Puddle Jumping (2 page)

I didn’t really pay attention, though. He had a badass swing set with a sandbox in his back yard and I was too busy trying to get up the slide from the front, instead of taking the ladder, because I wanted to be one of those chicks on television who kicked ass. And my first step would be to get up a slide. In the rain.

It’s called ‘preparation’
.

Colton had run over to me, his hands waving up and down at his sides frantically as I huffed and puffed my way up the slick metal. “You’ll get hurt!”

I’d rolled my eyes and shushed him. “I’m fine.”

That’s when the first lightning bolt hit the tree a few feet away from the slide I was struggling to get up.

Poor little Colton covered his ears and jumped about a foot into the air.

I had watched in awestruck wonder as he’d turned around ridiculously fast and sprinted across the backyard, screaming as his legs propelled him forward while he leaped over puddles of water two feet wide to get back to the house.

Leaving me on the metal slide.

Alone.

Where I
did
get hit by lightning.

Well, not me. The slide. The slide got hit by lightning and I was holding on to it so I sort of just spazzed out and my arm hair was standing on end by the time I shook hard enough to get my fingers to let go of the side of the slide. Then I fell back into the mud and blacked out.

When I woke up in the hospital, my mom informed me Colton had been freaking out and his mom finally got enough information out of him so that
my
mom could pull me across the lawn and into the house. Both of them were hysterical. And I was lucky to be alive.

He had essentially saved my life.

Then he showed up at the hospital with his mom, Sheila, looking at me like I was the most fascinating thing in the world because I
wouldn’t die
.

I did get this amazing scar from the experience, though. My doctor said it was called a Lichtenberg Figure, this crazy raised skin that was darker than the rest of my complexion. It looked like tree roots running from the top of my shoulder to the middle of my arm. I was enamored with it at the time.

Apparently Colton was, too.

Now it’s just a thing on my body. Part of who I am. Sometimes I forget it’s there.

Back to the story.

He stayed for a good thirty minutes, not speaking and not doing anything other than staring at me – at my new battle wound that I hoped portrayed I actually
was
a badass. Right before he left, he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over, offering me a small wave before walking out behind his mother.

That piece of paper held the most intricately colored artwork I’d ever seen in my life.

Instead of making me feel better, it made me feel bad.

Because just the day before, I had apparently told The Artist of our Generation to color inside the effing lines.

* * *

I met Colton under the guise that I was getting paid to sit for some kids from church. But every time I showed up to the house, it was just us two.

I had to wonder why I was getting paid to hang out with him in the first place. I mean,
really
?

You would think after I almost died I wouldn’t be asked to come over anymore. But you’d be wrong because apparently his mom didn’t learn a lesson once. I’m sure it was because she felt like her son was good enough that we wouldn’t get into trouble, but she didn’t take into account that
I
wasn’t.

Colton’s pretty much perfect. He’s quiet and aloof, always minds his manners and whatnot. As a child, he was continuously focused on coloring or drawing or even painting in the room his dad had cleaned out above the garage.

I didn’t want to paint or make boy-trains. I got tired of coloring.

I just wanted to play, ya know?

Needless to say, he probably stopped trusting me a whole lot the day I almost choked on a marble. And the time I accidentally got gum stuck in my hair and asked him to help me cut it out. Which resulted in a huge chunk of hair missing on the left side of my head.

His trust of me must have taken a nosedive the day I tried to teach him how to mattress surf down the stairs, but since he was being so adamant about not participating, I decided to show him exactly how much fun it could be. I got onto the mattress backward, staring him in the face as I pushed off the top stair and started to head backward down the stairwell. Except . . . the mattress didn’t come with me.

Not at first, anyway.

I rolled onto my back and went head first into the corner next to the front door and hit my head so hard it gave me a concussion. Colton had to push the mattress off me because it was only five seconds delayed behind my limp body. And then he started screaming for our moms and they called another ambulance while they freaked out. I threw up green hot dogs or something crazy on the way to the hospital. Once I was coherent enough to speak to her behind the flimsy blue curtain in the ER, I assured my mom it was my fault.

Funny enough, she believed me.

That time, when Colton and his mother came to see me in the hospital, it was to announce I was no longer going to be invited over on Wednesday nights. And they were changing churches.

It took all of
that
for her to realize I was incapable of keeping myself out of harm’s way. Amazing.

Anyway, Colton had stayed even more quiet than usual, and he’d barely looked at me the entire time he was there. But before he left, he’d given me another picture. And let me tell you, this one was even more beautiful than the one before because it was a page full of nothing but color.

He’d scratched at his hair hidden beneath his favorite baseball cap and whispered, “Bye, Lilly.” I’d given him a final wave, knowing deep in my heart it was probably going to be the last time I would see him for a very long time.

I was pretty much right. Mrs. Neely had been talking to my mother out of what she assumed was earshot, but I could still hear what was going on. At the time, her words didn’t make much sense. Although, they do now.

Because it took me another five years to figure out exactly what was so different about Colton Neely and why his mother was so upset that she couldn’t find a playmate for him.

W
hen I was younger, I always thought everyone was the same. So it didn’t really faze me all that much that Colton kind of just faded away. He was someone I hung out with for a few weeks and then he just . . . wasn’t. He became another kid I once knew.

A few years passed and I didn’t think about him anymore. Harper and I moved on from playing like tomboys to paying attention
to
boys. She would flirt and I would laugh at how obvious she was. But beneath it all, I really wished I had her kind of confidence, which I sincerely lacked.

It wasn’t until my parents forced me to go on a camping trip that I realized I was capable of getting the attention of boys, too.

It turns out I didn’t like it much.

I’d fought them tooth and nail; because I just wanted to stay home and read books or watch television, or hang out with Harper or anything else other than spend time with my family. I’d sulked the entire way there, my earbuds in and a scowl on my face, annoyed I wasn’t an adult and able to make my own decisions.

While they went and took nature walks, I wandered over to the beach with a book in hand and my headphones, hell bent on getting some sort of tan because I was practically translucent. But instead, I met a boy named Rory. He was splashing in the water, clearly having a good time with what turned out to be his younger sister. She was less than impressed and whining about being in the water, but I couldn’t help notice how cute it was that they were playing together.

Apparently, I caught Rory’s eye because he kept staring at me. At first, I figured it was my scar, as I’d grown increasingly self-conscious about it as I got older. But he wasn’t looking at that. He was watching me like a stalker.

You know what I mean. That kind of uncomfy stare that makes you shift around and turn in random directions to make sure there isn’t some freakishly good looking supermodel sitting behind you grabbing a male’s attention. I kept moving around on my beach towel, convinced this cute, tan boy with shaggy brown hair wasn’t staring at me. But he totally was.

Eventually it got hot and I waded out into the water, only to be hit by a spray of wetness coming from the pissed little sister of said cute boy whose gaze I was half-heartedly avoiding.

“Penny, apologize to her.” He’d pointed in my direction and I froze because he was actually paying attention to me and it caught me off guard.

I waved my hand and shook my head. “It’s okay.”

He waded over and smiled, running his hands through his hair and it was then I realized he had these really light green eyes. I had never seen anything like it in my young teenage life. They were breathtakingly clear, and with his tan, they stood out even more. It may have been the first time I ever felt my heart flutter, but there was also a weird sort of reaction in my stomach that felt a lot like queasiness.

He introduced himself and we spent the next couple hours ignoring Penny and talking in the water. Then, right before it was time to head back to my tent, we walked over to my beach towel and I realized sweet Rory . . . was sporting a raging boner.

In his swimming trunks.

It was pointing directly at me and I swear to the good Lord in heaven above it scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t help but stare at it with wide eyes and an open mouth, trying not to point.

Instead, I packed my stuff in a hurry and rushed back to the safety of my tent and wondered if all guys were like that. If I was doomed to a life of uncontrollable hard-ons and pretty boys with light green eyes who pointed their sticks at me with wild abandon.

Rory eventually found me in the campground and tried to hang out a couple more times, but I always made an excuse to not be anywhere around him. I even went so far as to spend time with my dad.

He handed me a note the last day we were there, giving me his phone number and asking me to call him. Asking me to be his girlfriend.

But it wasn’t right.

That’s the way it went for the next two years. I met a lot of guys who I thought were nice enough, but they never sparked anything other than platonic interest from me. I focused on being friends with guys, helping Harper get her fill of attention from willing participants in her kissing games. I just didn’t care. Boys were fun, but they were more fun to hang out with. And yet, I constantly felt like there was some sort of unexplainable void inside me.

Something was missing.

You know that feeling like you forgot something? When you pack for a trip and it’s not until you’re on the plane that you realize you left one of your most important possessions, like your iPhone, back at the house? Yeah, you do. I carried that feeling around with me for years.
Years
.

Then, during the summer I turned fifteen, I found what I’d been looking for.

One afternoon, my mom dropped me and Harper off at this weird little craft fair held in the next county over. I was just psyched to get to eat funnel cakes. She, on the other hand, was on the prowl for cute boys. We wandered through some of the exhibits, and while I was more interested in the cool stuff people were creative enough to make, she wasn’t.

Her long blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail and she’d purposely worn this denim skirt that pretty much showed her underwear that my mom had tskd at in the car ride over. She was working on a sucker like she’d been paid to do candy-porn and was as bored as I’d ever seen her. Her blue eyes were rolling as she turned the corner in a tent full of Native American jewelry.

 “Let’s go. Call your mom to pick us up. This suuuuucks.”

I laughed and shook my head, letting go of the tissue paper flower I’d been studying. “We just got here.”

“And I’m already bored.”

“Fine.” I turned to lead her toward the exit when I saw a crowd of people surrounding one of the exhibits. It was brightly colored and there was artwork hanging everywhere in and around the tent. Suddenly, I wasn’t so interested in leaving. Because right smack-dab in the middle of the crowd was none other than Colton Neely.

He’d grown up considerably. His hair had turned much darker than the last time I had seen him, but I recognized his eyes, even from several feet away.

They put Rory’s to shame.

I was sucked into this weird-ass vortex where I couldn’t take my eyes off him, but was too scared to approach because what if he didn’t recognize me?

Trying to play it cool, I slipped through the crowd and pretended to be interested in the artwork hanging in and around his tent. It was impressive enough to warrant my attention, don’t get me wrong, but just being within ten feet of him made my fifteen year old hormones shoot straight through the roof. From the conspicuous side-eye I was giving him, I could see he was so much more attractive than the little boy who’d saved my life all those years ago. He was taller and leaner, almost too thin. It made my heart hurt to be so close and not speak to him.