Chapter Twenty One

The hamburger meat sizzled when it made contact with the smoking hot grill. The scent of the meat cooking wafted off of the patties and into the nostrils of the grill master. Ed smiled as he watched the meat juices bubble and pop against the heat. He wasn't anything special in the kitchen, but he had picked up on a number of tips at the grill after years of hovering over his father on summer evenings when dad was in charge of dinner.

May stood next to him and watched with a gleeful smile as he flipped the burgers with honed talent. The two of them found themselves alone at the campsite and Ed took on the responsibility of dinner. It was around noon on their third day and the group was tired of campfire roasted hotdogs and bagged potato chips. So, the chef and his assistant set up the mounted grill and took to work.

Eddy and Lee were taking another day to lounge around and had taken off to walk the shoreline a few hours ago. Double D had decided on taking a hike down one of the many trails that bisected the campgrounds, Marie tagged along saying she had nothing better to do but ordered her crush not to turn it into a narrative intellectual experience that taught about the area's insect populations.

Both parties were due back soon for lunch and Ed wanted to have the burgers ready for his friends. He flipped the patties again noting how the color was turning from pink to a dull brown and set about dusting them with salt and pepper.

"You sure can man a grill!" May complimented.

"Thanks." he said with a dopey grin. "Do you like burgers?" he asked before he returned a scrutinizing eye to the cooking meat.

"Sure do!" she bounced on her heels, "Do you remember back when we made some for you and your friends!"

"Oh yeah!" he recounted, "Those were good."

"It's a Kanker secret recipe!" she said with a nod. Of course, that was a little stretch of the truth. Back then her and her sisters had no idea how to make anything in the kitchen other than a mess. But under Lee's insistence, they had to make their Eds dinner to complete the domesticated image they fantasized about. So, they improvised and threw enough ingredients together that they made something out of it. Somehow. The mess was still legendary, and their mother almost had a heart attack when she returned home that night. Not that she kept the house up, she just loved an excuse to ride her daughters and attempt to make them as miserable as she was.

May pushed those negative thoughts from her mind. She wasn't as angry as her sisters. Lee hated their mother with a passion. To her, she was a peek into the worst possible future for the young girl and it propelled her to the heights she leaped for. Marie was more venomous and cynical in her outlook regarding their mother. She blamed her for everything. All of their shortcomings and misfortunes she placed on their mom. May tried to be more understanding. She held a lot of contempt for her mother, but she also understood that she had been through a lot and lived a hard life. So May apologized for her. It wasn't healthy, but nothing about their upbringing had been.

"We sure got into a lot of trouble back in the day, huh?" Ed said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

She considered what he said. There was no fear there, but instead what seemed to be happy nostalgia. "We sure did." she smiled as she thought back to their childhoods together. She tried to think more of the good instead of the bad, "I'll never forget when you and Double D and Eddy took off for his brother's."

Ed laughed, "We had to! Everybody wanted to kill us after what we did."

"It had to have been something really special."

"It was but I can't talk about it on account of the oath of silence we all swore to."

May was taken aback for a moment before she remembered who she was talking to. If they all agreed to never speak of the matter again Ed would think of it as a sacred agreement made by brothers-in-arms and treat it with the upmost importance.

"You and your friends sure were trouble." she said with a happy smile. Thinking of the days back then always gave her a happy feeling. The hot summer days, the humid nights, the smell of fresh cut grass, and the impossible feeling of youth that made her feel like she could do anything. Those days were fleeting now, and nothing but distant memories she liked to think about before the melancholic bite of times gone got to her.

Ed nodded, "All the time," he started, "Eddy was always getting ideas for scams and stuff. I just thought it was fun."

"It seemed like fun."

"Most of the time. Spending summer break running around with my two best buds. It was the life!"

"Me and my sisters sure had fun giving everybody a hard time."

"How come?" Ed asked.

It was an honest question. But it still took her by surprise. After all these years the three of them had done some pretty heinous stuff, but they never stopped to ask why.

"I don't really know…" she muttered as she searched the dirt beneath their feet for answers.

"I guess me and my friends were trying to rip everyone off, I don't really know why I did it either."

"Expect for fun?" she asked.

"Except for fun." he nodded as he flipped a sizzling patty.

"I guess I get what you mean. Me and my sisters didn't have much. Getting out and messing around was how we had fun. There wasn't much of that at the trailer…" she felt her shoulder droop as the not so good memories floated through her mind's eye.

"I was just going along with Eddy. He's my friend and I gotta be there for him."

To some extent, May felt the same way. A lot of her youth was spent going along with what Lee said. She called the shots the same way Eddy did, and May held no ill will towards her sister the same way Ed didn't Eddy.

"If you could go back, would you change anything?" she asked him. It sprang out of her mouth and surprised her. May wasn't the type to dwell on regrets. But this conversation seemed to have struck a nerve somewhere inside her.

Ed phased out again as he thought. It was something May appreciated about him. He wouldn't say the first thing on his mind. He would weigh his words and consider the question, and after a few seconds of silence he spoke up.

"Nope." he said with a toothy grin.

She couldn't help but smile. He was such an amazing person. She knew that she would never look at anyone like she looked at Ed. She got him like no one else did and he did the same for her. It was special and meant the world to her. This simple man in front of her would never know how she felt about him. Of course, he couldn't because she would never say it. She was afraid. Afraid he would turn tail and run. She was over the moon that they were as close as they were. But she knew that continuing to be friends would only hurt her. She would see what she wanted, see that it was within arm's length, but never be able to reach out and grab it.

"Would you?" he asked, attention back on the burgers as he gave them another flip.

His words smacked her out of her trance and brought her back to reality. She hadn't noticed that her smile had faltered and that somehow her entire demeanor had shifted from positive and upbeat, to sad and downtrodden.

"Yeah…" she muttered, the shame and disappointment molded her tone. She would. If she could go back, she would have done everything in her power to change how things had turned out. She would have done anything to make sure that the man she loved wasn't afraid of her.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because…" she started with a sigh, this wasn't going to be easy, but she needed to tear the bandaid off quickly. It was now or never, and it was time she addressed this and told Ed what he deserved to hear. It was time to lay all the cards on the table and let the chips fall where they may. He deserved to know the truth and she didn't think she could carry that burden anymore. "Because I messed everything up." she let her shoulder fall further.

"Messed everything up?" he questioned with a cock of his head.

"Yeah…" she paused. This was even harder than she thought it would be. She turned away from him and scanned the dense thicket of trees that surrounded them. Maybe it would be easier if she wasn't looking him in the eyes. Those big, beautiful orbs that she would lose herself in.

"I like you a lot, Ed. Like a lot, a lot. And I know we're friends and stuff but…" she took in an involuntary sharp intake of breath as tears started to form. Damnit. Why did this have to be so difficult? "I think back to stuff we did…the stuff I did back when we were kids. It was terrible, awful stuff that nobody should have had to deal with. I'm so ashamed of who I was back then…I didn't know…I didn't think…" she was falling apart as she spoke. Sobs caused her entire body to shake the more she let her feelings show.

"Maybe if I could go back and change that stuff…maybe you wouldn't be afraid of me. Maybe we could be more than friends. Because I don't want to be your friend, Ed. I want to be your girlfriend." at this final declaration she was gone. The tears ran from her eyes as the dam could no longer contain them. She cried and struggled to continue to speak through her dried out mouth, and her body trembled. She didn't deserve his forgiveness. She didn't deserve the things she wanted. She was a terrible person and this heart wrenching feeling in her gut was the only thing she did deserve.

When Ed placed his hand on her shoulder it sent a tidal wave of warmth that assaulted her senses. She didn't know how cold she was until she felt his heat. She felt something catch in her throat and the tears paused.

"Don't cry." he said. His tone was even and soft. Sure of what he was saying and dripping with empathy. "Please don't cry." he repeated and she felt his grip tighten.

She risked a glance up at him and saw a solemn expression on his face. His eyebrows were knitted together and concern flooded his features.

Words caught in her mouth as she struggled to speak, struggled to convey to him again how sorry she was and how much she hated herself for her past actions. And the tears poured free once again. How could she say it?

"It's okay." he said again. "We were just kids back then. We all did stupid stuff. But I forgive you."

When those words left his mouth, she shot her arms around him and cried into his chest. She didn't care that he had been out in the woods for three days without going to the showers. She buried her face into him and wept. She felt his arms snake around her as she shook, and held her close. It washed a keen sense of safety and security over her.

"I'm sorry." she repeated through whines, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

He only held her as he rubbed small circles in her back as she cried. It felt extraordinary. It was a feeling she didn't know she needed and knew she would be addicted to for the rest of her life.

"I like you a lot too." Ed said to her. Causing her to stare up into his eyes, her own glistening and red from the tears.

"Really?"

"Yeah." He said with a smile. It was true, he did like her. Any time he spent away from her he was thinking about how much more fun it would be if she were there with him. While Ed might not have been the most adept in trudging through his own complicated emotions, but to him, it was a problem with a simple solution. If he wanted to be around her, if he wanted to do more with her than just watch movies on the couch in the dorms there was an easy way to solve these problems.

"Maybe we can be boyfriend and girlfriend?"

He smiled, "Sure!"

She smiled, her face a wreck from the episode and her mouth, eyes, and body still not having recovered from the ordeal. She buried her face back into his shirt and they remained that way for what felt like an eternity but yet, somehow, it still wasn't long enough. The hamburgers popped on the grill behind them, long since forgotten.