June 24th, 2006

My eyes were crusted shut. I took my hand and grabbed my eyelashes and pulled up as much of the gunk as I could. One of my eyes opened but the other one remained shut. In my mind I was shouting that I was half blind. Though I knew it was nothing big at the moment.

Tara still was asleep next to me so I got up and stepped over her bed without making a sound. However I didn't realize that someone placed whoopee cushion on the floor where I stepped. When it went off Tara woke up and made a face at me.

"Brian honestly, couldn't you have made it to the forest before launching a stink bomb?"

I picked it up and showed her.

"Stop making up excuses and go do your thing." She yawned and turned back over to sleep.

I did my famous, "why me?" face and went outside.

"Hey Brian what was that in your room? It sounded like you couldn't hold in last night's dinner!" Jason said mockingly and laughed.

Cree was next to him and started laughing as well, "Jason you have the weirdest laugh. It sounds nothing like any guy I've heard before."

I laughed back at him, "Oh man she just pawned you!"

"Oh shut up Brian let's not forget whose going to win today's game!"

I poked my tongue at him, "If you'll excuse me I have to use the palm trees now. We can discuss winners and losers cough after I get back!"

He and Cree continued laughing after I went in and did my business.

"Whoever thought of whoopee cushions being funny should be drug into the street and shot!"

As I sat there against a tree doing my business I had a lot going through my mind. One was Tara; sure she was the world to me at the moment. I just tried to figure out how we would end up together forever. Another thing was the soccer game today. I didn't know if Tara was up by now but we had to practice! The last thing was how we're going to battle the army that was coming for us. I didn't know if my friends would get here in time or if they would make a last minute entrance.

"Brian please leaves now so I can do my thing too!" Tara demanded.

"And if I don't then what will happen?" I asked briefly.

"Trust me, after I'm done here you'll wish you had gone back!"

"Fine give me a second then I'll be out, everyone seems to be against me today…what have I done wrong?"

"Who knows…just don't give it another thought. I know how you are when your head is full sweetie! And remember, we're going to kick some ass today! Whether they forfeit or give up we're going to mercy them!"

"Let's hope so, I don't think I can take another negative thought for the day…"

She wrapped her arms around me and looked into my eyes, "Brian I want you to know that us being together has been the highlight of my life. I don't think I could've ended up with anyone more caring then you. Please don't change, not even for me."

I nodded my head and kissed her then walked out of the forest sitting down by the fire.

"So what are we exactly going to use for a soccer ball?" Jason asked confusingly.

"Eh, we'll figure out something, maybe use a coconut, but that would mean wearing shoes and not sandals, right Cree?"

"Yea sure Brian, just because I wear sandals all the time doesn't mean I'm not good at soccer!"

I picked up a coconut and tossed it to Jason, "Here try doing a header with this thing!"

He thought about it for a second then replied, "You thought I was going to fall for it weren't you! Honestly though what are we going to use for a ball?"

I quickly thought of a joke and said, "Well we can play like the pioneers and use wooden balls and use fake goal nets! In fact we don't even need to wear shoes, we can play naked!"

Everyone immediately looked up at me.

Tara gave off a smirk and replied, "Sounds tempting, we may have to give it a try Brian. It would be more of a distraction to them rather then concentrating!"

Cree and Jason turned red and both said at the same time, "No way! Either we play the normal way or we don't play at all!"

I said in a joking fashion, "Don't worry I was only kidding, gosh. Can't you have a little sense of humor?"

"No!" they both shouted.

"Ok fine! The game will start in approximately ten minutes! All teams report to the sandlot over by the water. We'll discuss rules and times when we get there! Last one there gets the ball after the game!"

And right there I took off leaving everyone in the dust.

"Damn it Brian that's not fair!" Jason yelled. "I'll catch up to you and slow you down!"

Unfortunately he didn't but Cree ended up the last one there. She didn't really care that she had to get the ball after the game was over.

"Alright, everyone gather around me, I shall be the official ref for today's game. If you feel that I missed a call or that for any reason you don't want to play you'll have to go through me first. We shall do thirty minute halves. The team shall be Tara and I against Jason and Cree! Don't be jealous though when we win! cough"

"Brian what was that cough for?" Cree asked.

Tara and Jason looked at her and rolled their eyes.

"We'll all five to ten minutes to warm up. You guys go over and discuss your strategy."

"Oh there's no need to Brian, we're all ready to go!"

I looked at Tara, "Are you ready to go then?"

"Are you kidding, I haven't played soccer in a few years, give me a few minutes to get warmed up. Then I'll be in top shape!"

She took off her shirt only having a sports bra on and soccer shorts. I couldn't help but notice them on her.

"Tara you look terrible with that bra on take it off!" I shouted jokingly.

She winked at me and motioned to get ready.

"Alright! I officially declare the island games begun!"

I dropped the ball between Jason and Tara. He won the ball but it was going to take more then reaction to win this game.

"The game time temperature is brought to you by Brian's hut! The temperature at the moment is nearing 100 degrees!" I announced running along with Jason. "Tara you stay with Cree! I got Big J over here!"

I'll admit it was hard to play soccer in the sand since you couldn't dribble it easily. Jason didn't have much problem with that though. He made quick movements keeping the ball between him and nearing our goal.

Soon he made a fake out on me and did an off balance shot striking off the side post and rolling in.

"Goal! Ronaldo is on fire today!" He yelled.

I knew he didn't want to celebrate with Cree because it'd be weird for them but I whispered as he ran past me, "Hey do some kind of dance with her when you score, that'll get her all over you later!" he nodded at me and continued to his side.

Tara said she'd do the kickoff for us so I let her. Mainly for the game I was playing defense since my body has had several nicknames such as, Beast, Computer, and Mystic Striker. Though I've had my share of being disappointing and let down.

She took the ball up field trying to take down Cree as she spun around and took a rocket shot ricocheting off the top bar and back towards me. I landed it and passed it back up to Tara who had broken free from Cree and tapped it in. So the score was now one to one.

She ran up to me and jumped on me while I ran across the field screaming and yelling.

I couldn't help but say, "Hey Jason! Looks like you haven't practiced enough!"

He laughed and kicked off to Cree who was back on defense as well. She wasn't the best ball handler among us but she wasn't the worse either. Jason seemed a little rusty from playing over the summer but it didn't affect his game as much as it did to mine.

The game seemed very repetitive and lacking style since Jason scored the same way each time. Sometimes Tara and I would switch positions. She turned out to be a lot better at defense then me. She wasn't like me where I would boot the ball each time it came to me. Instead she would trap it and wait for me to get open to pass to. Sometimes Cree would make a move to steal the ball but Tara was quick to react to this and headed towards the corner lowering Cree away from the goal box and enabling me to make a move to her so that I could go from there and see if I could fake out Jason or not. Most of the time it didn't work but there were the occasions in which I'd have a clear shot at the goal but miss it to the side.

Something about me is that when that happens I tend to over react by kicking sand around or putting my head in my shirt and cursing like there's no tomorrow. Tara however didn't seem too happy about me doing that. Especially the sand kicking part, she didn't respond too well to that, after I kicked some onto her accidentally she hit me upside the head. She didn't' mind the cursing seeing as though she did that just as much.

Finally as the game drew on the score was eight to ten them. We didn't have a running clock so we had to use the sun as a timer. That makes sense seeing as though it was about half way down right now. I know it doesn't seem like we've been playing that long but when it's this hot out no one is thinking clearly.

As the sweat dripped off of Tara's body I couldn't help but think how she was going to clean up seeing as though the only place was the ocean and that had a lot of salt in it. The problem with having me on a team is that my mind tends to wander off when I should be concentrating. One time during the game I got caught by Tara looking up at the sky while Jason shot one past me in the goal.

"Brian what the hell are you doing? Pay attention before I come back there and kick your ass! Remember I don't want to lose if you know what's good for you!"

"Eh it's too hot to play right now…I need to take a quick break."

"We don't have time for breaks Brian! The sun will be setting soon, I want someone to win tonight, and it'd better be us!"

"Fine, but if I start daydreaming again it's not my fault!"

She glared at me before we kicked off and said, "Brian I didn't come all this way just to be disappointed, now either you get yourself together or you'll hear from me later!"

"In case you haven't seen baby I'm very hot and exhausted and this isn't good for my condition!"

"Have you forgotten already Brian? That stuff that Axel put into you will never make you have a seizure again! Now play as if you're on full energy!"

I started whistling as play continued making moves along as I went and managed to get the ball through Jason's legs and beat him to it then doing it again to Cree and scoring.

"That's what I'm talking about Brian! If you keep doing that we'll be good for later!"

Cree happened to hear this and say, "What would that be Tara?"

"It's called alone time! Now let's play!"

Cree rolled her eyes and went back to the net. "Ok the score in nine to ten us, how about first one to three goals wins."

"Let's make if five!" Tara shouted.

"What, are you kidding! Come on Tara we're tired too, we want to end this as painless as possible!" Jason commented.

"Come on you pansies! Just five more goals and we'll be done!"

I tried thinking of something that would make it go faster. One idea was simply kicking the ball into our net by "accident" and saying it was a mistake rather than that.

"No that wouldn't work." I said in my mind. "Maybe we could just call it a tie instead, then again I wouldn't get to have any fun with Tara tonight and she'd probably hate me for it. Eh oh wells let's just see what happens I guess."

"Hey Brian are you ready?" Tara yelled out behind me.

"Alright, let's get this thing over!"

I got control of the ball and exploded out of my self and shot a rocket hitting nothing but the middle of the net.

"Take that bitches! Now that I'm my beastly self nothing is stopping me!" I cried out.

"Ah shit I was hoping he wouldn't turn into that!" Jason said exhaustingly.

Tara smirked at me for the first time in a while and whispered into my ear, "I hope you're like that later for me…if you are I'll give you a little surprise of my own…"

I didn't express any emotions and waited for them to kick off. I stole the cut off pass from Cree and slammed the ball again making the score two to nothing. I hadn't intended on them scoring once we got rolling. Jason didn't seem up to par with me and continued making sloppy kicks and passes eventually leading up to our victory.

The commencement of shaking hands took place followed by walking back to the hut. Jason and Cree got going right after we shook hands leaving us two alone.

"I wonder why they took off so quickly like that." I asked.

"Well I convinced Cree to do what we were doing as well tonight, it seems like your friend Jason wasn't up to doing it. Rather just getting cleaned up and going to bed."

"Eh figures, when you've known him as long as I have you'd know that was typical of him."

She didn't laugh but instead moved closer to me, "We should've done a celebration dance after the game, I guess we can dance right now instead to make up for that."

She winked at me and took my hands on placed them around her curvy hips as we started moving back and forth. She was still hot and sweaty from the game but that made it even more interesting since I was the same way. She still had only her bra on above and the shorts. I had my Christian Vieri jersey and long yellow shorts on.

I thought about taking the jersey off since it was starting to itch halfway through the game but I knew it wasn't a big deal so I kept it on.

The sun could be seen cut in half as it kept going below the water's surface. It wouldn't matter however because the moon was just as bright as when It was day out.

A cool thing was Tara had a neon bra on so it lit up when the moon came out. I knew she couldn't see me looking at it since her head was resting on my shoulder. She was very exhausted after the game but I didn't want to say anything about it.

"Brian, I hope you know that I didn't mean any of that stuff that I was shouting at you during the game. When we first met I told you that I like winning more then losing."

"Well of course who likes losing? You were only doing what you thought was natural of yourself. And I respect that kind of authority." I said smiling up at the moon.

"Do you really, I know a lot of people are annoyed by my attitude. I know that you can be as well. Somehow I knew there was something inside of you that always made you play better than Jason."

"I try to not think about it. And besides he's a much better player than I am. The only reason he couldn't win was that he didn't put it all his effort. Otherwise we wouldn't be talking right now, right?"

"I guess you're right, though what's still bothering me is what we're going to do about the battle taking place soon. Your friends still haven't arrived and we're losing time. What are we going to do Brian?"

"All we can do is keep praying that everything will be ok. And you never know, maybe the army won't come and start a war with us now that Sophia is no longer around. They would have no reason anymore."

As we continued dancing we didn't say anything else. Tara still seemed bothered by the whole army thing. I didn't give it a thought unless it actually happened. I thought she may give up and believe that my friends wouldn't come.

"Brian if it's ok with you I'd like to hold back a little longer on our alone time. I know we're alone right now but…well you know what I mean."

"Of course, that's fine. I know how you feel but I don't want to see you worrying all the time. I'll talk to Deku about our situation and see what he thinks of it."

"Would you do that Brian? I'm just really scared right now. I guess I'm just very lucky to be with someone like you. If I was in your position right now I would be lost."

I smiled back and gave her a kiss of reinsurance. As the moon rose higher we decided we should head back to the hut and get some rest. She went in right away but I decided to stay out a little bit longer. Soon Deku came out of the forest and walked over to me.

"Hey Brian, how are things going? I heard your conversation with Tara over there and I know how you're feeling right now."

"Do you, I have no idea what to do. If my friends really don't show up then our lives will be over soon."

"Brian you have nothing to worry about, haven't you noticed all the trees that look like me? They are all my brothers and sisters. We are her to protect you from anything that may try to hurt you and your friends. If I were you I would tell Tara right away that everything is going to be alright."

I shook my head and stood up, "It's hard for my friends to believe that they can trust you. How would I tell them why they have no reason to worry?"

"Ok Brian this is what I want you to do. Tomorrow when you get up if no one else is up then come meet me in the forest. I want to show you something. It's time that I show you and your friends that I'm going to help you out no matter what."

"Yea well…we'll see…"

I looked at him with a frown on my face and headed inside. Before I went into the room I thought about what he said and how everyone else would take to that. When I entered the room Tara was still up reading a book.

"How come you're still up? I thought you were going to bed."

"I was, but I heard you talking to Deku and I guess it is hard for me to believe that he's really going to help us."

She put down her book and looked at me, her eyes were somewhat red.

"I guess what I'm saying, are we going to survive here or not?"

"If I knew I would tell you, but I still don't know at this point. All I can tell you is that I will always be at your side no matter what happens."

"What about Jason and Cree? How will they get through this?"

"The same way we are, by sticking together!"

She got up off the bed and walked over to me, "Brian you must promise me that nothing will happen to any of us."

"I can't promise you that, all I can promise is that we will get off this island safely if not all together."

"I don't want to hear that! You must tell me that everything is going to be ok Brian! Don't you say that we all won't make it off here?"

"Ok just calm down alright please? We don't need this right now; in the first place the army hasn't even arrived! Let's just continue on like we always would each day."

She gave me a big hug placing her arms around my neck and whispered, "No matter what happens between us I'll always love you Brian, when we got off this island I want to stay with you forever!"

I felt the same way she did, scared and weak. The only thing holding me back from answering yes was still the army. Believe it or not I haven't seen the slightest clue of anything bad happening.

"I understand, and if you really do feel that way then nothing should be holding us back from expressing our love for each other."

"You're right Brian, and if you really mean that then we can have our little fun sometime tomorrow if you want."

"That sound perfect baby, just tell me when and I'm there!"

She gave me one last kiss for the day and climbed back into bed, "Come to bed now, maybe I'll give you a sneak peak of tomorrow."

I grinned back and climbed slowly into bed beside her getting closer and putting my arm on her side. "Anything that happens right now doesn't bother me; even if they did come right now I wouldn't be alarmed. We have reinforcements with us that Jason and Cree don't even know about. Deku is on our side and will help us even if we say no."

She nodded her head and kissed me gently and slowly.

I didn't know what her next move was so I just eased closer to her.

"Brian are you sure you want to do it now? Wouldn't tomorrow be better?"

"I don't care; either way is fine with me."

"Alright let's just get some rest so that we'll be ready tomorrow."

I kissed her goodnight and held her closely to me as I slept…but the thought of Deku still floated in my head…wondering what he would have for me.