relent and decide I might as well take one. I screw off the lid and toss the bottle back and swallow a mouthful, wincing the entire time. When I'm done Craig holds out his hand for the bottle and I pass it to him.
"Boo yeah! Craigifer is getting down," Kenny cheers. Craig looks up as he tips back the bottle and flips off Kenny. I'm pretty sure Craig disliked being called Craigifer.
"We should play Chicken!" Bebe suddenly exclaims loudly. Theres a chorus of agreement.
"Instead of playing two on two we should just do a big war with everyone. With all five teams," Red supplied.
"That is a brilliant idea." Stan agrees.
"Split up into teams!" Clyde exclaims.
Wendy climbs onto Stan's shoulders, Bebe on Clyde's, Red on Token's and then Kyle on Kenny's. Craig crouches down in front of me and pats his shoulders.
"C'mon Tweekers. Climb on up."
I frown and shake my head. "I'm g-gonna fall!" Craig laughs whole heartedly and looks over his shoulder at me.
"That's kind of the point babe." My heart swells at the pet name. "We're in water, it won't hurt if you fall."
"P-Promise?"
"Pinkie promise." He holds out his pinkie and I wrap my own around his finger. We break apart and Craig crouches down again and I hesitantly climb onto his shoulders not at all gracefully.
The five different teams face each other in a showdown to see who will move first. With a battle cry Clyde moves first, propelling him and Bebe towards Token and Red. The girls start wrestling in an attempt to knock each other down. Stan and Wendy move next, moving towards Craig and I. I embarrassingly squeal in surprise as Wendy reaches out and shoves at me.
"Y'all are not leaving us out!" Kenny exclaims as he comes barreling at us. Him and Kyle storm up and Kyle pushes at Wendy. She tips slightly but doesn't fall. It turns into Kyle, Wendy and I blindly attempting to push each other over.
I hear a splash and a scream and I glance over to see Red and Token falling over into the water. Clyde and Bebe turn and start ambling over towards the rest of us. Bebe has her eyes on me and I feel dread wash over me as the two of them come straight towards Craig and I.
"I'm looking at you Tweek!" Bebe exclaims with a maniacal laugh. I squeal as her hands land on my shoulders and she twists her arms in an attempt to tip me over. I reach out and grab her arms and try to wrestle her backwards. The struggle goes on for a few minutes until finally Bebe gets in an extra hard push and I feel myself tipping backwards into the water.
My head barely ducks underneath the surface before Craig reaches out and pulls me up. He's laughing and the feeling is infectious and I join in. He pulls me towards him and I lean against his chest which leaves me feeling fuzzy. Craig seems almost to be more touchy since our fight and I could understand why. I had missed him during that time we weren't talking and I had a feeling he felt the same way.
I look over as Bebe knocks Wendy over and then it's just Kyle and Bebe facing off.
"What'd you think?" Craig asks me.
"Not t-that bad. It was k-kind of fun."
"Good." Craig leans down and presses a chaste kiss to my temple and I feel a blush breakout on my skin.
"You're not winning today!" Bebe roars. I look over as she gives an extra hard shove to Kyle and he topples over into the water.
"Bebe and Clyde are cheating." Kenny whines. Kyle starts desperately splashing in the water and coughing up a storm. Kenny chuckles and reaches out to pluck him out of the water. "You drowning Kyle?" Kyle glares at Kenny and shakes his head no.
"We are not. We're just that much more awesome than you." Clyde points out to Kenny's previous complaint. Bebe slides off his shoulders and her boyfriend slings an arm over her shoulders.
"It's true. We just make the best couple," Bebe boasts.
"It's just because Bebe has freaky strong upper body strength. It's unnatural really." Red flippantly points out. Bebe flexes to prove Red's point and there was an honestly impressive muscle mass there. It wasn't expected from the blonde.
"It's just because she's a cheerleader." Wendy says with a shrug.
In the distance we hear the horn of a train. Kenny, Stan and Clyde's heads snap over in the direction of the train and it strikes me as odd.
"It's time! There's a train. We gotta go guys." Stan insists.
"Oh god that's so dangerous. I'm not going," Kyle declares.
"Fine but we're going." Clyde says as he grabs Bebe's hand. He drags her out of the water and the rest of us follows. I grab Craig's arm and he looks down at me.
"What are t-they talking a-about?"
"Do you trust me?"
"Of c-course I do."
"Then we're going to have some excitement. It'll be kind of scary for you but it'll be fun. I promise. Now c'mon." Craig leads me over to our shoes and we shove our feet into them. Everyone sans Kyle takes off down the gravel road towards the rail road tracks at the entrance to the camping area. We all run in our swimsuits and shoes and I feel oddly exposed even though we're the only people here.
We make it to the rail road tracks with us all heaving for breaths. We beat the train and I see it a few hundred feet away slowly chugging its way towards us. My heart is pounding in my chest and I'm shaking slightly in anticipation over whatever mysterious activity we're going to do.
The train finally arrives and I watch horrified as Kenny starts jogging alongside it. He reaches out and grabs onto the side of the train and hefts himself onto the back of a train cart. Everyone else starts jogging to follow after him but I stay rooted in my place. Craig puts his hand on my lower back and nudges me forward slightly.
"It's okay Tweek. It's going slower than it looks. You'll be okay." I nod and apprehensively start jogging with Craig. One by one we all hop onto the back of the train cart and climb the ladder to the top of the train cart. I go second to last and I'm sure I'm going to fail until I grab onto the train and jump forward and miraculously land where I want to. I climb onto the ladder and Craig lunges next to me.
I hoist myself up the ladder and the top I'm to scared to stand even though everyone else is standing at the top laughing at the feeling of the wind on their face. I crawl over off to the side and sit down and look out in the distance. A moment later Craig joins me and sits down next to me. He takes my hand and I'm grateful for some kind of reassurance. I'll admit the feeling of the wind whipping through my hair was relaxing and the view of the world zipping past us was thrilling.
"H-How many times h-have you done t-this?" I ask Craig. He shrugs lazily and looks over at me with a wicked grin.
"A number of times. What do you think?"
"It's t-terrifying."
"That's it?"
"Terrifying a-and exhilarating," I stutter.
"Exactly. But nothing makes you feel quite alive like this does it?" I shake my head and lean slightly into my boyfriend for warmth.
"How w-will we get o-off?"
"It's a surprise. But don't worry it's not that dangerous."
"I d-don't believe y-you." Craig throws his head back and laughs. He looks at me coyly and winks.
"Don't worry Tweek. I promise you it's easier than it was climbing up here."
We sit in silence for a little while just enjoying the moment. In the background I hear everyone else talking and laughing but I'm content to spend the moment with Craig. Eventually we approach a bridge over water and Craig stands up and gestures for me to stand up too. I shake my head and Craig sighs.
"Come on Tweek. It's okay. I'll be right here." He takes my hand and helps me stand up and I don't think I've ever been this terrified. We start to pass over the bridge and I scream in surprise as Kenny suddenly launches himself past me and over the side of the train cart. He lands with a splash into the water as he loudly whoops.
One by one everyone jumps into the water until it's just Craig and I. He looks at me with a wide smile and turns toward the side of the train cart. He reaches out and takes my hand. "On three Tweek, ok? You can't hesitate you just have to jump. It'll be okay. Okay? Good. One… Two… Three!" We step forward and jump off the side of the cart and a scream rips through my throat as my stomach does flip flops at the feeling of falling. I squeeze my eyes shut as we hit the water.
Craig lets go of my hand so that we can properly swim. I pop up to the top of the water and look over at Craig as he pops up too. He laughs at my horrified expression and swims forward. He grabs the back of my head and tilts his head to the side. I close my eyes as our lips meet. With the adrenaline still coursing through my blood the kiss feels like fireworks. Time seems to slow and nothing else matters besides Craig and I.
We break apart and Craig gestures for me to follow him and together we swim to catch up with everyone else who was about fifty feet away from us. We make it over to them and Kenny grins at me and swims over to my side.
"What did you think Tweek? Pretty great right?"
"Y-Yeah, it kind of w-was. Terrifying though," I point out. Kenny reaches out and rubs my hair and I duck under water to avoid his touch. I emerge to the surface as Kenny laughs.
"We should start heading back to camp. It'll be an hour walk and it's about time for dinner." Token explains.
"Yeah I'm starving," Stan admits.
"You're always hungry." Wendy admonishes.
"It's 'cause I'm a football player."
We start swimming towards the shore and we all crawl out of the water. With water logged shoes we start making our way back to camp. Conversation is kept light and playful. Craig and I remain relatively silent as we walk behind everyone else hand in hand. It sure enough took an hour to make it back to camp even though we were on the train for probably only fifteen minutes. When we get to camp Kyle stands up and sets his book down.
"Have fun?" He asks us.
"You missed out Kyle. You always skip out on the best parts," Kenny says.
"No I skip out on the recklessly dangerous parts. One of you guys could have easily died."
The comment from Kyle sends a wave of dread over me. Never in my life would I have thought I would have climbed onto a moving train and jumped off of it into a body of water. Pretty sure that would have been on my long list of fears. Yet I actually did something reckless for once. And surprisingly enough I didn't regret it. In fact I had fun. The thought left me feeling breathless.
"Who wants to make dinner?" Stan asks as he pulls on his shirt. Craig and I walk over to retrieve our own shirts and pull them on. By now we were all dry thanks to the late summer heat.
"Bebe, Red and I will," Wendy volunteers.
The girls set off to start cooking as the rest of us gather around. Clyde, who somehow had been deemed our bartender, started making us all drinks. I take the cup of Hawaiian punch mixed with vodka gratefully. By now I had sobered up a great deal and was craving the feeling of intoxication. I start sipping my drink as Kenny pulls out a blunt. We start smoking as Stan pulls out a portable speaker and starts blasting some music.
Token appears by my side and when I look up at him he smiles down at me. Craig had disappeared to go talk to Clyde which means I was left alone with Token. The two of us hadn't spoken at all this entire trip and it felt much over due to finally exchange words.
"How are you feeling Tweek?"
"I-I'm fine!" I exclaim nervously. I rethink my words and decide to correct them. "I'm h-having fun actually. I d-didn't expect to have s-so much fun."
"Good. Me too. I don't go out as much as everyone but it's nice to let loose every once in a while." I don't know what to say so I simply nod. "I see you and Craig are talking again."
"Y-Yeah."
"What were you guys fighting about anyways? He wouldn't talk about it." Just like Mama Token to play the role of concerned supportive friend.
"It w-was something s-stupid."
"Want to talk about it?" He asks softly.
"I woke h-his entire house up by s-screaming when I had a n-nightmare. Craig w-wanted to know what m-my dream was about b-but I won't tell h-him so he got mad."
"Why wouldn't you tell him about your dream?" Our eyes meet and the concern in his eyes makes me feel squeamish.
"The dream i-is a private o-one. I'll probably t-tell him about i-it eventually. I'm j-just not ready y-yet."
"And I take it he finally got that through his thick skull?" Token asks sounding amused. I giggle softly and nod.
"Y-Yeah I guess so."
"Well I'm glad you guys are talking again. Things just don't feel the same without you around. We got used to having you back pretty quickly."
"O-Oh."
"Yeah you-" he cuts off once he notices Clyde with a firework in his hand and a lighter in the other hand. "Clyde put that the hell down! This is not the area to be lighting fireworks." Token takes a step towards our offending friend but pauses to look back at me. "Don't be a stranger Tweek." Token winks and then takes off towards Clyde.
We finish smoking the blunt and take our time sipping our drinks. Dinner finally finishes cooking and we all sit down on various chairs to eat. Dinner passes smoothly and then we get back to drinking and being boisterous. The night passes in a drunken blur. I laugh so much my stomach hurts and feel myself bonding with all of my nine other friends. I even had some bonding moments with Kyle who used to intimidate the hell out of me before this trip.
Eventually at some point in the night we all slowly enter out tents to pass out. I sleep pressed into Craig's side and the slumber is peaceful and leaves me feeling fully rested. In the morning we're all much more hungover than we were the day before but none of us could find it in ourselves to regret it. We all had a great time and that was evident by the smiles on our faces. The entire camping trip made me feel so warm and whole. It was a feeling I wasn't used to.
We eat breakfast and drink coffee then we're packing up the camp site and piling into cars to make the hour journey home. This time I ride with Craig, Clyde, and Token. All of us except Clyde is to tired to really talk but the brunette has no shortage for words as he tells stories and jokes around. Craig threatens him more than once due to his splitting headache from his hang over.
When we get to town Craig comes over to my house and together we climb the stairs to my room. In my room we smoke a bowl of weed and then climb into bed to take a much needed nap.