TO THE READER: this story includes several characters from the series of Jason Garrett stories; however, this story is not part of that series. Rather, this story is a follow-up to the story
Austin's Senior Prom.
Hi! My name is Kacey McLaren. I'm a freshman at the University of Florida (go Gators!) and was just elected president of the Gulf Atlantic (GALSM) region of Lutheran Student Movement - USA. And trust me, I was just as surprised as anybody else when it happened.
But before I go any further, let me give you a little history about myself. I was born in San Antonio, Texas, in January of 1987. The daughter of an Air Force tanker pilot, the first twelve years of my life were spent moving around the world to whatever wing my dad was assigned to. I lived in such places as Alaska, Hawaii, and Germany. Moving around as much as I did and having a military family, I was usually a fairly well behaved child.
When my dad retired in the summer of 1999, however, and we settled in Burbank, California, I really cut loose. Even though I was only twelve and just about to go into junior high, I became a wild child. I got completely hammered at a party that I shouldn't have been at when I was thirteen and lost my virginity to some guy I had never seen before and honestly have not seen since.
By the end of my sophomore year of high school, in May of 2003, I was known as the school bicycle - everybody had had a ride. The one guy I had fixed my sights on, Austin Garrett, I knew that I would never have, because in my heart I knew that he deserved better than the slut I had become.
And maybe my want of Austin led to my own personal reformation. At the end of the 2002-03 school year, I said to myself, "Enough!" To get away from the influences that were constantly dragging me under, I turned to the Lutheran church - the church I had grown up in - and ended up working the summer at a place called Camp Calumet in New England. Being literally in the opposite corner of the country from Burbank did wonders for me, and when I came back to Burbank that fall, I was a new person, committed to living life for myself and not for the pleasure of others.
I remained chaste all throughout my junior year and most of my senior year, surprising everybody when I went bowling on my eighteenth birthday rather than having the wild orgy that most had expected. And I thought it was my reformation that caused Austin Garrett, the guy of my dreams, to ask me to go to senior prom with him in March of 2005.
It was the day before prom that I found out his true objective - he wanted to get laid. But it was funny how I found about it - he personally told me. A broken man, he couldn't take the deception and the lying any longer. Although I was angry with him, I couldn't help but respect the strength and courage it took to be honest about this with me.
And let's face it, Austin was the guy that I had wanted for several years now. So it was, the next night, at the post prom party, I became Austin Garrett's first. It made him very happy, and in addition to being the first time I had had sex in nearly two years, it was the very first time that I had ever had sex when I really wanted to, where it meant more to me than just a quick fuck.
I dated Austin through the end of the school year, but there was no way it would last - he was going into the Air Force, and I was going off to the University of Florida.
When I got to Florida, I found that their Lutheran student ministry was really in bad shape. I wanted to have a church family that I could be active in, a church family that would keep me accountable and keep me from backsliding into my old life. So I contacted a local Lutheran pastor, and working together, we managed to get a group of about ten Gators to go to the GALSM regional retreat in October up in Atlanta.
At the retreat, the students from the University of Florida decided to nominate me for president of the region, because despite my relative inexperience, they felt that since I had been instrumental in bringing the ministry back into being, I had what it took to be president of the region. Well, I ran unopposed, and so I was suddenly the "Regional Representative Elect" from the Gulf Atlantic region.
Which brings us to the present. Now, each regional president is expected to attend two national gatherings of the Lutheran Student Movement - one at the beginning of their term, and one at the end. As my term would be for the year 2006, I was headed to the 2005-06 National Gathering for my inauguration.
Conveniently enough, the 2005-06 gathering was in San Diego, and being that my family lived in Burbank, it was just a few hours drive (my poor car had been sitting in the backyard, unused, for months!) to the gathering. Never had I figured some of the people I would meet at this thing!
The first two people I met when I walked into the Marriott in San Diego had nametags saying that they were representatives from Lutheran Outdoor Ministries. One of them was from South Carolina, and she seemed to be overjoyed when she heard that I was the new GALSM president. "Oh yeah," she said with a drawl, "I was the president of the region in 2004. You'll have a great time!"
When I got to the check-in table, the registrar, apparently the president of one of the other regions, was yelling down the hall at somebody (who I hope she knew) about the fact that she had quite enough cleavage, thank you.
Okay
, I thought.
And these are the people I'm going to be working with
.
After I got checked in, the next few days went by like a blur. On the night of December 30
th
, our house band did a concert for us. In the middle of the concert, some guy from Arizona got the mike from the lead singer, and proposed right then and there to his girlfriend, a tall redhead from Cal State Northridge who let out a shriek when he asked. Of course, she said yes, and I found myself wishing for a boyfriend who would do something like that.
The next day, New Year's Eve, I was officially sworn in as the regional president, first in my region's meeting, and then on the national level at the banquet. We had a dance afterward, but at about 12:30 AM, I found myself wandering outside, overwhelmed.
I got my car from valet parking, and just started driving. When I found myself on Coronado Island, I found a parking spot and wandered down to Coronado Beach, which was mostly deserted right now. I sat down in the sand by the water's edge, just close enough that the waves lapped up over my feet. It was quiet, and peaceful - until a helicopter rattled overhead, coming in for a landing at Naval Air Station North Island, at the end of Coronado. The sound died out quickly, and my silence returned... until...
"Kacey?" a voice called.
I knew that voice. But how was that possible? He was assigned to Beale Air Force Base, up in Sacramento!
"Kacey?" it came again.