Forever Changed

“Soon?” she added.

I nodded, not bothering to answer. If Lacey’s mom got to her first, introductions would be a moot point anyway.

***

I was still tired from our late evening at Disney World when I met Maddon the next morning.

“You look nice,” he said, unlocking my door for me.

“Thanks,” I said, setting my purse and the small gift bag containing his present on the floorboard so he wouldn’t see it. “So do you, but that’s nothing new.”

“You’ve checked me out before?” he asked, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Come on, like you don’t know girls check you out.”

“Well sure, I know I’m hot,” he said, blowing on his fingernails and buffing them on his shirt.

“Smoking hot. I’m surprised the seat doesn’t burst up in flames underneath you,” I teased, knowing he was making a show of being cocky.

“Did you just say I have a smoking ass?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at me suggestively.

“Uh, no Mr. Egomaniac, but okay, if it makes you feel better, yeah you do.” I giggled.

“For that compliment, my lovely disillusioned friend, I’ll treat you to a breakfast of champions,” he said pulling through the drive-thru of McDonald’s. “What would you like?”

“Oh yay,” I said studying the menu. “I want one of their caramel frappes and a hash brown.”

“Ick, you like those coffee drinks?”

“I’d get an IV hooked up to them if they’d let me,” I joked.

“Not me. I’m a more milk kind of guy. You know, milk does a body good? Whereas, your poison will stunt your growth. Not that that seems to be an issue yet,” he flirted, sweeping his eyes down my body.

“No, I haven’t had many complaints in that category,” I flirted back boldly. I was curvier than most of my old friends with a chest that almost doubled the size of any of the other cheerleaders. Lacey used to snidely remark that she liked that her boobs didn’t bounce around like mine, but it always came across as pure jealousy. Not that she had anything to be jealous of. I would have traded both my boobs for the endlessly long, thin, tanned legs she sported. I would never admit it in front of her now, but all bitchiness aside, Lacey is gorgeous.

“Maybe coffee isn’t

that bad for you after all,” he said, letting his eyes linger.

I socked him in the arm laughing. “Stop being a perv and get us to this secret destination of yours.” I said, taking a big swig of my frappe.

“Yes, ma’am,” he laughed also.

He merged onto the highway and headed east. I was dying to know where we were going, but bit my tongue from asking again. Ten minutes later, he exited off the highway, veering into Orange City.

I sat confused, trying to think of a place in Orange City we could be visiting. The only thing I really knew about Orange City was that my friends and I passed it on the way to Daytona Beach. I remember stopping at a gas station there with Colton last summer, but it was more of a "merge off and merge" on kind of situation, since the gas station had been located right off the highway exit.

A few minutes later, he turned onto a road named French Avenue. The street held mostly an odd assortment of older and newer houses. I wondered if maybe we were visiting someone he knew. A mile up the road, he turned left into the Blue Springs State Park.

“A park?” I asked, wondering why we had driven twenty miles out of our way when we had plenty of parks near us.

“Not just any park,” he said, hopping out of the driver’s seat.

I followed suit, shivering slightly from the cool breeze and the aftereffects of the frappe I had downed.

“Come on, you’re gonna love this,” he said, linking his fingers with mine and dragging me toward a trail. We walked in silence. I took in the overgrown trees covered in moss and other vegetation that surrounded us as we made our way down the path. After a few minutes, the path finally opened up to a crystal-clear-spring-fed lake. We navigated the steep embankment that led down to the water’s edge to take a closer look. It was almost like being at an aquarium. Peering into the water, I saw a turtle swimming toward us, and several fish darting around the bottom of the spring, nipping at the dirt.

“I can’t believe how crystal-clear it is,” I said, turning to him in amazement. I was startled to see he was studying me instead of the underwater wildlife in front of us. “What?” I asked, paranoid.