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Chapter 18: Destiny

SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2001

Four weeks of camp. Almost a month away from the real world. No email. No IMing. Probably not any phone calls. No more seeing Megan, Cassidy, and Adrienne on a daily basis to remind me how much I’d sabotaged my own happiness. No seeing Abbie and Allie to remind me that this wasn’t just a game and how close I’d come to ruining my life. Sure, I’d miss my friends. But I needed a break.

Last year, I couldn’t read in the family van while we cruised up Highway 5 towards Northern California. My growth spurt was wreaking havoc on my sense of balance and after a while, even reading street signs was making me queasy. But this year was no problem, and I happily settled in to read. With an eleven-hour drive, I had plenty of time and nothing better to do and I settled into my chair with Goblet of Fire.

Brooke and the twins were finally letting me read it, after they’d read it and re-read it a hundred times in the past year or so. I was just happy that the Potter books were starting to grow up and get darker. And the simple peace of reading a book did wonders for my overly cluttered mind.

Speaking of the girls, the twins were chatting amongst themselves in the back bench seat. And Brooke was presently conked out in the bucket seat to my right, the spot usually occupied by Brandi, who was still at Berkeley for her internship and wouldn’t be joining us.

I sighed at the thought of not seeing Brandi again for a while. She planned to make one weekend visit at least during the summer, so we’d reconnect for a bit. But I HAD been looking forward to a chance to reconnect our sexual organs at some point during camp. The idea of a repeat foursome with Dawn, Dayna, and Brandi had me hard for hours when I first thought of it back in February.

But even with Brandi and Dayna not attending camp, I still had Dawn. My Dawn. Of all the people in the world, I knew she would understand and forgive. I had a clean slate with her. I could be the man I truly wanted to be with her, without the baggage of my past mistakes. And I felt my heart overflowing with sunshine at the mere thought of seeing my Dawn again.

And then there was Brooke. In the few days since the near-rape by her boyfriend Perry, my 15-year-old little sister had clung to my side like a second skin. On the couch, she displaced one of the twins to lean against me while watching a movie. We played more video games and board games together in three days than we had in the previous three months. And when I had to drive out to fill up my mom’s car with gas, Brooke even volunteered to give me some company just to stay in my orbit.

There wasn’t anything sexual about it, but the entire family could tell that we were somehow closer. And when our parents questioned her about it, Brooke just explained that she’d broken up with her boyfriend and that I was helping to talk her through it.

Mom made a smart-alecky remark, “Well if anyone knows breakups, it’s Ben.”

Brooke had just giggled and slid herself under my arm, not so easy now that her growth spurt had pushed her up to 5’7”.

Now that we were on our way to camp, I wondered how much she would still be around me. In the past, Brooke had immediately paired up with DJ and the two would run off to do whatever young teenage girls did while I did my own thing with Dawn. Most summers, I felt like I saw even less of Brooke at camp than I did at home. But lately, I’d gotten used to having her around me, and as I looked at my pretty sister sleeping peacefully in the chair nearby, I found myself hoping we’d find away to hang out together for a change.

Given that I also wanted to spend as much time as possible fucking Dawn’s lights out, I wasn’t quite sure how the logistics would work out, but I did have a craving to be near Brooke.

I was stirred from my thoughts when we stopped for gas and my dad took over the driving for the final leg. He was a bit grumpy from not having a pleasant enough nap, and before he shifted the car into gear, he turned around and looked right at me. “Ben, next year, you’re taking a driving leg.”

I grinned. My parents may have seen driving as a chore, but to a 17-year-old like me, getting new responsibilities is always a little thrill. And if it were up to me, I’d floor the van and do 100 miles an hour until I got to see Dawn again.

* * *

I started to get nervous as we approached the camp. So much had happened to me in the past year. So much about me had changed. How much had Dawn changed? Yeah, I got the occasional email or phone call, but I really didn’t know what was going on in her life.

Had she gone off the deep-end like me and screwed a dozen guys? Had she fallen in love with Mark or some other boyfriend and wanted to remain faithful to him? Had her personality just changed so much that she no longer wanted to hang out with me for four weeks, or even be my friend?

I tossed aside the extreme thoughts. After all, she HAD called me for Christmas and in April. Everything seemed normal. But even if she hadn’t radically changed, it was always possible that she’d changed just enough for things to no longer be the way they used to be. And I’d done so many things I wasn’t proud of, I wasn’t sure if she’d still want to be around me if she found out.

Brooke, awake now, caught me biting my lip and reached over to squeeze my hand. Without having to ask, she said sweetly, “Relax, Ben. I’m sure Dawn will be happy to see you.”

I gave a tight smile to my sister, and then we arrived.

As usual, the Evanses were there before us. Their cabin right next to ours was already adorned with hanging towels and various equipment propped against the wall on the porch. And the minute our van pulled up outside our cabin, I glanced out the window and saw the Evans’ front door opening.

Jack and Deanna Evans were the first ones out the door, waving while my dad parked the van. Brooke was quick to pop the double-doors and hop out, and I followed soon after.

I turned back to look at the cabin porch just in time to see Dawn come out. She looked EXACTLY like I remembered her. I had a clear image in my head of her svelte body, her slightly overdeveloped breasts on top of the Evans family natural slenderness. Her fine blonde hair cascaded around her cheeks as she hustled down the stairs, and my heart leaped as I realized how eager she was to reunite with me.

But instead of heading for me by the van, she made a beeline for Brooke who was hustling up to her. And just then, her hair bounced back away from her face and I realized it was DJ, and my eyes popped open in surprise. Hell, the youngest Evans daughter had certainly grown up.

A musical giggle caught my attention from the porch and I turned to see Dawn smiling at me. Her face was just as gorgeous as ever, and the rest of her body was growing into the very full curves of a young woman. Just a few days away from her 17th birthday, Dawn’s tits had certainly grown to where they were stretching her light summer dress to the limits. They weren’t Dayna’s double-D’s yet, but they WERE much bigger than I remembered them, and I felt my shorts tightening in response. The hem of the dress was short, showing off her long, tanned legs. Her hips were flared just a bit more, and she seemed to have picked up another couple of inches in height, although that may have been because she was elevated on the porch.

I’d had a clear image of what she looked like in my mind. The memory didn’t do her justice. Dawn was breathtakingly beautiful now. And I merely blinked as if her radiance blinded me while my jaw dropped wide open.

Deanna Evans, Dawn’s mother, looked over at her daughter and said, “I TOLD you he’d like that dress.”

Dawn didn’t respond verbally, her gaze locked onto me. I said nothing either, and time seemed to slow down around us.