Not for the first time, Jane sat amongst a crowd of friends and wondered why she even bothered. They were all good, conservative Christians. Believers of the One Truth. Follow-the-rules type virgins. Pitiful in Jane's humble opinion. Not that she wasn't a Christian, she was. Just not as literally as all her friends were. Well...almost all of them. For the past three years she had grown close to this group of friends despite their differences. She had gone to high school with Mary and they had met Jess, her brother Eddy, and his friends their freshman year. Now three years later, Mary was engaged to one of his friends and Jane was secretly seeing Eddy. Secretly because no one could know that Eddy was a "sinner" like her, but seeing maybe was not the right word for it... for about a year a pattern had developed of getting drunk every once in a while and hooking up. The day after would consist of texts discussing how it could never happen again which would turn in to sexting then a repeat performance. The problem was that aside from hating the secrecy, Jane also kind of hated Eddy. He was narcissistic, obnoxious, a pathological liar, and generally just not her type. He was good looking and fun to flirt with when he wasn't being a total ass, but in general he wasn't really worth her time. The sex was mediocre and only appealing because of the risk. She didn't even really want to be around him. And yet, there she sat in his backyard around the bonfire with everyone avoiding catching his eyes and trying not to think about how alienated and alone she felt in this crowd.
Luckily, tonight Eddy had surrounded himself by the flirty girls and was making an ass out of himself, so he was easy to ignore without remorse. Mary and her fiancé Doug were lost in each other's company and Jess was in a deep discussion with Jason, the philosophical friend. The only people unoccupied were Jane and Will who sat quietly looking into the fire and sipping his beer. Will was new to the group. He had met Jason at a Bible college in New York and decided to go to Colorado with his new friend for a while before moving back to California. Jane had liked him immediately. He fit well into the group, but because he didn't know everyone and the extended friends that well, it had often been ending up like this: just them left to talk and hang out. She tried not to think of him as anything more than a friend. He was good looking and funny and very nice, but other than that all she really knew about him was that he was a good kid like the rest of them, he hated being too connected to anything, and was going back to California eventually though she had no idea when. So they usually just talked and casually hung out with the rest of the group and went out to a bar sometimes as friends.
Tonight they talked about the usual topics: group gossip, beers of choice, and crazy stories from the past. Jane found it so easy to talk to him she didn't even really think about the secret she was revealing when she finished off one of her anecdotes with "I was so high though, so of course I couldn't stop laughing." Almost immediately after the words left her mouth she realized her mistake and, embarrassed, began trying to think of how to fix it. There was no need for that though as Will responded by mentioning how long it had been since he smoked weed.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa..." Jane said completely stunned, "You've smoked before?!"
Will looked at her like she was nuts and laughed, "Uhh...yeah, couple times haha. Have you not noticed my tattoo?"
In fact, Jane had noticed his tattoo. It was a clutter of designs covering the entirety of his left forearm that couldn't be clearly deciphered without looking closely, but she had thus far tried to avoid it. Will was hot. Will was very hot. He was tall with a broad chest and strong shoulders that led down to even stronger arms. Since the first time she met him she had tried to not notice these features or the painfully noticeable ink that decorated his beautiful dark skin. He was off limits, so the fact that he had so many qualities that Jane had weaknesses for was troubling. So she had ignored it so far, but now next to the light of the fire he extended he arm toward her and scooted a bit closer. She looked down at his wrist and noticed a rather large image of a marijuana plant. Now she felt more embarrassed at not noticing, but laughed again surprised.
"Hey...good kids aren't supposed to smoke weed let alone get a tattoo of it haha." She said as she continued to examine the rest of the inked design.
"Well I wasn't always a good kid." Will retorted.
She felt his eyes on her and looked up to meet them. He was grinning, but the look in his eyes seemed almost solemn. She had avoided this too, looking into his dark eyes made her want to be closer to him. Will wasn't just another one of this Holier-than-thou crowd. Jane recognized this before, but hadn't fully appreciated it until now. She began to feel her face redden and even though the firelight was not enough to illuminate it, she looked back down to the tattoo trying to concentrate on the rest of it. Will must have noticed as he started to explain.
"I got the weed tat when I turned 18, I was kinda out of control back then. After a while all the craziness got old, but I was afraid I couldn't erase all the bad stuff from my past. I guess that's when I started to explore my faith and stuff and it felt good to remember that God is forgiving. That's when I got the phoenix."
Now that he put a name to it she started to see the swirling shapes form into feathers and body of a bird in flight reaching up to the chi roe symbol near the crease of his elbow. She couldn't help it; she reached out a hand and traced up the long feathers with her finger until she got to the symbol. She could feel his gaze searching her face instead of her finger as he continued.
"So I guess it's just a reminder that even if I sin, I can still rise from the ashes and rise up to God."
There is was. The moment Jane needed to pull her out of the trace and back into safe, plutonic reality. He was one of the good kids, maybe not exactly the same, but still off limits to her. The reminder was emphasized by Jason overhearing and involving himself into the conversation.
"That's right, man. Our God is good! Maybe
you
can convince Jane to come to church with us and actually hear the Word." He said grinning.
As he spoke Jane chugged the rest of the beer she had been nursing and rolled her eyes. She hated this. She hated that she couldn't go one night without one of her well-meaning friends telling her she wasn't Christian
enough
. She really hated that she couldn't get mad at them because she knew that's just how they show they care. At the moment, she wasn't in the mood to get into it.
"The only place Jane can be convinced to go right now is to fetch another beer...Anyone else need one?" She said as she stood up and started to walk into the garage where the beer fridge was. No one answered as Jason had taken her seat and welcomed Jess and the others still around the fire into a religious conversation. It was perfect timing really. She had almost let herself start to think about Will more than she should and was glad for the shock back into rational, logical thought. The logical action to take now was to get hammered. As she reached into the fridge she felt someone walk up behind her. The feeling was familiar enough to let her know it was Eddy, so she didn't react when he reached one arm around her and the other passed her in to grab a beer. He kissed he neck and whispered something about making sure they stay away from each other before he went back outside yelling something stupid.
No problem there...
she thought rolling her eyes once again at her choice in company.
The only thing I even want to be around right now is a solid state of inebriation.
In what seemed like no time at all she got there. The perfect state of drunkenness. She was conversing and having fun with everyone except Eddy who had retreated to the basement to have a "heart-to-heart talk" with one of the flirty girls. Good for him, but better for Jane who was glad of the opportunity to discuss what an ass he was with the rest of the girls and laugh and forget about any worries. She eventually had ended up back by Will, the feelings from earlier forgotten in her state. They joked around about Will's philosophy on hair maintenance and laughed with everyone else, but more with each other as their wit was evenly matched. At some point only Jane, Jason, Doug, and Will remained in the back yard in the wee hours of the morning.
Somehow the conversation had reached a point of debate about self-defense for girls. Jane's inner tomboy was surfacing as she talked about the different ways she could hit and tackle despite being smaller than all of them. The alcohol had of course prompted her to demonstrate such things and in the end she was laying on the ground out of breath near Will after a small wrestling match while the other two boys laughed and pointed. Amidst the sound of the laughter and the view of the stars she now had while lying in the plush grass, Jane stopped paying attention to the boys and the rest of the world. She had no idea how long she was lost in thought, but was suddenly pulled out of it by the sound of Will's voice.
