Chapter Five - The Crowsnest Factor
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I opened my eyes the next morning and groaned deeply into the pillow as the reality of me being awake hit me. Being awake was not my intention so early, but it was more than apparent that my body was playing tricks on my mind. Damn body!!
I could hear the chirping of the birds outside... but I wanted to get more sleep than I had last night. I made it home at roughly two thirty something, after nearly getting caught peeking in on Melody, something I was not proud of. I climbed into bed soon after I had returned, yet it still took over half an hour to finally fall asleep. I felt such guilt, but exhaustion made me falling asleep possible.
I looked at the clock that I had set up the night before... right now, much to my frustration, it was right now only eight o’clock in the morning.
" Damn!" I said to the stillness of my cabin.
I layed there on the bed, feeling myself sweat a little even thought I had slept naked to stop that from happening... thankfully doing that had helped me get some sleep. It was still very hot in my cabin, but it was sort of bearable... although barely.
I was going to turn back over and try to get back to sleep, but I heard my mothers cheerful, yet highly grating voice come from the main cabin.
" Breakfast in fifteen minutes, Harmony..." She screeched from the back porch of the a-framed structure. " Get up please..."
She could make any statement or anything at all that she could say end up sounding like that... like a harpy from hell itself. It was one of her many ‘charms’ that made her the person she was in the first place. Gotta love my Ma, despite herself.
As I layed there and groaned, my mind reminded me of the horrible truth... She would never let me sleep in today, or any day for that matter. My mother had this quirky thing about breakfast since I was a little girl... we had to all be together to have it whenever possible. You could be late for school or a meeting, but if you did not sit down for a small breakfast... you got the look of death on you. Made me crazy just thinking about it.
I heard her scream out for me one more time, urging me to get up and partake of breakfast with them. Thar made it clear... I knew I needed to get up, or she will hound me like crazy until I did.. As I sat up, I told myself that there would be coffee made... that helped getting up a little more easier. I hurried to grab a quick shower, as that coffee thing was now what I wanted.
I walked into the kitchen of the main cabin just as my mother was dishing out the breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns she had lovingly made for us. I was glad to see that the coffee had already been poured, and smelled wonderfully. She made the best coffee in the world, I thought to myself.
As I took a sip of my steaming cup of dark liquid... My mother gave a me a look and turned away. I guess since I was wearing my black Bikini with a plain skull on one boob of the top and the picture of a skull sticking out it’s tongue right smack dab on the front part of my crotch... she was not at all happy with my choice of what to wear today. Truth be known... she never really liked my choices in wardrobe since I was eleven.
Dad was already sitting there and was on his laptop, checking out the newspaper from back home online... making those noises he did when the news he was reading about was not to his liking. I giggled, as that sound always made me giddy.
" Good mornin’, Sparrow.." My Dad said with a cheerful tine, looking over his screen as he noticed that I was there. " Did you sleep well out there in the small cabin?"
I shook my head, but was not going to tell them about my little stupidness from last night. I felt embarassed enough that I had been sneaking around, and ended up peeking in someone’s window while they were asleep.
" I was a little over tired, I guess..." I said... having the only answer that sounded right without actually doing a full frontal lie. " Had little..."
" Did you not sleep, Harmony?" Asked my Mother butting into the conversation, looking at me with her concerned eyes.
" I just think that I was a little over tired and that affected my sleep pattern..." I replied back, re-stating myself a wee bit more clearly... and really hating the fact that I had to repeats myself.. " I am not worried about it, Mom... I will just be tired today, and that way I will sleep better tonight I think."
My mother sighed, and that tell tale sort of shake of her head. It seemed that my words did nothing for her.
" You should come and sleep in your room in this cabin, rather than choosing to sleep out there in that puny excuse for a cabin... which your Father her has all but refuses to tear down.." She stated, while also nagging my father at the same time.
" Mom... enough..." I said, trying to get her to stop before she drove me crazy so early this morning.
" You need to listen to me once in awhile, you know..." My Mother continued on, as she ignored me.. " Mother does know best sometimes you know... your Grandmother always told me that I had to learn it the hard way an’..."
I just let a ling breath out, feeling more than just a little bit frustrated with my mother by this time.
" Mom.. We already talked about this over and over again..." I sighed, she knew my reasons for wanting to sleep out in the old cabin... but as usual she made things more than just difficult. " I am not going to explain it again."
" I am just saying that you would get the better type of sleep if you would just come inside here an.." She started to say, ignoring my statement as she tried to make her own point.
I shook my head, frustrated with the woman..
" Mother... Please!" I sternly said.. As usual, what I thought had been already resolved was not in her mind... unless it had been settled and in done her way. " You just wont quit, will you?"
" Well fine..." Said mother, with a small snort. " A mother’s god-given concern is simply not enough now.. I see."
My mother just backed down for a change and sat at her place at the table, although she had done so after a nailing me with a guilt shot before then going silent. I was sort of upset with my mother at the time, but it was tempered by the fact that she was doing this out of being a mother... but it was still very irritating because we had discussed it even before we had left the city.
I looked at my mother for a moment, and was truthful with myself,... my Mothers little shot was uncalled for. It was right then that I heard my Father was chuckling away from behind his computer screen.
" What are you laughing at?" Spat my mother, seemingly a little upset at my father’s outburst of jocularity with the situation
" Sparrow’s a very stubborn young woman... Reminds me of you for many years past, my dear.." He said, his laughter growing deeper as he talked. " Hate to break this little piece of information to you, My dear... she has taken after you in that department!"
My mother screwed up her face into a weird mask and just shot a very brief but nasty looking stare at my Father I got the feeling that she was flashing this face in fun now... because the bad mood she seemed to have been in now was very rapidly fading.
" Oh... you just shut up!" She finally said, now she was playing the part of being very mad at Dad for the comment he had made.
" You hate it when you finally discover that I’m right about something for a change...." He chortled, still laughing.
" You... right.." She half laughed. " That has surprised me on more than just one occasions."
" It was bound to end up happening, my dear..." My father said, through heavier chuckles. " Law of averages!"
She shook her head, as she looked at Dad and his beaming but so nerdy smile. He always could get her out of a bad mood it seemed, something that later on in life I would come to adore and admire about my parents. She was playing with my father now.. A good sign that what ever had gotten under my Mother’s skin had gone away for the time.
" Once in a while, you being right is good for me I must admit, my darling..." She said, obviously now just freely playing around. Perfect sign that things were going back to normal. " Don’t make it a habit."
My father now burst out laughing, coming from deep within his core. It shook the table and rang through the kitchen. When this man laughed like this, no one could ever be in a bad mood.
" I can’t promise you anything, My pet..." He said, through stifling a river of chuckles that wanted to fly out of him. " That comes out once in a while.
She looked at my father, and was obviously trying not to totally collapse into a laughing fit.
" You just have to remember that mostly I’m right! Marriage mathematics are never wrong..." Pointed out Mother
" That is what Marriage is all about.. Averages..." He said, now really showing to mom that her was just trying to needle her. " My averages seem to always be sort of lacking though.. Do you think?."
She looked at me, then at my father and sighed. A second passed by and then she started to snicker away deeply in her chest. It seemed that my father’s very unusual sense of humour was now overriding fully what ever had been making my mother act like a total B-word.
" Dammit all... Cant even have a good grump with you around...!" She said, turning to grab something we needed for breakfast while shaking her head
" That is my job, love.." He smirked at mother.
" Apparently..." My mother finally said after already laughing so hard.
All of us then started to eat, as my father was still chuckling away with the interaction of Mom and him. I had to laugh as well... my father was right, I did inherit the stubborn streak I usually displayed from Mother... I was also hoping that the ‘nerdiness’ of both parents was not an inherited trait for my sake.
Insanity is something that is due to hereditary tendencies anyways... you always get that from your parents. That was my curse... although, I was hoping that it just might skip a generation.
******
After breakfast, I took the walk to meet Melody for the coffee like we had planned. I was feeling more than just a little uneasy... guess when you have peeped on someone like I had, that is natural. I am not no pervert or anything of the sort... but I did feel like it in a way, I should be at least a little guilty feeling over it all, yet I did not.. Trouble I was having was that the visions of her wonderfully sculpted naked form bounced which was really making it hard to focus on anything else at all.
Because I was on my way to meet this amazing creature, I knew that needed to put these stolen glimpses of the girl totally out of my mind and just have a good coffee date with someone I really liked. My intentions were good.... the way I was starting to feel towards this girl was both scary and addicting. I did get a handle on it for now, but I had not met up with her yet... that would be the test.
I found Melody was waiting on the docks not very far away from where her families business sat in the already hot morning sun. She was just leaning against one of the lampposts that were there, seeming so calm and collected. I was a basket case the instant I had seen her... and still did not understand the reasons why I was feeling like this. I thought of running before she saw me... my nerves were overwhelming..
She waved and smiled at me, something that made my heart leap out of my chest and I was suddenly unable to run away if I was wanting to at that moment. I do not know what was happening to me.. but in a bizarre way, I really was liking the feeling I was getting.
" Here she is..." I told myself, trying hard to keep what little cool I had left.
I swallowed as I was walking up to her, my mind was showing her standing there and she was completely naked, even though she was not in reality. Dressed in a very for fitting black Tankini, visualizing her naked was not a far stretch to do... but it was a very strange thing for me to be doing like this. A fertile imagination is my worst enemy, I thought.
" Hey!" She said, as I neared.
I nodded my reply to her greeting, because I was way busy burying the visions of her naked that danced in my head.
" Lets grab our coffees and I will take you to a place I love to go and sit." She said. " It may be hot already... but we can enjoy the sort of cooler heat before the sun gets goin’ and starts to barbeque us."
" Sounds good to me..." I said, feeling nervous as she said that. Innocent as what Melody had said seemed to be, my mind was turning it into a more smutty sort of thing. " Lets...go then...".
" You’ll love my spot I found it a few days ago by accident when I was looking for a quiet place to have coffee..." She said, her little giggle coming out and making my heart beat a little faster.
We bought two very large cups of coffees from the small self-contained stand nearest to the beach. It was the only place that seemed to be offering coffee right now....that was perhaps due to the entrenched weight of heat that had made its presence felt since yesterday. Hot weather or not... I always needed coffee.
The coffee smelled so good to us, that it made us feel almost giddy from the second we had the wax covered cardboard cups in our hands. It did not smell like home brewed coffee, but it was an enticing aroma that made it clear that this coffee was the next best thing to making it yourself..
Coffee was great, but not who had served us. The little dark haired man who ran the stand was creepy, and I hate to say it that he was way more creepy than Melody’s Uncle ever was. Just the way he stopped to leer at both of us made me realize that he felt a little more dangerous than Mr. Steelman was ever. In looking over at Melody, I did not even have to ask the question... just by the stiffness her body had while she stood there, she was more than just uneasy with the little man.
She leaned my way as we put the sugar in to the black liquid, ignoring the man who was saying nothing at the moment.
" Creepy.. isn’t this guy?" Melody whispered.
" Very..." I had to agree.
" Lets get outta here as fast as we can..." She said, her voice showing that she was very uneasy with the man... a feat considering who she was related to.
We just ignored the man who was not even trying to hide the fact that he was ogling us, not wanting t give him even a slight opening to do whatever his perverted brain was cooking up. We hustled off to make out way over the golden sand, and in the direction of where Melody had pointed that we were going.
The place where she led me out to was a rocky outcrop area that seemed to jut out of the hillside over where the mouth of the Angler River, the main water feed that directly went into Keegan Lake. This place was only about three hundred yards away from the Concession boardwalk and the main beach area for the lake, but where it was situated made it feel miles from anyone..
It was where a flat black rock jutted right out of the small hillside which overlooking the swift moving Angler River, with another rock that protruding over top of the first. The top rock formed this sort of crude roof over the bottom one, almost as if nature had made its own sort of tree house without the tree. It had a place hollowed out of the dirt of the hillside, as both rocks went into the hillside deeply... and made a very cozy space that was probably thirty feet wide and almost that deep.
This strangely unique rock area had been given the nautical name of Crowsnest Point. I looked around as we reached it, and reminded myself that this was a place that I had not really came to see since I was little. I had forgotten about it, but I now was feeling like I was seeing it for the very first time.
Now out here with Melody, I thought about the name because of the fact that it reminded people of the place on the tall sailing ships that crossed the oceans many years past that was used for navigating and spotting land from. Sitting down under the overhang and having a very good look from this vantage point, I had to agree that this place had been named right because you could see for miles it seemed..
We just talked casually, almost as if we had known one another for years, rather than counting our relationship still in just hours... and that felt so good for me. I had friends, but this was starting out differently than most.... The connection had been instantaneous as soon as our eyes had met, even though we had just looked at each other for what probably was only a grand total of a full minute in time That had never happened to me before.
I had just drank about half of my coffee due to my nervousness at what else to do at this time, when Melody looked over at me. It was just a simple sort of look, but it made me instantly shiver... but in a good way. Those deep rich brown pools of hers that were locked on to my own eyes were amazing...I was instantly captivated by them as deeply as I had been that first time when she was passing the house..
I noticed that I had stopped breathing while I looked back at her... and when I started again, it was very rapid. We hung there for a long few seconds, looking deep into one another’s eyes for some reason.
" What?" I asked sort of weakly, trying to say something to shift my thoughts. It did nothing to help.
I swore at myself the instant that I had only uttered that one mono-syllabled word to Melody. I hated that I could only get that single thing out to her rather than something that was more intelligent... this was wholly and totally lame of me. It seemed that I had one of the biggest brain cramps ever. I continued to try and say something... anything at all, but still nothing was coming. My brain had totally seized up.
She seemed not to be affected by my lack of speaking skills, and just gave a very small and soft sort of smile to me. I felt the warmth through her gaze, as her eyes never once moved from me..
" Just looking at you I guess..." She said, after stopping and seemingly started to blush lightly.
" Looking at me?" I asked with a little shock.
She looked at me, and gave a nervous sort of giggle as she shifted herself a little closer to where I sat on this overhang.
" Yeah... you.." She said, her voice now was wavering a little while she spoke.
" What are you... Looking at?" I stuttered.
" I was... looking at you closely.... and I was beginning to notice things of you more and more..."
I was a little taken back by that statement... yet my whole body trembled the instant she had said it. The thought of it ripped through me, and it made me feel all weak and unable to even think, and I just stared back at her like some damn deer in the headlights thing. I was unsure of what to say in reply to it, my mind had just completely went totally blank on me. One plus one was going to be a big ‘Duh’ for me. My luck... first time that being speechless has ever happened to me, and it had to be right at this second.
Melody giggled as I sat silent, and then paused for a moment. By the look in her face that stared back at me, she was obviously trying to pick the right things to say to me... and it seemed to me that she knew that I could not say really anything.
" It’s you eyes... and what they are holding for the world to see in those blue pools..." Melody said, almost breathlessly as she looked right into my face. " That is what I am looking into right now..."
" My... eyes?" I stammered as I raised my hand to touch around my eyes. I had never been told this stuff ever.. Especially from a girl.
The girl nodded, and moved her hand onto my knee as she kept her gaze locked on to me.
" Yes.. You sky deep blue eyes seem to hold something in them..." She smiled, her musical way of giggling was making my heart pound harder. " they are so deep that I am thrilled at what I can be seeing in them... as if they might be glimpsing into your heart..."
" What do you..." I stammered more, unable to ask my question which felt so stupid in the first place.
She reached out and put a hand on my bare leg, causing my stammering to stop... but that simple act was really making me shiver with a sensation of pleasure I never had experienced before.
"What I see..." The girl started, without hesitation. " is what is on the outside as well , this amazing sense you have this great wealth of intelligence which is locked in you... yet I see even deeper in who you are ... a great capacity to be caring and emotionally honest that is the truest core of you."
I was once again, struck silent. No one had ever told me things like that, but she was. It felt like she had cracked me open, and saw who I was. I don’t know whether to be scared or relieved that someone saw that... the shock was the only thing that was running through me
" Why do you say that... you see that in me?" I asked through a stammering sort of speech. I really was hating that I had actually asked such a lame question.
I saw that she had been speaking from her heart, and still was as well. Her eyes conveyed this so very clearly... it was unabashed and never once sugar-coated, she was saying exactly what she was seeing. I felt myself starting to really blush with Melody’s words, and I was shocked that I was doing it. I was not one to blush or feel as if I was embarassed... yet here I was doing it. My face felt hot, and I was unable to stop it.
" I just do..." She said plainly said, her eyes now focussed right on to mine.
Speechless at the moment, my mind was hard pressed to comprehend the truthful nature that Melody had shown me. I had never really had anything like this ever told to me before, and I found it touching me on a level never before tapped into. What ever it had been that attracted me to her... now was drawing me.
I nodded meekly, feeling how fast my heart was now going as I looked right into her face. There was no words I could have came up with to explain what was going on inside of me, ore even to explain it to my own self.
" I have never met anyone like you..." Melody said, her eyes locking on to my eyes so strongly that they seemed to be looking right into me " Never..."
I had no words to Say, but my mind agreed that she too, was someone like that to me as well. I was trying to get my mind back in order, because I wanted to tell her everything that I had been thinking of ever since the first time we saw one another... but I kind of did not get the chance to also tell her how amazed I was with her. In that moment of trying to get my mouth to work...she leaned in to me and her lips touched mine in a full fledged kiss.
My mind went blank, my heart seemed to have stopped. I could feel her lips were soft, yet firm to the point that made me quiver a little. The softness of the skin on those lips made my whole body feel like there was a surge of electricity passing over and through every inch of me... while my eyes seemed to close all by them selves.
I could smell the sweet body spray of soft floral with a small hinting of Jasmine that she had on her body. When it hit my senses, it instantly had added so many varying sensations to me ten fold over just the kiss itself. Her lips were as sweet as sugar, and I could not help but to kiss her right back.. She put her hand on my side as she kissed me, which caused even my skin to feel as if it was electric to me.
I found myself overwhelmed, as the kiss from this girl seemed to wantonly hang there like there was a stoppage in time and space. Unsure of what I was feeling, excited yet horrified while being deeply confused by feelings and emotions that now were coming out... I hung in a sort of limbo state that was both full of pleasure yet brought this sort of shaming side of things to light as well.
When Melody broke kiss and had paused to look me right in the face, I did the only thing I felt like I could have done. I took that moment of pause to bound up to my feet and, and begin this full on flight from melody as fast as I could make myself go. Plain and simply...I took off running and was not about to stop.
In a full out run down the gentile angle of the slope, I pushed myself to get away from the top of Crowsnest Point as fast as my legs could carry me. I was fully unaware of anything that was around me at this time, except for this absolute urgency for me to run as far away as I could get... and all in the shortest amount of time. This fuelled me like nothing else.
I could hear the loudly pleading voice of Melody calling out from behind me while I raced down that well worn narrow path to the beach below... but my mind did not let me hear one word of what she was calling out to me or even to care that the voice was getting farther and farther away as I ran. Right then nothing mattered but to get away, my mind screaming at me one thing over and over again
" She kissed me!!"
I did not have any clue to where it was that I was going, I was in this full fledged flight mode, running away from things that I was feeling, thinking and the girl that was back on that point. Fear of the unknown fuels things... or perhaps it is the realization of the fear that you might already know things that you do not want to ow.... either way, all of this stuff can end up doing this.