In the Blink of a Decade

Casey Steel

I walked down the stairs leading to the dock down by the water. When I got to the bottom I stopped to admire the view. It was serene.

It looked to be about half a mile from where I stood to the other side of the lake. The view on the other side was full of lush green trees and aa few big boulders sticking out of the water along the shoreline. Around the rest of the lake there were cottages scattered amongst the trees. It was peaceful and quiet,

I sat down in a chair at the end of the dock and poured myself a full glass of wine. Taking a sip I admired the sweetness and tried to will the wine and surroundings to take my mind off of Casey.

WHAT THE f**k FISHER!! WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FUN AND RELAXING VACATION!!!

I clearly have not had enough wine to clam down, so I chugged the rest of the glass and poured myself another. I then looked at the bottle and was annoyed with myself for chugging good wine. This was not the $5.00 bottle of my twenties. I am supposed to sip and savour it.

I took a few deep breaths and blew them out and forced myself to face my reality. I was going to be spending a week in close proximity to Casey Steel, and there is no way in hell he is going to ruin my week away.

I sipped on my wine, admiring the view from the dock, but could not take my mind off of Casey.

17 Years Ago

I was a senior in High School and had just spent the summer living and working at my parent’s cottage. I had made friends with Hallie, Fisher, Peter and Laura over the summer both at work and at beach bonfires.

The people I spent the summer hanging out with worked at the marinas, flipped burgers at beach restaurants and worked at the local camp grounds. We spent our summer working through the day, going to the beach or out on the boat in the evening and partying at night.

That summer I sweated out uncountable hangovers at work, had a dark brown tan from spending time in the sun and developed friendships that would last a lifetime.

I returned home from the cottage after the summer certifying myself a beach bum and looking forward to visiting my new friends in their home towns.

It was Christmas break and Fisher had gotten caught smoking weed by his mother who had grounded him for a month. This grounding had left him home alone for a weekend while the rest of his family went away skiing.

Why Fisher’s parents thought they could leave a teenage Fisher home alone is beyond me. For Fisher, this was not a weekend of being grounded, but the perfect time to throw a party.

Fisher had invited our summer group of friends to his place for a Friday night party promising us a good time.

Fisher’s dad was an engineer who had patented some sort of manufacturing equipment and as a result was loaded. Their house was massive and featured an indoor pool and hot tub.

Hallie, Peter and I were all going to be able to go to Fisher’s party and I was excited to see my friends again.

It was an hour drive to Fisher’s house and I was headed there early as he promised to cook dinner for our summer friends group so that we all had a chance to catch up before the real fun started.

I had managed to print off good directions from Map Quest and made it to Fisher’s house without getting lost. This was an achievement for me as generally I have no sense of direction.

When I arrived Fisher greeted me and brought me into the kitchen where Hallie and Peter were already sitting with a beer along with Peter’s friend Austin who had visited him at the cottage a few times over the summer. Peter and Austin had been best friends since kindergarten and Austin seemed to fit in well with everyone.

We chatted and ate dinner. It felt like I was with people I had known my whole life. I really missed them.

After dinner Austin and I were doing the dishes as Fisher’s friends from High School started to arrive.

I was drying the last dish when a guy walked in. He was about 6 feet tall, had blonde hair and blue eyes and was noticeably lean and fit. He was gorgeous.

He looked at me and asked “Do you think you can help me find a bottle opener?”

I already knew there was a magnetic one stuck to the side of the fridge so I silently walked around him, pulled it off and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said “I’m Casey.”

I looked up into his beautiful blue eyes. “Shelly”I said holding out my hand.

Just as I was about to wonder if I needed to think of something funny to say to Casey, Fisher walked in and announced that we needed to get in our bathing suits so we could play volleyball in the pool.

I went to the bathroom to get changed. As I put on my bathing suit I stared in the mirror. Certified beach bum or not, I hate showing my body in a bathing suit.

I have been chubby my whole life, and now that I am 18 and considered a woman, I am categorized as “plus size”. I am short and stout, and I always feel like people are judging me by the size of my ass.

I have learned to cover up my insecurity about my body by being the loud friend who is always trying to get everyone to have a good time. But friend is all I ever am. Teenage boys typically don’t like girls with an ass as big as mine and I don’t have the self confidence to put myself out there and make the first move. I don’t think I could handle the look of rejection. So I have resigned myself to the friend zone and accepted that it is OK to have male friends and no boyfriend.

I pull my hair up into a pony tail so it doesn’t get messy in the pool and take one last look at myself in the mirror accepting that no matter how long I stand here I am not going to get skinny so I might as well head to the pool and have fun.

When I get to the pool Fisher feels me I am on his team so to get myself to his side of the net. My size often leads people to underestimate my physical capabilities and I am pretty sure Fisher is banking on that initial shock of surprise to score a few points before the other team catches on. I may look slow, but I excel at volleyball and I can move well in the water.

Fisher has divided us up into teams based on how he knows us. On our side of the net is our summer group, on the other side is some of Fisher’s other friends from High School, including Casey.

Fisher serves the ball and Casey immediately jumps up smashing it back over the net in my direction with a look on his face that says I just scored. I quickly get under the ball and volley it up, setting up Austin to send it back over the net. Austin sends the ball back over to an area of the pool the other team is not covering and we score.

Casey looks at me with a raised eyebrow as Fisher yells “Drink up bitches.”

With Fisher, everything is a drinking game. I was the last one in the pool and didn’t hear the announcement that you have to drink with every point the other team scores, but I am not surprised. Our beach volleyball games this summer were the same if Fisher was playing.

The game continues on while more people arrive at Fisher’s house letting themselves in. I am positive this is not the first party he has thrown and people are used to walking into his house. We score more points than the other team, but as I have been drinking since I arrived I am starting to feel a little tipsy.

Fisher calls the game when a tall brunette walks in dressed like she is going to the club. I take that to mean that is his current flavour of the week.

We all get out of the pool and I head back to the bathroom to get out of my bathing suit. The sooner I can get my clothes back on, the more comfortable I will be.

I change quickly and hang my suit in the shower to drip dry. As I come out of the bathroom Casey is waiting outside to get changed. He smiles at me and says “good game.” I smile back and say thanks and head back out to the party in search of Hallie.

Hallie has the perfect body and I know she is going to spend the rest of the evening rocking her bikini and bouncing between the hot tub and playing whatever drinking games interest her. She spots me walking her way and runs over to me grabbing my hand and dragging me to the beer pong table without a word. Casey and Fisher are on the other side setting up. Fisher looks up and smiles “At least I will have some competition” he says.

Hallie is a beer pong master, I on the other hand suck. I swear she only wants to be my partner because it guarantees she will have to drink something and that she will not wipe the board with her opponent.

The game plays out just as I would have expected. The boys are good, but Hallie doesn’t miss a shot. We win the game by 1 cup. By the end, I am drunk and want some air.

I tell Hallie I’m going outside for some air, grab my winter coat and head out to the back deck.

I am leaning over the railing staring up at the stars when I hear the patio doors sliding open behind me. I turn around and see that is is Casey and he is heading my way.

“Playing shy out here by yourself?” he asks”

“No I just like it look at the stars” I said.

He smiles at me and says “I am a bit of an astronomy nerd.” My drunk brain is trying to wrap my head around the fit hunk in front of me being any kind of nerd. I am still contemplating this in silence when he points up to the sky and says “There is Gemini”.

I look up to where he pointing but have no idea what I am looking at. “I wish I knew what Gemini looks like so I could see it too” I replied.

Casey closes the distance between us and takes my right hand in his guiding my hand up to point at the sky. For a moment I am confused at his touch but register that he is trying to show me where Gemini is. I look to where he has our hands pointing and he says “see the group of stars that look a little bit like 2 stick figures holding hands?”

I do my best to focus on the sky and not on our touching hands. I concentrate on the sky and I burst out wth excitement “I CAN SEE IT!”

Casey laughs, but doesn’t let go of my hand as he brings it back down out of the sky to my side.

My brain is once again confused. Why is he still holding my hand?

I know Casey is watching me, but he is not saying anything.

I am busy staring up into the sky and trying not to look confused. I have no idea what to say next. So I say the first thing that comes into my head “How do you know Fisher.”

Casey smiles and says “We have been friends since he moved here in the sixth grade.”

It is silent for a minute as we both stare up into the sky. Casey is still holding my hand which confuses me, but I like his touch so I haven’t pulled it away from his.

Casey breaks the silence, “Fisher told me you met him at a bonfire when you kicked his ass at a game of flip cup.”

I smiled, “I might be bad at beer pong, but Fisher sucks at flip cup. By the time we were done I think Fisher was having trouble standing up.”

Casey laughed “He really does suck at flip cup.”

We were silent again for another minute when Casey said “I like your smile.”

I froze in confusion. Was he flirting with me? No. Yes. Maybe? What is going on. My brain started ticking through the boxes. He has been holding my hand for at least five minutes, he’s standing close to me, he just gave me a compliment. Yes, I think he is flirting….but why with me? There has to be a prettier girl in the house he could flirt with.

I have never had this kind of attention from a guy before and I don’t know what I am supposed to do next so I just smile and stare up at the sky.

A minute later Fisher saved me from my awkward self and came outside to smoke a joint.

Casey let go of my hand and we start talking to Fisher about the things we have missed while we were outside. Apparently someone had been puking in a bucket of his mother’s towels in the bathroom….that was going to be fun to clean up tomorrow.

We all went back inside and I spent the rest of the party keeping Hallie out of trouble.

Casey seemed to be watching me. But I brushed the thought from my mind as I resigned myself to ensuring Hallie made it to bed by herself tonight.

At 3AM the party was wrapping up and most of the guests had left. Hallie was passed out on the living room sofa and I was not feeling up to sleep yet. I started cleaning up all the bottles, placing them into a recycling bag thinking I would not want to wake up to this much mess in the morning.

Fisher had long been in his room with the brunette I had seen earlier. Not surprised. He slept with more girls this past summer than I can count. It was so bad the first thing he did when we headed home for the fall was get an STD test. Somehow it came back clean.

I was clearing up the beer pong area when I heard someone behind me. I turned around to see Casey leaning against the door frame smiling at me. “Of course you are the nice girl cleaning up at the end of the night” he said.

I didn’t know what to say so I just smiled, nodded and kept putting bottles in the recycling bag. A few seconds later Casey was beside me places bottles in the bag too.

I heard the doorbell ring and Casey said “I think that is my sister here to pick me up.”

“It was nice to meet you,” I said. Casey closed the distance between us and kissed me gently on the mouth. I was frozen. Was this really happening? He pulled back and smiled at me, smirking at the stunned look on my face.

“Hope to see you again soon” he said as he turned and walked away. I was still too stunned to say anything.