Disclaimer: I own nothing but a great quantity of insanity and a new notebook which will probably be very traumatized by the en

Give me something to do to kill some time

Take me to that place that I call home

Take away the strains of being lonely

Take me to the tracks at Christie Road

--Green Day. “Christie Road”

I.

The night before school started always prompted the worst bout of insomnia for Victoria. This was why, at one in the morning, she was sitting on top of her cluttered desk, leaning out of the open window, chain-smoking.

A pebble came rocketing out of nowhere and hit her in the forehead.

“Ow! Fucking Christ!” She looked down into the garden, trying to locate her attacker, and saw Jez standing there, arm drawn back, another rock in his hand. “Jesus, Jez!” she whisper-screamed. He blinked, adjusting his eyes to the dark window.

“Oh. You’re awake.”

“Well you kind of hit me in the face!” There was a snort from the bushes behind Jez, and Johnny appeared, shaking dead leaves out of his dreads.

”Nice one,” he said the Jez, then turned his attention to Victoria, looking haughtily down from her second-story window. “Get the fuck down here, Red. We’re going to the park.”

“I’m not sure I want to go to the park with him if he’s going to be assaulting me with boulders,” she huffed. Johnny rolled his eyes.

“Drama Queen. Come on. I‘ve got pot.” Victoria sighed, as though there were about a million things she’d rather be doing than sneaking out to hang out with two of her best friends in the entire universe.

“All right. Just let me put some pants on.”

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want,” Johnny called. Victoria flipped him the finger and ducked back inside her bedroom. Although she usually just slept in her underwear, seeing as she kept the heat on full blast in her bedroom, there was a little black lace babydoll nightie somewhere in the back of her closet that she’s shoplifted from Victoria’s Secret once, just for the thrill. She found it quickly and pulled it on crookedly, making sure that a sliver of her white lace bra was still visible, just because she loved making Jez sweat. It wasn’t quite warm enough still for her to be running around in nothing but a gauzy top and panties, so she yanked on her oldest, most destroyed pair of jeans, slipped on some flip-flops, and quickly raced back to the window. There was, very luckily, a low porch roof about five feet under her bedroom window and she could easily climb down from that.

She shimmied down easily and dropped, catlike, to the ground. Johnny pushed her over.

“What the fuck, Johnny?” she hissed, accepting Jez’s hand to pull herself up. Johnny grinned.

“I bet Jez you’d fall on our way down here.” He turned to his best friend. “Pay up.” Jez rolled his eyes and smirked.

“Fuck you, J. Let’s go.” He didn’t let go of her hand, Victoria noticed.

II.

They went to the playground by the high school, which was probably an unconscious homage to the fact that they’d be back there for the first time in three months tomorrow. Johnny and Jez immedeatly grabbed the two good swings, leaving Victoria to perch awkwardly on a baby swing. She pulled out the joint Johnny had slipped her on the way to the park, and lit up with her gold monogrammed Zippo.

“You wanna get off my swing, asshole?” She demanded of Jez, who looked over at her, eyes wide, the very picture of innocence.

“You wanna give me a hit of that?” He asked. Victoria smirked.

“Yeah. C’mere.” Jez kicked the ground, digging his heels in, and lurched off the sing. Victoria took a long drag, grabbed him by his shirt, and pressed her lips against his, blowing smoke into his mouth. Jez stumbled a little, partially from the double hit and partially from the feel of Victoria’s lips against his. In those few seconds, he’d tasted cinnamon and raspberry and pot, and he really just wanted to taste her again. Victoria cocked an eyebrow at him and gave him a little half-smile.

“What, never done shotgun before, Jez?” Then she made a sudden dash for his swing, jumping on and pushing off of the ground before he’d even quite registered what she’d said.

“Hey! I wasn’t really going to give you my swing!” He called up to her indignantly, and she whooshed up, over his head, long hair flying out behind her, silvery-copper in the moonlight. “Careful, Vic! You might touch the sky!” She managed to flip him off with one hand and keep her swing going steady with the other.

“You’re so weird!” she yelled down at him.

“So?” He jogged around to the back of her swing and began to push her, big hands pressing against her lower back, catching in the ends of her long hair, almost too low. She wished he would go too low, just once.

Johnny got off of his swing and began to make a game out of dodging Victoria, every time she swung downwards. She screamed every time, convinced she would hit him, but at the last moment, he’d duck out of the way, every time. Jez ran around the front and stood in the path of her swing, just as Johnny had done, but he didn’t move. Instead, he stopped her swing, grabbing the chains, just in time to minimize the momentum of her body as the crashed into him. Victoria shrieked again, hurtling into his chest. She tilted her head up, and he looked down at her. Their lips were inches apart. Victoria closed her eyes, but –

“Look! A shooting star!” Jez whirled around, and Victoria searched to sky above her. She caught the tail end of the star, closed her eyes and wished, as hard as she could.

I wish Jez would feel the same way about me that I do about him. She opened her eyes, and caught Jez staring at her.

“What?” she demanded.

“Did you make a wish?” he asked. Victoria nodded. Jez smiled. “Well, what was it?” Victoria blushed.

“I can’t tell you, otherwise it won’t come true.” Jez rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, ok, Vic.” Jez grabbed Johnny’s vacated swing (not without much protest from Johnny himself) and pushed off. Johnny took to pushing Victoria in Jez’s place, and after about five minutes of silence, he said,

“You’re married.” Victoria choked on her joint.

“Beg pardon?”

“You guys are swinging at the same time. Haven’t you ever heard that that means you’re going to get married?” Jez and Victoria both tried to look at him incredulously, which is sort of hard to do when you’re swinging.

“I’ll just shut up.”

“Good,” Jez said.

“I can’t believe we’ll be juniors tomorrow,” Victoria said, blushing, trying to bring the conversation back to normal.

“Oh, God, let’s not talk about school, please,” Johnny begged.

“Agreed,” Jez said.

“Roger that,” Victoria nodded. “But...we need to plan our prank regimen for this year.”

The boys grinned.