the hell out of Nowheresville is my priority. The Marine recruiter nods and says he felt the same way. He tells me I can earn money, get my college paid for, and make a lot of friends. The first one sounds interesting, the second intriguing, the third I could care less about. Turns out the last one is actually the biggest benefit of joining.
Later, the recruiter follows up with me. Gives me a huge laundry list of awesome things about joining. I tell him he doesn’t have to sell me anymore, that I’m ready to sign, only I’m debating between the Marines and the Army. Then I make my biggest mistake ever. I admit that I’m not a fan of water. The Marine recruiter laughs and says, “you’ll be infantry, son,” and I sign.
When I get to boot camp they tell me the Marines are a branch of the Navy. The Navy, Grace. The Marine recruiter must have noted that I had an aversion to water, because every punishment I ever received was water-related.
The moral of this story is that I can’t go around telling people my greatest fear, because someone will use it against me. It ain’t water anymore.
~Noah
Grace
A soft knock on my bedroom door woke me up the next morning. I sat up, disoriented. The sun was filtering through the sides of my curtains. I grabbed for my phone, but I had forgotten to plug it in last night. The dark screen stared up at me mockingly. It was dead. Crap. What time was it?
I scrambled out of bed and opened the door to find Lana standing with her hand raised.
“Knock, knock,” She lowered her hand. Her expression was unreadable and that was sufficient to alert me that something was wrong.
“What time is it?” I looked at her bare wrist. “Why don’t we wear watches?”
“Because we have phones?”
“My phone is dead! I’m supposed to meet Noah for breakfast at 9 a.m.”
I heard a cough from behind Lana. Noah was standing in our living room, waving to me. He was dressed in jeans and another dark T-shirt. Sunglasses hung from his collar. He wore a watch, only I couldn’t tell the time from here. I smiled weakly, gave him a half-wave. I grabbed Lana’s arm and dragged her into my room.
“How long has he been here?” I asked, running to the bathroom attached to my bedroom.
“He just got here,” Lana said.
“My God, what should I wear? Do I have time to shower? How could I have overslept?”
“Yes, take a shower, but don’t wash your hair. We’ll put it up. It kind of looks like sexy bedhead.”
I screamed a little when I looked at myself in the mirror. I had a pair of boxers on and one of Josh’s old shirts. My hair was matted on one side and stuck up about four inches from the top of my head. I couldn’t believe Noah saw me like this.
“Go out there and tell him I’m sick,” I instructed Lana as I turned on the shower and waited for the hot water to climb four stories from the basement.
“Sick with what?”
“Sick with bad hair.” I attacked my hair with a brush. Sexy bedhead, my ass. I looked like a drunken housewife. I only lacked the raccoon eyes.
“While you and I may think that’s an illness worth staying in bed for, my guess is Mr. Hard Body out there isn’t going to fall for that.”
“Pick something out for me to wear and go stall him.”
“Are you two dating now?” Lana called as I jumped in the shower. I washed all my parts in the quickest shower known to womankind. I tried to keep my hair from getting wet, but the ends were dampened. After toweling off, I pulled my now-combed hair into a low ponytail.
“No. We’re ‘friends.’” I curled my fingers into air quotes.
“Ugh, the worst.” Lana laid some clothes on the bed and went out to entertain Noah.
I grabbed some lip gloss and mascara and headed for the bedroom to see what Lana had chosen for me. On the bed were the shortest shorts I had ever seen. I swear she hides random outfits in her closet that she trots out right when I can’t refuse to wear them. I pulled on the bright blue shorts and a racerback bra lying next to the shorts. A white floral racerback tank completed the outfit. It was dressier than I would ordinarily wear, but the loose fit of the tank made up for the