The Wreck

The Wreck

By:

Marie Force

Published by Marie Force

Copyright
2011. Marie Force.

Cover
by Rae Monet Designs

Smashwords
Edition

Part I

May 1995

To every thing there is a
season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a
time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

 “
T
upelo Honey”
played on the jukebox. The scratchy drag of the needle over old vinyl, the
cocoon of Brian’s strong arms, the musty smell of mold in Toby’s dark-paneled basement,
the whispered giggles of the other three couples as they swayed to Van
Morrison, and the easy comfort of doing what they had done forever filled Carly
with contentment.

The seemingly endless New England winter
had yielded to soft, fragrant spring days and long, lazy evenings. With her
career as a high school cheerleader finished with the close of basketball
season, Carly was free to relax and watch Brian play the game in which he truly
shined. An imposing tight end and adequate point guard, he was a graceful,
elegant pitcher with a fastball no one saw coming and few could actually hit.

Colleges interested in adding that
smoking fastball to their bullpens had tried to recruit him, but the only thing
Brian Westbury had ever really wanted—other than Carly Holbrook—was to be an
attorney. So when they had both earned academic scholarships to the University
of Michigan, he said no to the baseball offers so he could focus on securing
the grades he would need in the prestigious undergraduate pre-law program to
get into a top law school. He had his sights set on Harvard and had told only
Carly that, lest he have to explain if he fell short of his goal. But he
wouldn’t. Carly, who planned to study elementary education, believed in him and
was confident he could do anything he set his mind to. That was Brian.

Glancing up at him, she found his eyes
closed and his soft dark hair still damp from the shower after his game. As if
he could sense her watching him, he opened his hazel eyes and gazed down at
her.

Anticipating being alone with him later
sent a tremble rippling through her.

“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered in
her ear.

“Not yet,” she said breathlessly. “We
can’t be so obvious.”

He smiled. “Like they don’t know.”

Across the room, Toby was wrapped around Michelle,
while Brian’s brother Sam, a year younger than the rest of them, made out with
Jenny. Sarah held up Pete, who looked like he had fallen asleep to the gentle
cadence of the song. Since the eight of them spent every possible minute
together, the others had coupled up over the years out of convenience more than
anything. But Carly and Brian were the real deal, and everyone knew it.

Michelle had been Carly’s best friend
since before they could remember, growing up as they had next door to each
other. They had collected Jenny and Sarah in elementary school and added the
boys in eighth grade. Brian and Carly had been a couple from the very
beginning, despite their parents’ worries about how serious they were at such a
young age.

Yes, the eight of them were cliquey. Yes,
they held the others in school at arm’s length, which was why they worried so
much about Sam being all alone next year. But they made no apologies for
friendships that transcended high school and caused others to look on in envy.

Carly returned her attention to Brian.

He sang along with the song, his lips
close to her ear.

Filled with melancholy, she tightened her
arms around him. Spring was usually her favorite time of year, with everything
in bloom, the days growing longer, school winding down, and summer vacation
looming on the horizon. This year was different, though. Soon they would
graduate and go their separate ways. Toby had received an appointment to the
Naval Academy and would be the first to leave home. Pete planned to take a year
off from school to travel, Sarah was on her way to Smith, Jenny to cosmetology
school, Michelle to the University of New Hampshire, and poor Sam faced one
more lonely year of high school.

Carly and Brian had taken the money their
parents had given them for college living expenses and rented an off-campus
apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was the sneakiest thing either of them had
ever done, and she lived in constant fear that they would get caught.

Even in 1995, a good Catholic girl didn’t
live with her boyfriend, at least not without a significant amount of guilt to
cast a pall over the arrangement. But the thought of spending every night in
his arms was worth all the worry and guilt. She had been saying a few extra
Hail Mary’s every week at confession, hoping the prayers would help to ease
some of the guilt, because she had no plans to back out of plans they’d had for
what felt like forever.

The phone rang, and Toby disentangled
himself from Michelle to answer it. He returned a few minutes later to pull the
plug on his father’s vintage jukebox. “That was my sister. My parents just left
her house.”

The others sprang into action to get rid
of any evidence they had been there. Carly collected empty soda cans. They’d
tried to score some beer earlier, but none of their older siblings had been
around to buy it for them. That was fine with her since beer usually made her
sick the next day.

“We can go to our house,” Sam said,
glancing at Brian for confirmation.

Brian nodded. “Our folks will be out
late.”

“Cool,” Pete said with a big stretch and
a yawn.

“Did you have a good nap?” Carly asked
him with a teasing grin.

He rested his arm on Sarah’s shoulders.
“Sure did. Sarah is the
best
pillow.”

Sarah poked his ribs, and Pete smiled at
her.

“Let’s get out of here,” Toby said
nervously. His mother had “issues” that made her unpredictable, and none of
them wanted to be around when she got home.

“Thanks for indulging me, Tobe,” Carly
said.

“No problem. I know how much you love the
jukebox.”

“I think I’ll miss it more than anything
else next year,” Carly said with a wistful glance at the vintage jukebox that
had gone silent and dark.

“Gee, thanks a lot, Carly,” Michelle
joked. “I’m feeling the love.”

They took a last look around to make sure
they had left nothing behind and then followed Toby upstairs to the ranch
house’s cluttered kitchen. Outside, Brian tossed Sam the keys to the station
wagon they shared. “We’re going to walk,” Brian said.

“Is that what it’s called these days?”
Sam asked with a snort.
“Walking?”

“Shut up and unlock the car,” Brian said
to his brother.

As the others piled in, Brian grabbed his
backpack from the front seat.

“Let’s go get a pizza first,” Pete said.
“I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving,” Jenny replied.

Indignant, Pete said, “So?”

“Save some for us,” Brian said, taking
Carly’s hand.

Michelle tugged at Carly’s free hand,
trying to pull her into the car with them. “Come with us,” Michelle said with a
pout on her pretty face. “You can shag him anytime.”

Carly blushed as Brian eased her out of
Michelle’s clutches and closed the door.

“We’ll be right along,” he called as Sam
backed the car out of Toby’s driveway.

“Sure you will!”
came the loud chorus from inside the
car.

Brian laughed as they watched the others
drive away.

“So embarrassing,” Carly muttered, hiding
her blazing cheeks behind the curls that framed her face.

He laughed as he put his arm around her.
“What? That they all know what we’re going to do? Who cares?”

“I care.” Despite significant effort on
the part of the guys, none of the other couples had “gone all the way” yet,
which was just another thing that set Brian and Carly apart. They had held out
until the beginning of their junior year when love and hormones and rampant
desire had finally won out over guilt and fear of pregnancy.

Raining soft kisses on her face, Brian
said, “We don’t have to. We can catch up to them at Ricardo’s.” He kissed her
everywhere but where she wanted him most. “Just because I’ve been counting the
minutes all day until I could get you alone doesn’t mean—”

She reached up to anchor him in place and
molded her lips to his until the sound of an approaching car compelled her to
let him go.

He took her hand, and they dashed into
the woods behind Toby’s house just as his parents pulled into the driveway.

“That was too close,” Brian said with a
laugh.

“We are
so
going to get caught one
of these days.”

He led her along the well-worn path he
had traveled since he was a kid. “We haven’t yet.”

“Our luck will run out eventually.”

“Never,” he said with the confidence of a
young man who had known nothing but success in his brief life.

As daylight turned to dusk, anticipation
propelled them along the path to their favorite spot by the lake, inside a huge
weeping willow’s waterfall of branches. The heat of the day clung to the soft
ground under the blanket Brian pulled from his backpack.

He tugged the T-shirt over her head as
her fingers flew over the buttons on his shirt. Unhooking her bra and pushing it
out of his way, he gasped at the feel of her breasts against his chest.

She remembered that chest before the soft
dusting of dark hair had appeared, before the strong pectorals and tight abs,
before the boy had become a man. Carly reached for him, and they tumbled onto
the blanket in a rush of passion that never failed to take her by surprise.
They had gotten good at this. After fumbling through it at first, they had
figured out how to bring each other the kind of pleasure that left them weak
and panting and always,
always
wanting more.

When she pushed a hand into his shorts,
he gasped against her lips. “Wait, Carly. Wait. Slow down.”

She moaned in protest as he caressed her
small but firm breasts.

He hovered above her, his eyes finding
hers in the final golden burst of sunlight that filtered in through the curtain
of willow branches. “I want to remember this.”

Puzzlement turned to breathlessness when
he nuzzled her breast.

“All day today,” he said, making lazy
circles around her nipple with his tongue, “I thought only about being here
with you. Mr. Allen called on me in trig, and I had no idea what he’d been
saying because I was already here, doing this to you.” He drew her into his
mouth, and her back arched off the blanket in response. “How am I ever going to
concentrate on my classes at school when we’ll have our own place and a real
bed with no worries about being caught?”

Carly found it difficult to think about
anything but the heat of his mouth on her breast. “Maybe it won’t be as
exciting when we don’t have to think about getting caught,” she managed to say.