Day 24

Michael, Monica, and I left the house at noon to walk over to the Shaw's on the Fourth of July. The heat was so intense that I could feel sweat accumulating on my forehead just from the short walk next door.

In the Shaw's driveway were two pickup trucks, both almost full to the brim with a keg, tents, surfboards, coolers, firewood, and bags of towels, clothing and other various necessities. John, Kyle, Evan and Fletcher were piling still more stuff into one of the pickup truck that wasn't quite as full, while Michelle, Avery and Lucy sat atop the mounds of gear in the bed of the ruck, watching the guys work. Courtney was leaning against the side of the truck, texting on her phone and smoking a cigarette.

Lucy saw me and waved, "there she is!"

Everyone looked up and gave me a nod or a greeting of some sort before returning to their work--for the boys--and relaxing--for the girls.

As I was just about to join the girls in the truck bed, Monica grabbed my arm, stopping me. She thrust the bottle of wine and a bowl of her famous salad into her husband's hands who grunted.

"Go on inside," she told him. "I just need to speak with Jamie."

Michael huffed and headed inside. Kim and Carl were having a huge barbeque for all their friends, which my aunt and uncle were attending, much to Michael's dismay. 

"I have a lot of work to do tomorrow," Michael told Monica after she explained their plans for the holiday the previous night.

"First of all, tomorrow is Sunday," she started, her voice clipped. "And second, it's a national holiday. Your work can wait until Monday."

"Mon-"

"We are going to go to the Shaw's and I am not going to hear one more complaint out of you," she shot at him with a glare that would probably frighten even Chuck Norris.

Michael had been compliant since, but still made sighs and grunts every so often, which Monica chose to ignore. Now as Michael disappeared into the Shaw's house, Monica looked composed as she released my arm from her grip, straightening her already perfectly straight dark hair with her fingers so it rested neatly on her shoulders.

"I know you're going to have a lot of fun on Jonesboro," she said, suddenly fidgeting with the hem of her white blouse. "I've heard the stories and I just..." Emotion cracked in her voice, causing her to stop and she quickly regained composure. "Well. I just hope you're safe. And that you can call me. If you need anything."

"Okay," I said, having to push my smile behind my lips because seeing Monica uncomfortable was like watching a dog on roller skates.

"Good," she said uncomfortably. "Well. I'll see you tomorrow night for dinner then."

And then she retreated into the Shaw's house before I could even respond. I watched her go, letting my smile finally show through. Even if she didn't know how to express it, it was nice to know that she truly did care.

"I think we got it all," Evan said and I turned to see the boys closing the truck bed door.

"It's about time," Courtney said, dropping the cigarette and putting it out with the sole of her flip-flop.

"Maybe if you guys made yourselves useful it would've gone faster," Fletcher played.

"We were useful," Michelle said.

Lucy added, "We gave some solid moral support."

Kyle ignored them and said to John. "Alright, I'll take Dan's truck and we'll meet at the south end."

"Sounds good," John said hopping into the driver seat of the second truck while Kyle got into Dan's. Courtney got in beside Kyle as the three other girls remained in the bed.

"Shotgun," Evan yelled at Fletcher and raced to get in beside John.

Fletcher just smirked at him and then at me. "That's all right. I get Jamie all to myself in the back."

I scrunched my face at him. "What are you talking about?"

"We're trucking it," he said, hopping into the bed of John's truck as the engines roared.

My eyes widened as Kyle pulled out of the driveway with Michelle, Avery, and Lucy squeezed into all the junk in the back.

"Live a little, Jamie," Courtney yelled at me as they pulled away. I shook my head but got into the truck bed with Fletcher and ours began to follow Kyle's.

"Where's Dan?" I asked as we picked up speed, the hot air whipping my hair in all directions.

"He's waiting at the very south end of the beach in his boat," he explained.

I nodded and looked out of the truck bed, staring at the houses getting scarcer and scarcer as we got further towards the south end. We finally pulled into a parking lot full of cars with people unloading their own gear.

Kyle and John parked and Fletcher smiled at me and I could tell he was excited because his leg was bouncing up and down. "Are you ready?"

"Ready?"

"I don't think you're ready."

"For what?"

"Get ready, Jamie," he said hopping out of the truck bed and then extending his hand to help me out as well. "It's about to be a wild ride."

Exhausting was a better word for the following three hours. We unloaded all of the belongings from the trucks and had to lug them out onto the far end of the beach, where Dan was waiting in a small metal boat with a motor attached to the back. It took three trips to get everything to Jonesboro. It was only a five-minute boat ride from the south end of our beach to a small rocky shore on the backside of Jonesboro Island along the intracoastal. But it was gorgeous. The sun reflected off the waves and we bumped along in the tiny dinghy before we ended up at a fairly extensive island, strewn with Carolina beach grass. From the intracoastal, you couldn't see the beach because of two large dunes.

Luckily, all of us girls got the first ride over, but it became our job to carry the belongings from the intracoastal shore over the first dune. Between the two dunes was a wide valley. It was already getting packed with people setting up tents and fire pits, cracking open beers and spreading out towels for tanning.

Around two thirty, everyone and everything was in the small valley--one dune in front of the intracoastal, one dune in front of the Atlantic Ocean--and it took us another thirty minutes to set up all of the four-person tents. It was decided that Kyle, Courtney, Dan, and Avery would share one. Evan, Michelle, John, and Fletcher would share another. The last one was for Lucy, Brooke, and me.

Brooke got a ride over with Brendan's other group of friends, but was sleeping in our tents, which was a big controversy to Lucy, who talked about it for a solid hour between the lugging of things to and from the intracoastal.

With everyone settled in, the keg was tapped and everyone began to socialize with others, specifically the group right next to us, which was Brendan, Brooke, and a lot of the other people who went to their high school.  I recognized some of them from Brendan's party, but couldn't remember any names. Kyle and I were the only two who stayed back.

"You like it here?" he asked me when it was just him and me sipping on the fresh beer.

"I do," I told him. "Where are you from?"

"Upstate New York," he said.

"No way." I laughed with a shake of my head. "You like it here?"

"Absolutely," he said and raised his glass, which I tapped in cheers. Then he stood up and nodded for me to join him. "Come on. If we don't go be social Courtney will chop my balls off."

Laughing, I followed him and immediately went over to Brooke to say hello. She introduced me to the group of guys she was talking to but when they veered off to a conversation about sports, I nudged Brooke in the side.

"So Brendan, huh?"

She sighed. "I don't know, Jamie." She then looked around and said to me with wide eyes, "Don't tell Lucy, but we hooked up last night and I don't know I just...it's just a hookup. I used to like him a lot but now I--I just like being around him."

"Hey, you don't have to explain it to me," I said with a laugh. "If you want it, you want it, there's nothing wrong with that. Just be honest with yourself and be honest with him and it'll all work out like it's supposed to."

Brooke cocked her head with a stunned look. "Well Golly, Jamie, if I knew you were a therapist I would have talked to you about all my problems a lot sooner."

I shook my head and giggled. "Nah. You knew that already. You just needed someone to remind you."

She gave me a genuine smile and I suddenly realized that I wished we all hung out with Brooke more often. I asked her for her number so we could hang out more and she seemed more than happy. It was then that her guy friends rejoined the conversation.

I ended up talking to this one guy...Julian...Jordan...? Something with a J. He was sweet and all. We talked for a while and he got me a beer. Maybe he was boring or maybe he was the most interesting guy in the world. I would never know because for the duration of our long conversation my eyes kept sneaking glances at Fletcher, my mind completely consumed by his presence.

Every time I looked at him, he was talking to a girl. No...four different girls in the time I was talking to this one J boy. After I finished the beer J--???--had got me, I politely left him and went for a refill. Avery was standing beside our keg, sipping her beer unpleasantly with a calculating look on her face.

"You okay?" I asked her.

She nodded tightly but I wasn't convinced.

"Nice try," I said. "Talk to me. What did he do?"

"He talked to Darcy," she said. "For a long time. And they way they were looking at each other and touching each other," she stopped, visibly disgusted. "It was just...humiliating."

I shook my head. "What an asshole. When you talked to him, he said Darcy was just a friend though, right?"

"Right," she scoffed. "This has happened three times though. Three times where I've had valid reason to suspect cheating and three times where he's claimed that they're just friends." She shook her head and took a large gulp of beer. "But the way they were touching, Jamie. That was not 'just friends.'"

"I'm really sorry, Ave."

"Me too," she said and huffed out a sigh as we both just drank out beer and watched the crowds of people getting drunker and drunker as the sun sunk deeper and deeper in the sky. But my eyes were on Fletcher the entire time. Even when I forced myself to enjoy the scenery of the light blue sky and the hot wind catching the grass atop the dunes. He was still the central part of my concentration. It was frustrating.

Fletcher had been talking to a pretty girl with short brown hair for a long time. He had been talking to her for a while before I came over to Avery, and now a few minutes had past and he was still talking to her.

"Who's that?" I asked Avery, figuring she probably knew whom it was since this girl was among their old high school friends.

Avery caught where my eye was looking and inhaled deeply. "That would be Darcy Comstock."

I felt a pang in my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

"She's not even that pretty," I said out of jealousy. Deep down I knew it was a total lie because the way she posed, the way she smiled; everyone could tell she was a force to be reckoned with.

"I know," Avery agreed, shaking her head. She tapped her beer against mine. "Well, here's to the boys, the bitches, and the alcohol for saving us from both."

"Let the festivities begin," I said and we both finished our beers at the same time.

~ ~ ~

"GO!"

Michelle, Avery, Lucy, Brooke, Courtney, about five other girls, including Darcy, and I stuck a key into the side of our beers and began to shotgun. It was a serious competition, because the girl who lost had to strip out of their bikini and jump in the ocean. The sun was still just a few inches above the horizon so everyone would be seeing everything.

Courtney finished first and threw her beer down like it was a pointless challenge to begin with. Kyle kissed her hard and I didn't see either of them until much later that night.

Avery and I finished second, practically a tie, followed by Darcy, then the rest of the girls until it was Michelle and Lucy. A drunken Lucy threw hers down a few seconds before Michelle's, shrieking in victory.

When Michelle finished hers off, she threw it down and smiled at the surrounding group of boys, almost like she had tried to lose. She started to untie her bikini top but Evan was by her in a second, grabbing onto her hands and ripping them from the ties, glaring at her.

He shot the audience and look and sneered, "Better luck next time." He pulled a confused, drunk Michelle off to the side where they began to walk, both gripping each other's arms. You could tell they were fighting even though their words were inaudible. Avery and I caught eyes and we exchanged a look. Physically, they thrived off jealousy.

Then all the guys began chanting Lucy's name. Lucy cocked her head and raised her brows flirtatiously. "Only if some of y'all join me."

Then she was running up the dune before disappearing over the other side, followed by a few boys, stripping off their shirts in the process. Some laughed, some shook their heads in dismay, but soon everyone was back into the swing of conversation.

"You're Jamie right?"

I looked over and saw the pretty blue-eyed brown-haired girl staring at me. I knew instantly it was Darcy Comstock.

"Yeah?" I asked, playing dumb. "And you are?"

"Darcy. I went to school with a lot of your new friends," she said with a smile. And I couldn't help but be frustrated at the fact that it was genuine. That she seemed like a truly nice girl.

"Oh. Nice to finally meet you," I said.

"Finally?" she asked, catching my word use.

"Well, Avery told me a lot about you," I said to her. My heart began to race because I had never done this before. I had never stood up to someone like this, even in a subtle way. I realized that I was always sweet, always nice. Just like Will Fordham.

Maybe I was more like him than I thought. Maybe I started hanging around with the popular crowd because I was Rory Prescott's sister. But maybe they kept me around because I was nice.

"Oh, Avery," Darcy said, still smiling sweetly. "We go a ways back."

"That makes sense," I said, not hiding my condescending tone. "You seem to share a lot of the same interests."

"Excuse me?" Darcy asked. Her brow furrowed with confusion but her eyes raged with fury, telling me that she knew exactly what I was referring to.

"Look, Darcy," I started. Holy shit, was I actually doing this? "You seem like a really sweet girl. But I know about you and Dan. And if try to fuck with their relationship ever again, you're going to have to deal with a Prescott."

I'd seen Rory do this a hundred times before. When she broke up with Clayton, she slapped him outside the cafeteria and said, "From now on, you're dealing with a Prescott." When her best friend's boyfriend cheated, she yelled at him at one of Landon's party's, "Get ready for hell, Gordon, cause now you're dealing with a Prescott." When Carla on our basketball team missed the championship shot Rory's senior year, she pushed her up against the locker after the game and screamed, "You're dealing with a Prescott now."

It worked for Rory because back at high school, being Rory meant one thing, and being Rory Prescott meant a whole different thing. But here on Jonesboro, the words my sister had coined slipped out of my mouth and I was just as surprised to hear my own voice say them as I was to see the look of fear strike Darcy Comstock's face. It was like I had punched her in the stomach.

As I walked away, it was then I realized that the name Prescott meant something here in southeastern North Carolina. The look in Darcy's eyes wasn't the look of a girl scared by another girl threatening her--I'd seen that look plenty of times in the people Rory had told off over the years. Darcy's face was genuinely filled with fear. And when I walked away, I felt a pang of guilt ripple through me.

She was actually scared. When I turned back around Darcy was talking to some other girls, who I presumed to be her friends since I had seen her talking to them most of the night. They all looked at me like I was a monster and then turned back into their huddle to discuss.

What the fuck.

Avery came up beside me as I began walking back towards our campsite. "Hey, Jamie, are you okay?"

I began to start speaking but Avery grabbed my arm and made my stop in my tracks, forcing me to turn and look at her. She gave me a look and I knew she was saying, Nice try.

"What does Prescott mean around here," I murmured.

Avery inhaled and exhaled through her nose and muttered "fucking Darcy" before pulling me off to the side of the valley closest to the ocean so we could sit on a slope. "Everyone in this town knows Michael and Monica," she started.

I gulped and ran my fingers through my tangled hair.

"They donated a lot of money to the town park and our high school," she said, refusing to look at me. "But a few years ago there was this scandal. Your aunt and uncle's friend, Corey Mickelson, came to stay with them for a weekend. And apparently Corey forced himself on a 15 year old girl who went to our high school. There's a whole story behind it and it was this huge deal but..."Avery finally looked at me and said, "Corey got away, free of charge, and the rumor is that your uncle paid the judge off."

I was stunned. Back home, my name was out of prestige. Here, it was out of disgust. I coughed out, "You're joking."

"Your aunt and uncle are powerful around here," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Jamie. Dan told us about how you were a Prescott, but promised you were different. And when we all met you we realized that."

My tongue was stuck to the bottom of my mouth.

"Most people don't even have a clue you're their niece," Avery assured me, grabbing my arm in her hand. "Jamie. Just cause you're their niece doesn't mean anything. To us, you're just Jamie."

I felt the emotions heave up from my lungs to my eyes. No matter where I went, being a Prescott followed me. But I pushed the tears and ache back down because I was so sick and tired of being told who I was. I was done being told where I was going to go and how I was going to get there.

"Just Jamie," I whispered and stood up. "Avery, it's time to enjoy our holiday for us."

She threw her head back in relief and then looked back at me, shaking her head with a smile. "Thank God you're here, Just Jamie."

She stood up, hooking her arm with mine, and pulled me towards the almost empty keg.

A/N: Next chapter is my favorite!!! I'm so pumped wooot woot!