Ruby Rising (12 page)

CHAPTER 14

I went to school the next morning with a stomach full of nerves and my head full of the feelings that Scott set off in me. I went to classes, but by the end of the morning, I couldn’t remember a single thing the teachers had said. Mikayla was talking about the camping trip, but I couldn’t focus on her either. When I saw Scott at lunch my tunnel vision engaged and I went to him, barely aware that my feet were touching the ground.

We never spoke a single word to each other. We kissed until my knees went weak and a teacher coughed loudly behind us. Scott broke the kiss and smiled at me, dimples and all. I was star struck, completely and utterly star struck. While everyone else sat around talking about camping and what they planned on doing, I was being mesmerised by the simplest touch of Scott’s hand gently gliding back and forth along my collar bone.

When the bell went for our early release for the holidays, Mikayla had to wave her hand in front of my face to get my attention. She almost smiled at me, her eyes knowing exactly where my thoughts had been. I went a bright neon colour and quickly gathered up my things, realising that I hadn’t even bothered to take any notes all day. Hopefully we hadn’t been given any assignments to do over the holidays. By the time I grabbed my books from my locker, Scott and Mikayla had left, checking my phone, I saw that he had sent a message to say he’d pick me up at five. My stomach clenched and I felt light headed.

‘Pull yourself together Ruby.’ I told myself, I didn’t want to be this giddy and childish for the entire weekend. I took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, and walked home.

The walk home calmed my nerves and I managed to clear some of the more hysterical euphoria that clouded my head. The house was quiet and empty so I let Phoenix in and organised his food for the weekend, putting sticky notes on all his food so my mother would know when to feed him.

My little ball of fluff ran around me excitedly and I laughed at his antics and picked him up giving him a good scruff behind the ears. Once I put him back on the floor he proceeded to run laps around the kitchen island bench. I spent a few more minutes laughing and chasing after him, enjoying the tender moment.

Heading upstairs I went to the bathroom for a shower. As the hot water pounded my shoulders I realised that this would probably be my last one for three days. I wasn’t due to come home until Monday night. I washed my entire body in a vanilla body wash, washed and conditioned my hair and shaved my legs and underarms.

When I got out of the shower I stood on the mat with the shower door open facing into the small cubicle. I had wanted to try to repel water off my skin for a while, like I had done with Phoenix at the lake. I was relaxed after the shower and now was a good a time as ever. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the water that dripped down my body. I felt each bead, concentrated on the feel of it, the temperature of it, until I felt like I knew where every drop was. I could feel heat rising in me, pulsing throughout my body. I thought about where I wanted the water to go, visualised it coming away from my skin. I tried to throw the pulse away from me, willing it out of my fingers. My first few attempts failed and I felt my energy drain slightly. Taking a deep breath, I gave it another try and willed the heat to be more; stronger, bigger, better. I concentrated on that pulsing energy filling my body, feeling the water bead as my skin warmed. I willed the water off my body, and felt the pulse radiate off me. Opening my eyes, I smiled as the water hovered in the air in front of me. Every part of my body was dry. I moved my hands towards the shower and then lowered them. The water hovered and then fell with a splash into the shower base. I did a little happy dance, clapping my hands, and then blushed at myself for dancing naked. One day I wanted to be able to control the damn blushing. Controlling water was great, but blushing? Now there was a skill I could use every day.

I wrapped myself in a towel and walked to my room to get ready. I put on a knee length black skirt that had a couple of small pleats in the front, a simple black singlet top and my combat boots. The weather was warm, it was only the end of March, but I packed in some leggings to put on later and a jacket. I put on my favourite perfume, paying particular attention to areas that I had discovered Scott loved to nuzzle. As I picked up my backpack I noticed my jewellery box sitting on my desk. I picked it up and searched through until I found what I was looking for. I held up the sterling silver necklace that had once been my mothers. A round black onyx was encased in the silver by a claw. I placed it around my neck and grabbed my backpack and sleeping bag and set off downstairs. 

I laughed when I saw the clock, it was only four and I still had a whole hour to waste. Phoenix had taken himself outside through his newly installed doggy door that I hadn’t noticed on my way in. My father was coming around if he’d let mum do that to the house. Phoenix now knew that he now had constant access to the house unless mum locked the door from the inside.

After a few minutes of sitting and tapping my foot impatiently at the clock, I went outside and decided to water my mother’s veggie patch. She normally did it herself, but seeing she was out, I wanted to surprise her when she got home.

I grabbed the hose and started sprinkling the first patch, I suddenly felt the familiar pulsing in my hands and I waved them slowly over the water. The water flowing from the hose easily guided to where I wanted it to go. Water was getting easier and easier to get it to move.

I played with the water for a few more minutes, making it rise and fall, my arms flailing around like I was conducting an orchestra.

“Hey babe,” a husky voice said from around the side of the garage. Scott’s head poked around like he was playing peek-a-boo before he stepped forward.

“Hey,” I said dropping the hose. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen what I had been doing from the angle he had. I went to the tap, turned the hose off and wound the hose back up, taking the time to calm my nerves and remind myself to be more careful. I knew I would have to tell him eventually but now wasn’t that time.

“Helping your mum out, huh?” He walked towards me, wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a kiss. “Are you ready to go?”

“I’m all good, but I just need to ring my Mum and let her know that I’m leaving. I haven’t seen her today yet.” We headed into the house holding hands, such a simple gesture yet it made me feel special. My parents still held hands when they went out, and quite often even when they were on the couch watching TV together.

I rang my Mum and she sounded distracted, quickly told me to have fun, and that she would see me Monday night. I stared at the phone after she had hung up, without telling me she loved me like she usually does.

“Is everything okay?” Scott rubbed my back gently.

“Um, yeah, I think so. That was just really strange. My Mum would normally make sure she would be here to lay down the ground rules and all that stuff. I guess it doesn’t matter.” I picked up my things and tossed the sleeping back at Scott who made an ‘oof’ sound as it hit him in the stomach.

“Nice arm there, Miss De Grey,” he said as he rubbed his stomach, pretending to be in pain.

We drove out to the camp on our own. Mikayla had gone on the youth group bus with the younger members who weren’t old enough to drive yet. Scott said he wanted some quiet time together before he had to share me. I wasn’t sure there would be that much sharing time once we realised we were alone.

An hour later we arrived, I watched as a few other people were setting up various sized tents. We got out of the car and stretched our legs. I suddenly felt awkward and nervous. There was still about three hours of light to get set up in so we pitched in wherever we were needed. Some heavy metal noise was playing on a stereo somewhere and I was secretly hoping that it didn’t play all weekend. I wasn’t that fussy about music, but death metal was a little out of my comfort zone.

Scott showed me around the camp, there was a toilet and shower block at which I heaved a sigh of relief at. I didn’t want to have to walk into the bush to do my business and not get a shower for three days.

The main area had a large fire pit surrounded by long logs for people to sit on, true school camp style. I giggled to myself having visions of Mikayla starting a round of
Kumbaya
, Scott gave me a quizzical look and I just shrugged my shoulders at him. There were a few barbecues being set up that we were going to use for cooking and already a large congregation of Esky’s lined up.

After my guided tour we went back to Scott’s car and unloaded our own gear. He looked at where the tents had been set up, smiled at me, and walked in the opposite direction.

“Well that’s subtle isn’t it?” Mikayla said, stepping out from behind the bus. “Planning on getting lucky are you big brother?”

Scott looked annoyed for a second before he plastered a huge smile on his face. “I’m already lucky in love, Mikayla.”

Without missing a beat she swiftly, “Wow that must be a record for you then, in love
without
sex.”

Scott pulled me into his arms and kept walking. I was sure my mouth was hanging open. What was her problem? I knew we weren’t exactly besties, but what was with the attitude?

Looking at the expression on my face Scott hurriedly explained. “She gets like this before the first night. She hates organising everyone and dealing with some of the parents is a real bitch. Why do you think I drove out instead of grabbing the bus?” I laughed a little and tried to brush off what she’d said, but the hurt remained on my face.

“And here I was thinking it was just to spend extra time with me.” When he didn’t say anything at my bad attempt at humour I continued. “Why doesn’t she just delegate it off to someone else? Surely out of this group there are plenty of people willing to help her, they all seem to revere her.” We reached a grassed area littered with trees that blocked the view from the main camp. Scott threw the tent on the ground and then his own backpack and sleeping bag. I put my own things down next to his and looked at what would be our temporary home for the next three nights. I shivered at the thought of lying next to him all night. 

Half an hour, and a whole lot of giggling and opportunistic touches later, the tent was up. Scott went back to the car and got his self-inflating mattress, laid down both our sleeping bags and then an awkward silence came over us.

“Why don’t we join the bags together like a doona, it’s too hot to be in a bag anyway.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Without saying a word Scott did what I had asked as I wandered outside and took a deep breath. I knew what I was doing didn’t I? The feelings I had for him were so strong, how could they be wrong? He was the one I wanted to lose my virginity to. So why was there still a part of me that was sending out alarm bells, wanting to run all the way home and not look back?

“We’d better get over to the camp,” Scott interrupted my thoughts as he came out of the tent. “Everyone has to help with the cooking to make things easier. There’s a roster up on the wall next to the barbecues, so that everyone pitches in and we get everything done as quickly as possible.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him. “More time to play then. Don’t worry I rigged it so we would be together.”

I laughed at him, glad that he seemed to be more his normal self and I let myself be pulled along to the main area.

I was on cooking duty and tonight’s dinner was sausages and mashed potatoes. I grabbed a peeler, found some space and started peeling with a few other people. Scott found himself on sausage duty so he stood where he could watch me.

I looked around the camp, people who weren’t on cooking duty were milling around the fire pit and others were collecting kindling and wood for the fire. As I took in the scene I realised that everyone was wearing black. I thought back to both youth group nights I had gone to, and the thought occurred to me that nearly everyone there was dressed in full black as well.

I wonder what that is all about
. I thought to myself, before realising that I had done the exact same thing without really thinking about it. I had dressed the same way for every youth group.

Dinner was animated, everyone excited for end of term holidays and a break from their parents. I wondered how Mikayla managed to get all their parents to sign off on the camping trips, as some of them were only in year nine or ten.

Once dinner was over and the designated people had cleaned up, a small fire was started and it quickly grew to resemble the large bonfire we had gone to the night Krystal had died. A few people bought out marshmallows and handed out sticks for everyone. Scott and I sat together on a log and Mikayla sat next to me which surprised me as her attitude had left me wondering if I had imagined all of her so called friendship.

As it started to chill off, I went to the tent to grab my jacket, I turned around feeling Scott’s presence behind me. My heart rate sky rocketed, and I felt my palms get clammy. Just when I thought he was going to kiss me, he reached for my hand, held it between us and walked us back to the bonfire.

Once it got dark people started to quieten down. Mikayla stood up and just like at the other bonfire it rose in time with her arms. It dawned on me that Mikayla had control of the fire element, just as I had water. I took a more keen interest in what was happening, even with Scott distracting me with gentle kisses to my neck, and my ear, and my…whoa! I gently pulled away as Mikayla began to speak telling him I wanted to listen. He gave me a cheeky grin and cocked an eyebrow at me. He stopped his high enjoyable but equally distracting kissing and put his arm around me, drawing me into him.