Story: Camp Pawa (chapter 16)

In the backseat of a large dark burgundy car, sat the figures of CC and Mandy. Officer Livingstone was the one driving the car, minus her police uniform. The three were just driving along, heading away from Camp Pawa, south along a older road that skirted the lake side.

The two young girl’s were unsure of where they were actually going with the officer, but they trusted her totally. It was not as the officer was anything to worry about, they were very curious to where the woman was taking them. They simply held hands in the back seat, and watched as the darkness moved outside of the window, lit only by the moon and the car’s very bright headlights.

The were about twenty or so minutes away from the camp, Rolling along a deserted looking back road. CC looked out of the car window, watching the trees go by in the dimness of the night that surrounded the automobile. She was not even sure where they were going at this point.

" Where are we going, Officer Livingstone?" She asked, trying to figure things out.

" First thing is... I am not a Law Officer right now... you can simply call me Dana..." The woman said, with a smile. " The second thing... you will just have to wait for a few minutes longer, and everything will slip into place."

Both young girls looked at each other, not knowing quite what to make of all of this. They were so curious to find out where they were going this late at night It was a mystery, but thankfully it was a good one.

Dana watched the two girls in the back in her rearview mirror, studying each of their faces individually. The woman cracked a small grin and kept herself driving, expelling a little giggle lowly so the two in the back would not end up hearing her. It was almost as if she was excited about what was unfolding right now.

At the southern most end of Lake Pawa, the car abruptly swung in to a driveway that was hidden in the midst of a large stand of trees. A dirt and gravel road was now stretching out, and the car simply followed this path into the pitch blackness of night. The two young girl’s took note of this directional turn, and was now really wondering just where it was they were going at this hour.

Finally at the end of the road the car found two small cabins sitting in a clearing, against the backdrop of the very calm waters of the lake. The tempest of the storm had broke not long after the capture of Raven and her two partners in crime, and now the moon was high in the rapidly clearing sky, illuminating the two little summer houses..

" Here we are!" Said The officer called Dana, smiling while throwing the car into park.

" But... Where is it that we are ‘here’?" Asked CC, looking through the window at the small cabins nestled against the lakeshore. " I don’t know anyone way out here..."

" Neither do I..." Mandy said, also looking at the two little cabins as the sat in the light of the moon.

" You both will end up seeing what this is all about in a matter of moments..." Said the woman, getting out of the car.

CC and Mandy looked at one another, each were confused and excited at this. The two girls got out of the car and followed the very tall woman up to the door. They could see no name plates on the door, or anything that would indicate who would be the owners of the cabins. They were just simply very nondescript cabins, not unlike any of the others that dotted all around the shores of the lake.

Dana knocked on the door with a strong rapping sound, as all three of them stood on the small porch, while hearing the electric bug-zapper getting a few more of the summer’s pests. After a few seconds of waiting, the door swung opened and a fairly tall woman stepped to the screen door and peered out.

" You are here!" Said the woman, standing tall in the light that cascaded past her from inside.

Mandy gasped, as she saw the woman standing there. The woman who stood in the doorway of the little structure was someone who she had known for a very long time. The tall woman who was in the doorway looking out at them was none other than Mrs. Vincent, Donna’s mother.

" Mrs. Vincent..." Mandy said, with a gasp, dispite herself.

Mrs. Vincent smiled and nodded, noting the look of shock the young girl had on her face.

" It is so nice to see you again, Mandy..." The woman said. giving a small smile of warmth. " I think it’s been... almost a year, I think since the last time we saw you..."

" Last summer, when camp had ended, Mrs. Vincent.." Mandy said, looking over at Dana, who was not saying a word right now. " It is nice to see you again, but I am not understanding why we were brought here."

The woman nodded, giving a very soft smile to the very perplexed Mandy. Mrs. Vincent then give a glance over to the equally confused CC beside her.

" I really sure that this is all so strange for the both of you to be brought out here like this..." The lady said, her warmth radiating from her smile.

" It is... more than just strange..." Admitted Mandy.

" I can understand that...." The woman said with a little titter of a giggle, stepping back from the screen door as she spoke. " The three of you come right on in, and then we will all tell you two just what it is that your doing here."

The woman motioned for the three to come into the cabin. CC and Mandy now were really confused with this turn of events, this night had just gotten more and more fascinating as well, even without knowing what was going on With the invitation, both girls entered the cabin to find out just what was going on.

The interior of the cabin was very small, way smaller than even their own Cabin five back at Camp Pawa. The place was at least, very cozy, furnished warmly with furniture that set that tone clearly.

Mandy spotted the tall and gawkily thin built Mr. Vincent sitting on a small sofa, beside Donna’s older sister, named Jennifer, who she had met many times before over the years back at Camp Pawa. Donna’s father and sister greeted them with great warmth, as Dana took a seat at a small table in the corner of the room.

Mandy and CC were still not even close to grasping just what was going on, and fought their urge to hold one another’s hand. Mrs. Vincent looked that them both with a warm look, settling them down a little. The woman started to speak, her way was as always a very straight forward way.

" You know what happened to Donna... right...?" She asked.

" I found her after..." Started the small girl, then her words seemed to trail off.

CC nodded for her girlfriend, feeling a little uneasy with what happened to the red headed girl, considering what also had happened to Mandy. From Mandy’s voice trailing off like that, CC knew the girl had returned to that bad point in time. The goth girl wanted to take that away from the pretty girl, but knew that it won’t for a very long time.

Mrs. Vincent took a deep breath in through her mouth, as this topic was more than just a little hard even for this usually very confident woman to be speaking of.

" You are both here because Donna asked for the both of you to be." She said, her words just coming out.

" She’s here?" Asked Mandy, feeling a little excited to hear that her old friend was supposedly there.

Mrs. Vincent nodded, and regarded the two girl’s with a much smaller smile

" In the back room." Donna’s mother said. " She is physically much better right now, and it was her that had been asking for the both of you to come here."

" How is she otherwise?" Asked Mandy, knowing that physically she might be fine.

" Just like Donna, she seems to be taking things rather well under the circumstances..." The woman informed, then her face fell a little. " But, I wonder nonetheless, what effect it might have had deeper."

" I think I might know..." Was all Mandy said.

The woman looked at the girl, and her warm smile slipped back on to her tired looking face.

" Perhaps you do, Mandy..." Mrs. Vincent said, nodding.

The cabin got really quiet for a few moments, as each person seemed to be thinking on things. CC then broke the silence, as her curiosity had now came back and with a vengeance.

" You had said Donna asked for both of us to come here...Why the both of us?" Asked CC, in her usual up front way. " Donna has known Mandy for a very long time, and you know that she hardly knows me."

" It was what she said she really wanted... to see the two of you..." The woman said, her smile coming back more brighter. " I can’t divulge the reason why she wanted to see you both, she asked me not to... I guess you two both go back to her room, and she will explain everything."

The girl’s nodded and began walking to where the woman had been pointing at. The others seemed to just stay silent in the room.

******

CC and Mandy found Donna sitting up in a bed in a little small room. The girl looked still bruised and battered, but seemed to be in high spirits considering what had happened to her only a few short days ago. The three girl’s all looked at one another, as the room was deathly silent. The tension in the room was heavy.

Donna took a small sigh, as she moved her red hair from her face. She locked eyes on to the smaller of the two girl’s that stood there.

" I heard what happened at camp to you..." She said. " I was... worried about you, Mandy."

Mandy dropped her eyes, as the memories flooded back. Instinctively, CC put her arm around her, the goth girl just knew what was going on inside of her. The girl in the bed did not even flinch with the goth’ girl’s action.

" I wanted to let you know that I knew about the both of you, and was worried about you both after what happened..." Said Donna.

" You know of our... relationship?" Said Mandy, shocked to hear it from her usually boy crazy friend.

" I will explain that as well..." Nodded Donna and giggling a little, then smiling. " I was just really worried about the both of you..."

This was almost like a dream or something, as Donna’s face showed her sincerity of what she was saying.

"Worried?" Asked Mandy, snapping out of her sadness.

" Me as well?" Asked a now very intrigued CC. " I am really as confused as Mandy to hear that from you... especially you!!" She put a hand on her hip. " I hardly know you in the first place."

" I guess my way of acting towards you have not been saying that... has it?" Smile Donna, sitting up straighter in bed. " I guess I really have said nothing really give you that impression..."

" If you knew about Mandy and myself... Why did you try and set up Mandy with a boy?" CC said.

Donna smiled meekly and sat up in the bed a little more. Her eyes locked on to the two girl’s in front of her.

" Guess I will just have to explain a few things..." She said a little meekly, as CC waited for an answer to come.

Donna Cleared her throat and looked at the two girls.

" First off... I guess I knew that Mandy was ‘different’ for a long time..." She said, unflinchingly. " I just had gotten that feeling even before I knew what the terms ‘lesbians’ or ‘gay’ really was all about."

" So... You sort of had a feeling that I was gay all along?" Asked Mandy.

" I did for the longest of times... Even Lacy really thought that also...." Informed the red head. " She said she always wondered..."

" She said that to you?" Asked Mandy, shocked to hear that, even thought Lacy and her had only talked about it a few times.

Donna nodded, and shifted to look at the girl more straighter than she had been. She made sure to look at the two even more as she did.

" She was not in any way ashamed of the fact that you might be gay...." Donna said with a sigh. " In fact, she was so worried that you would not come to grips with the fact of what you were..... She loved you so much... just like a like a sister, and was worried about it because you felt things so strongly..."

" She... was that worried about me?" Said a shaking Mandy.

" She was...." Said the girl, with conviction. " But because of her moving away, she did not want to bring it up... she wanted to have good memories with you, not bad ones that could have been left if she had brought it up at that time."

Mandy stopped and thought on it for a moment or two. It was all way too overwhelming to hear all of this.

" If you also had a feeling that I was gay... why did you try and hook me up with a boy, if you had that strong of a suspicion that I was gay... and what does it all have to so with you wanting to see CC and me?"

" That... is a simple answer, yet it is one that was very hard for me to end up swallowing..." Donna said, her eyes locking onto the short girl’s gaze. " I was in sort of denial about my oldest sister, who I idolized so much, being a lesbian too.... guess I tried to ‘hook up’ Mandy because I was not willing to accept either my sister’s... or one of my best friends’s homosexuality"

" You have a older sister? Other than Jennifer?" Slowly responded Mandy, a little shocked at the information. " I never knew that you had another sister."

Donna nodded her head, understanding the shock of what she had said did. She seemed to ready herself to speak more, as the girl’s waited.

" Yeah..." Said Donna. " Her name is Terri..." She said, then she lowered her head. " She is older than me. She is twenty three and she is dating a policewoman right now.... one that you now know..."

CC gasped, as too did the short dark haired girl that stood with her. Each seemingly getting the same thought at the same time.

" Officer Livingstone?" The goth girl breathed

" Yes... That was my sister Terri’s girlfriend is the officer that responded to what happened to me... and to Mandy too, as well as the one who has brought both of you here to see me." She said. " Through Dana, that is how I found out what happened to you, and that you were ‘involved’ with CC here."

Mandy nodded in thanks, but CC seemed to have a few more questions rattling around in her head.

" That all explains some things to me..." CC said, her face a little blank. " that really still doesn’t explain why you were worried about me through all of this crap." The goth girl made solid eye contact with the girl in the bed, with a still blank expression. " You did not know me or nuthin’... how come you are worrying about someone that you only have known for a little over a week or so?"

The girl looked at CC, then at Mandy. She smiled.

" You are going out with one of my best friends that I have known for years... If Mandy loves you, like I think she does...." Donna said, her smile was warm and full of sheer honesty. " I just want to honor that love unconditionally now, and to see if we can become friends as well, CC, and to not hid from my own denial that I have inside my own family tree."

The goth girl looked at the redhead, her face now showing more than a blank look of trying to understand things.

" Friends?" Said CC.

" Yes you..." Nodded Donna, her voice steady and assured. " Your someone who has gotten Mandy out of her shell, and into her life in such a big way.. I needed to be friends with that person Mandy loves so much."

CC looked at the girl , her face was stone for a few moments. It seemed that the girl in black was mulling over what the redhead was saying. Mandy and Donna both simply waited in silence, not quite sure what might be the response. The room almost echoed with the sudden silence.

The goth girl suddenly cracked a smile.

" What the hell, Donna..." She giggled. " We all need friends!"

" I think that might be a awesome thing..." Smiled Donna. " You are unique and interesting as hell, and I want to get to know you better..."

" I think that we can all be friends here...." Said Mandy, happier than she ever had been.

" Your all right..." Piped in CC, adding with a giggle. " Guess I never saw that either."

The two girl’s hurried over to the bed and got on it with a rousing chorus of giggled and laughter. In an instant, they all were hugging, the tension of the meeting seemed to know had drained away.

" Just a note though..." Said Donna, her own laughter nearly making her cry. " I wanna say one thing...."

" What would that be?" Said CC, looking at her newly acquired friend.

" I want to make sure to say this... then it will be forgotten forever..." Said the redhead. " I’m straight!"

Mandy looked at CC, and CC looked back. Through their giggles, the turned to face the read head and in unison, said.

" Nobody’s perfect."

The three girls shook the room with their laughter that blasted from them with uncontrolled power. They were sure that Donna’s family and the friend were all thinking they were quite nuts by now. Perhaps they were right to think that, but after all... if you cant be nuts with friends, who can you be nuts with?

For a few hours or so, the three talked amongst one another. Two getting reacquainted and one who was just getting use to the whole idea of friendship... and all stemming from two separate and very horrible things. It was like fat had taken bad shit... and turned them into something very wonderful.