Nothing had changed by our senior year. Everyone still hated us, and we loved each other. Fine by us.
With his hand clasped around mine, Chris whispered playfully, "Come on! Were you a snail in another life or something?"
Tripping for the umpteenth time, I swore and hissed at him, "Kiss my ass, I keep tripping." I dropped the blanket I was carrying. "DAMMIT!"
"Good God," he laughed. He picked it up for me and we started running through the nearly pitch black brush again.
Leaves slapped me in the face and I twisted my ankle. I squealed unhappily.
"Are you okay?" he asked, amused. "Think you'll make it?"
"Why are we in such a rush?" I demanded crossly.
"Because we need to hurry or the spot will get taken! It's the best spot. Don't question me, dumbass." He ran into a branch and swore loudly. I laughed.
After he recovered, I said, "We're not going to get to hear the movie. Why does it matter whether we get a good view or not?"
"It just does." He winced. "Ow. I'll be feeling that branch for the rest of my life."
"Gosh, do you hear my heart breaking?"
"Bite me, Toby."
Finally, we reach the Drive In. It was crowded because it was a Saturday night. Chris through the blanket down when he decided it was a good place to watch the movie from, and both of us sat on the blanket.
"I can't even see the movie," I bitched.
"So? We're alone."
A grin spread across my face slowly. "You hornball."
"I notice for once you're not complaining."
I continued to smile. "Well. It IS a little cold."
"You're so pathetic." In another moment, he draped his well worn leather jacket over my shoulders and slipped his arms around me. I settled back into his familiar warmth and he rested his chin on my head. "Happy?" he asked.
"You know I am."
Neither of us spoke for a long time. Then we both gave a little sigh of contentment at the same time. We laughed lightly.
"Guess what," he said quietly and suddenly.
"What?"
"I love you."
He said it so simply that I immediately blushed. I blinked several times. I knew that that was the way we felt about each other even though we'd never said the actual words. But it still came as an ice water shock.
I turned so that I was facing him. "Yeah?"
"If I don't love you then I don't love anything," he said. "But I know I love you."
"I love you too," I said, and knew he believed me.
"Toby?"
"Huh?"
"I get hurt a lot."
"I know you do," I said, touching his face. "And you don't have to worry about me, so don't even ask it."
"Promise?"
"I'm not going to hurt you," I promised. "I'm not going to stop loving you." I looked up at the sky for a moment. "Even if you do."
"Toby, I'm seventeen," he said. "It took me seventeen years to actually start to feel anything besides sad and cheated and hated. I'm not about to give you up because you're the one that did it for me. I think you saved me. Just don't leave, okay?"
"Only if you're coming with me," I said.
"Good. I'm glad we have that settled." He moved my head to the side so that he could see the movie better. Then he fidgeted for a second. "Ow, get off of my lap, you're cramping up my leg."
Chris never made top honours in high school. He graduated nineteenth in our was eight places higher than me.
The harassment didn't stop for him. For the most part, everyone accepted the fact that and I were together and nothing they made up to humiliate us would be enough to change that. But Chris just wasn't good enough for anyone-not his parents, or his teachers, or our peers.
But he made it. I watched him at our graduation, and the "kiss my ass" look that he had on his face the entire time was priceless. Chris got accepted to the University of Maine and went to the Portland Campus. Pre- law. I followed. I didn't need to go to school to be a writer, and that's what I wanted to be. So I went with him where he went and I wrote. I acquired a job as a waitress at Passmores' Pizza, and it kept me occupied while Chris was at school. It paid okay, along with Chris' evening job at a record store. We scraped by together just fine. On our own, as usual. We'd always been that way. But you know, it was when we were alone that we could see ourselves as beautiful. There was no one else around to disagree.
