It was now the height of Summer. Golden sunshine poured out of a cloudless sky like weightless honey that trickled down through whispering leaves to pool on the ground in dapples that covered my bare legs like the finest lace. The grass beneath me was cool, imprinting my thigh with individual blades, the odd one of which stuck to me whenever I shifted. I was in yellow shorts and a white blouse that had barely any weight to it, my pixie-cropped hair was shorter than ever, and I'd kicked off my white sandals before I sat down, but I was still too hot. I rested my elbow on my crossed legs, my hand cradling my bored head as I gazed into the middle distance, not listening, at all, to my raven-haired companion until he unceremoniously snapped his fingers in front of my face.
"Hey! Jac! Focus! Did you forget this is a study session?" Danny scolded me.
Danny was a classmate. He was a good looking lad a few years older than me. He had marble white skin, ink black hair and bright blue eyes that made him very striking to look at. We were both sitting under a tree in the park to study. Or at least try to study! I was struggling.
"Hm?" I pulled myself out of my own head to look at him.
Danny wore rectangular glasses that he now pushed up his nose, appraising me, coldly.
"You're distracted."
It wasn't a question. He had me bang to rights. The shattering impact of mine and Johnny's breakup had passed long ago. The dull ache had ebbed. All that remained was an empty hole where Johnny used to be. Even now, six months on, there was a black pit of uncertainty before me that I had opted just to sit on the edge of, never jumping. Never even dipping a foot in. Johnny had avoided me for about a month after that fateful night. The night my castle crumbled to the ground and reality came pouring in. He seemed to vanish off the face of the Earth. And, of course, I tried to go and see him once or twice when I was feeling weak. When the pit got bigger and blacker and too scary to even look at and I tried to claw at what I'd lost. But, every time, Bobby or Dutch reached me first and turned me away.
All for the better, I realised now.
Things didn't feel the same without Johnny around. I'd gone out with Bobby, Molly and Jimmy a few times. I'd hung out with Tommy a lot! I'd even hung around at Dutch's garage now and then when I had nothing better to do. But it all felt very… fragmented. It's like that old cliché isn't it? Saying that someone is the glue that holds the group together. Well, it turned out ours was Johnny. Trying to spend time as a group never really seemed to happen anymore, and I was starting to worry that this was how it would always be from now on. Even now that Johnny had come back and started talking to me again. Something always came up that meant we never hung out, all six of us, and Johnny always seemed to be the first to bail. It was like we had reversed right back to when we were teenagers and Johnny simply didn't care if I was there or not.
I supposed that was what was bothering me more than anything else. The fact that things had changed so much since we broke up. I had said that I didn't want the gang to split up, and yet, to some degree, we had. We still hung out with each other in various little pockets, sure, but there was something off.
"I just can't concentrate." I finally replied to Danny, snapping my textbook shut.
"You need to get over him, you know." Danny informed me, adjusting his glasses again. The unsolicited advice thing was, unfortunately, a common occurrence with Danny. He was lovely, otherwise, but this kind of thing really made my hackles rise.
"I am over him, Danny!" I retorted, entirely sincerely. "Getting over our relationship was easy, compared to losing a best friend."
Danny opened his mouth but I held up a hand.
"By which I mean I've barely seen him!" I added. "I know he's still my friend. He'll always be my friend. I just… I wish things hadn't changed so much." I gazed over the lush green park where we sat, over towards a sparkling river. "Things would be so much easier if smart phones were a thing in 1990." I added, quietly.
"What?" Danny asked, perking up.
"Nothing."
"Well, maybe you were just harder to get over." Danny offered, reasonably. "You were obviously special to him so maybe he wants to keep his distance and make sure he's fully over you before he comes back and you all go out as a group again, so he's not tempted to try and win you back. Who could blame him really? You're pretty great." He added, slightly bashfully.
I looked back at him with a smile. Slight know-it-all though he was, he could be really rather sweet. I rubbed his arm, briefly, and he smiled back.
"Thanks." I said, genuinely.
With another micro-adjustment of his glasses, Danny simply replied,
"You're welcome." and his sharp blue eyes glittered. It seemed as though he wanted to continue when a sudden arrival took us both by surprise.
"No Frenching in the park, guys!" Tommy laughed, loudly, dropping himself down on the ground between us and throwing a long arm over my shoulders with a grin to Danny.
"Hello, Tommy." I greeted him with mock exasperation and rolled my eyes at Danny, who looked none too impressed at having his serene Summer day interrupted.
"Whatcha doooooooooooing?" Tommy asked in a sing-song voice, knowing damn well that he was needling Danny.
Before I could answer, Jimmy arrived and seated himself with a tad more grace than his chaotic, leggy best friend.
"Hi, Jimmy." I smiled. "And nothing really. I was trying to study but… well…" I made a gesture that I hoped implied tumbleweed across my head. Tommy, at least, seemed to get it.
"I feel that!" he agreed. "But Summer is time for goofing off! who the hell studies during the Summer!?"
"People who want to pass midterms?" Danny offered, leaning forwards to stare, pointedly, at Tommy.
"You're boring, Foyle." Tommy responded, bluntly, shoving him away with a foot. Danny landed on his side and promptly started hissing curses about muddy footprints on his shirt.
I giggled.
"You're an asshole." I chastised Tommy (with no sincerity whatsoever).
Tommy leaned in dangerously close so we were almost nose to nose. For a beat, I was taken aback but Tommy simply grinned.
"You love me for it." He giggled, and removed his arm from around me, hopping to his feet. "C'mon, guys! What are we wasting our Summer here for!? Let's go!" He started skipping away… backwards. I shook my head and turned to Jimmy.
"No-one would ever know he'd been lying in a hospital, fighting for his life, back in January, huh?" I remarked with a smile.
Jimmy chuckled and shook his head, looking up at Tommy, affectionately.
Now several yards away, Tommy clapped his hands together like a kid trying to summon a disobedient puppy.
"We'd better go." Jimmy conceded. "Before he starts shaking a bag of treats at us or something."
With a giggle, I leaned over to retrieve my sandals.
"Please tell me you're kidding…!" Danny said, disbelievingly, taking a break from trying to remove Tommy's footprint with a tissue.
I shot him an apologetic look.
"Look… I'm sorry. I know I should be studying but I really can't concentrate today. Maybe a break will do me good?" I suggested, hopefully.
Danny merely pulled a face.
I shrugged and continued with shoving my feet into my sandals, then got to my feet, brushing grass from my legs. After an awkward pause, I simply concluded our study session with,
"Sorry." and jogged after Tommy with Jimmy in toe.
"Just give him time." Jimmy was saying. "Johnny's always been the brooding type."
"Dontcha mean the sulking type!?" Tommy countered with a laugh.
We were hanging out on rocks at the beach. The boys were drinking. I was eating ice cream, and eyeing up the ocean, wondering if I'd completely ruin my shorts if I went in for a swim. The heat was almost unbearable.
"Six months, Jimmy! Half a year! You'd think he'd be over it by now.." I scowled and took another moody lick of my ice-cream.
Tommy and Jimmy exchanged looks.
"You two really are alike." Jimmy remarked.
"Shut up."
"Wow. Really alike!" Tommy added.
"I said shut up!"
"Too alike!"
"Tommy, I'm warning you…!"
"Oh my God! You just keep getting more alike!"
Realising he was winding me up, I scooped some ice cream with my finger and flicked it at him. Tommy laughed, raucously, trying to dodge as the white blob landed in his hair. I giggled.
"Seriously, though, I miss hanging out with everyone. All together. Not just you two. Or Bobby and Molly. Or Dutch and Johnny. All six. Like the good old days."
"Yeah, I know. We will, I promise. We just might miss Summer is all." Jimmy reassured me, gently. I smiled, hollowly.
"Well here's one guy who might cheer you up…" Tommy said, looking somewhere to mine and Jimmy's left as he used the bottom of his shirt to mop up rapidly melting ice-cream. We turned to see a familiar, dark-haired figure strolling along the beach, apparently lost in his own thoughts.
"Hey, Daniel!" I called.
Daniel lifted his head and looked around him, apparently too far away to recognise who we were or that I'd called him.
"Daniel! Over here!" I waved my arms, trying to catch his attention.
At this, he made a definite turn towards us and seemed to squint against the sun for a second before, finally, a smile spread across his face. He broke into a bouncing run.
"Dear Christ, how can you run in this heat!?" I asked, as he made it to the rocks.
"Good ol' Italian endurance, I guess." He smiled (though his face shone with a thin layer of moisture, despite his bragging). He turned to Jimmy and Tommy "Hey, guys!"
The Cobras flicked hands up with a smile apiece. Despite a collective truce, they'd never become the best of friends. But it didn't matter. The opportunity to spend time with everyone with no arguing was all I'd ever really wanted and, fortunately, that had been the case for the last couple of years or so. Speaking of seeing people…
"I haven't seen you for ages. Where you been?" I asked. I hadn't seen Daniel since about Christmas last year, before Tommy and Dutch's accident.
"Me?!" Daniel retorted, incredulously. "I've been working at the store like usual. Where have you been?!" He seemed somewhat stung.
That's when it hit me.
"Oh that's right! You don't know!"
"Know? Know what?" Daniel asked, completely nonplussed.
So I spent the next half hour filling him in on all that had happened over the past few months. Tommy and Dutch's accident. Snake's death. Dutch's disappearing and reappearing act, plus his image overhaul. Mine and Johnny's break-up and the subsequent splintering of our group. All of it.
After listening, open-mouthed, Daniel blew upwards into his fringe.
"Man..! No wonder I haven't seen ya. And I'm sorry. Y'know, about you and Johnny." His tone was vaguely apologetic, as though he was trying to withdraw the slight barb from earlier. I merely shrugged.
"Ah, don't be. I'm just glad we realised it wasn't working in time, you know." I replied, good naturedly.
Daniel turned to look at Tommy.
"So, how you doing now, man?" he asked, genuinely concerned. Daniel had had a front row seat to Tommy's last big recovery, some two years ago now. Tommy had been beaten up badly by Mike Barnes, Snake and Dennis. Rather than go home and worry his (as we now knew) grandmother, or get asked a bunch of awkward questions at college, Tommy had stayed at Mr. Miyagi's for a while, healing up and learning a little inner peace while he was there. As a result, Tommy was the Cobra who was most tolerant of having Daniel hanging out with us, which I was thankful for.
Tommy flexed, cartoonishly, in response.
"Never better!" He crowed. "But, man, I'm gonna die if I don't get in that water! Race ya!" He laughed and took off running across the sand.
"Hey! No fair!" Daniel laughed too and ran after him.
Grinning at Jimmy, I hopped down off my rock and levered my sandals off. But before I could start running,
"You didn't mention me." Jimmy said, quietly.
"You told me not to, right?" I smiled at him. "C'mon. Last one in buys burgers!" I sped off across the sand, knowing there was one more thing I had neglected to mention...