A Summer to Remember

chapter 25





The workweek may have come too soon, but luckily it passed quickly. I was really excited when Friday night finally rolled around because the local fair was in town. It wasn’t anything special, but it was always nice to have something new to do.

Adrian showered up after work and we made our way down to the fairgrounds. The smell of the fried food and the lights from the rides always made me happy because it brought back so many good memories from high school. When we were freshmen and sophomores, Lily and I used to come down here every night. Back then it was the place to be.

Now that we were older, we didn’t go for the rides anymore, but for the beer tent and the concerts. The social scene was still pretty much the same though; you were guaranteed to run into a hundred people you knew, especially on the weekends. The concert tonight wasn’t anyone we wanted to see, so we decided to head for the beer tent. It was a short walk from the entrance to the tent, but we still had to walk through a few rides and game tents to get there. By this time it was mostly high school kids, so the only rides running were the roller coasters and the Ferris wheel. The carnies were even closing up most of the game tents. When we reached the red and white striped beer tent, there wasn’t a line, so we got right in. I’m not twenty-one yet, but let’s just say it isn’t hard to get into places like this, most of the time you didn’t even need a fake ID, if you were pretty.

“Ava!” Right when we walked in I saw Lily waving at me from a picnic table across the room. She didn’t look drunk yet, surprisingly, but from the look on Steven’s face, it wouldn’t be long before she was.

“Hey!” Adrian and I made our way across the room, weaving in and out of groups of drunk people standing around. When we reached her, I leaned down and gave her a hug.

“Here, come sit.” She scooted closer to Steven and I sat where she patted the bench beside her. “Adrian, we saw your friend Brian over there.” She pointed to the far right corner. Brian and a few guys and girls I didn’t know were sitting at a table.

“I’m going to go say hi, okay, babe?” He leaned down to me.

“Okay, I’ll be right here.” I tilted my head up so he could kiss me before he made his way over to his friends.

“Well, it looks like things are going a lot better.” Lily said with a giddy smile on her face. “I take it you guys worked things out?”

“Yes, we did. He told me everything and I told him everything. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.” I smiled to myself, remembering how smoothly our conversation had gone.

“See! I told you!” she said a little too loudly.

“Keep it down, will you?” I put my finger up to my lips.

“Sorry.” She giggled and looked around at the people staring in our direction.

I glanced across the room and saw Adrian still talking and laughing with his friends. As I was scoping out the place to see if there was anyone else I might know, my eyes stopped at the entrance. There was Jason.

“Oh great,” I said under my breath.

“What?” Lily followed my gaze until she saw him.

“He’s not seriously coming over here, is he?” I whispered to Lily, well, not actually whispered, but the closest I could get to a whisper over the loud band playing in the background.

“Well, we are kind of sitting with his brother and all their friends, if you haven’t noticed.” I looked down the table and she was right. When I looked back across the table, he was standing right in front of me.

“Ava.” He nodded at me. Did he really just give me the head nod?

“Hi.” I looked across the room to see if Adrian had noticed my situation but he was still in conversation with one of his friends. Jason looked over his shoulder to see who I was looking at.

“I see you’re here with the new boyfriend.” He leaned in so I could hear him over the music. He made sure to move in a little closer then he needed to, though. “How’s that going?” I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“Great, actually.” I glanced over toward Adrian again. I was a little scared he might just come charging over here when he saw Jason talking to me and who knew where things could go from there.

“That’s good. I’m happy for you and I hope one day we can be friends again.” He sat down across from me. “I really miss you, Ava. I feel like I lost one of my best friends.”

“You did that to yourself, you know.” I wasn’t about to sit here and fall for his self-pity party like I had before. He knew my weaknesses and he loved to push my buttons. I hated to see people sad.

“I know. I’m really sorry. I’d apologize a hundred times if that’s what it’d take for me to get you back.” The look on his face was genuine but I didn’t want to fall for this again.

“Jason, what don’t you get about you will never get me back? You’ve hurt me so many times, and you think if you just apologize, it’s going to fix things! It never does! It just mends them and then you find a way to break me down again and again! You can only break something so many times before it’s finally un-repairable! We are un-repairable! Get that through your head!” I stood up from the table and realized everyone was looking at us. Normally I’d be embarrassed, but I’d wanted to say those things to him for so long I actually felt at peace, like that’s what I needed to do in order to have a clean break from him. I looked across the room and saw that Adrian finally had his attention focused in my direction.

“We’ll see how un-repairable we are when your boyfriend runs off to Florida. I know you felt something when we kissed the other night at Chad’s. You’ll come back to me. You always do.” I couldn’t fathom what he just said. Was he actually serious? Or was he just saying it to show off to his friends? Either way, I was pissed off beyond belief. How dare he sit there and tell me I’d come back, I always do. Was that really how he saw me now? As the poor little helpless girl who couldn’t get anyone else so I’d always go back to him?

Adrian was heading in our direction. He must have been able to tell by the look on my face I was pissed. When I looked at Adrian, he had a way of sending some kind of calmness through me. Thank God or I would’ve said some pretty mean things to Jason right then, but I decided to take the high road.

“Jason, you make sure you remember this moment, right here, right now. I promise you this will be the last conversation we ever have. When you see me in the hallways at school or out in public, don’t bother coming up and saying hi again, because I won’t have anything to say to you. Just remember you’re the one who f*cked this up. Not me. Goodbye, Jason.” I met Adrian as he was about to reach our table.

“Are you okay? What did he say to you? If I need to kick his ass, I will, just tell me when.” He was ready for a battle.

“Adrian.” I put my hand on his chest to calm him. “Everything is fine. Great, actually. I handled it myself.” He looked down at me and I smiled. He calmed down when he realized I was actually happy.

“Are you sure?” He looked in Jason’s direction again. I pulled his face down to look at me again.

“I’m positive.” I kissed him gently on the lips and felt him lighten up a little bit. “Now will you please get me out of here?”

“Of course.” He grabbed my hand and led me out of the tent.