Trespassing Charge

Trespassing Charge

My twin sister, Jamie, and our best friend, Kayla, had been secretly fucking all summer long but they used me as an excuse to remain in the closet. They dragged me along wherever they went in public so no one would suspect that they had been tongue-deep in each other’s bikini lines for almost nine weeks now. Today was different though. Instead of being their shield, we were actually going somewhere private; just the three of us. We hadn’t done that since before they caught feelings for each other. We were headed to the pond behind Kayla’s house about a mile into the woods. Her parents never checked where their property line ended and the state lands began. However, since they knew their property bordered state game lands that were practically untouched, they decided to build the aesthetically pleasing brick patio and fire pit area next to the water anyhow, so it was practically theirs.

“Will you keep up already Cara? I’m cooking in this heat!” Jamie had stopped a yard or two ahead of me but Kayla kept going. She was on a mission to get to the pond before 11am and it was almost 10:30am now. Jamie stared at me, face flustered and beads of sweat on her forehead which made her look sticky.

Kayla yelled back to us both, “Get your butts moving! We’re already behind schedule!” Jamie turned, quickened her pace and left me behind so she could catch up to Kayla. I think she just wanted to keep staring at her butt though like she has been for the last mile of the trail.

I yelled back to both of them, “I’m trying to get pictures of the sun hitting the moss! It’s the perfect lighting right now and it’s making everything so green.” They were almost out of sight but I turned back to the spot on the tree I wanted a picture of and whispered to myself, “This is exactly what I need for my next art project.” I looked around to see if there were any better spots with leaves and sunshine for me to sketch out next to the pond later when I found some violets in a bed of clover with the morning sun lighting them up beautifully. I got down on my stomach to angle my camera upright and got an Instagram-worthy pic for sure. I brushed the dirt off the front of me and began scrolling through my camera roll while I made my way towards Kayla and Jamie. I stopped though when I heard a rustling. Jamie and Kayla were way ahead of me. I could see Jamie’s neon pink hat bobbing up the side of the hill. These steps were coming from behind me.

I turned slowly but the rustling stopped. I stared down the pathway that was pretty clear since Kayla’s younger brother, Max, had mowed it the other day. I noticed something dark gray moving in the bushes though and took a small step forward when a soft rustling came from my right and something soft grazed my leg. I jumped and squealed a bit, sending a shiver up my spine. A squirrel had run out of the bush to my right and its tail must’ve brushed up against my calf. I took a deep breath and watched it scurry up the other tree in front of me. “Goddammit squirrel! You scared the shit outta me!” My heart felt like it was going to give out but I brushed it off and looked back out where I had thought I saw that gray thing earlier, but there was nothing. I decided it must’ve been another squirrel or a bobcat and it was best to keep moving. I did quicken my pace a bit though so I could see Jamie’s hat again. Thank god for neon.

When I could hear them laughing again, I yelled out to them, “Hey! Wait up!”

“We did wait for you! You’re too busy looking at nature to see that we’re sweating our butts off up here and I’m ready to swim,” Kayla snapped. She got cranky when she was hot. Kayla hated the mugginess of these late August mornings.

I huffed trying to catch my breath again from practically jogging up to them. “I know! I’m sweating too, but I don’t plan on getting soaked. I hate that walk back with wet clothes on. It makes my thighs hurt. Some of us aren’t state champion swimmers and work out twenty hours a week like you two! Can we stop for a drink please? I’m dying after that hill!”

Thankfully, they stopped and got out their water bottles while I flopped down on a stump for a second. “You could be if you put that sketch book down and exercised every once in a while!” Jamie teased. “We’re almost there anyhow. Another 15 minutes tops.” She turned to Kayla, “I’m ready to just relax without the boys turning everything into a competition all the time.”

Kayla swallowed a big gulp and nodded, “Yeah, Jake and Danny have been showboating a lot lately and it’s pissing me off.” Jake was Kayla’s boyfriend and Danny was Jamie’s. They had been dating since the beginning of freshman year over a year ago, but the guys have grown increasingly intolerable lately. Their basketball coach has been really filling both of their heads with smoke about how they could get scholarships from this scout that was coming to see them next week even though they’re only juniors. But listening to them both go on and on about their basketball skills has been even more boring since Kayla and Jamie confessed their love for each other.

“Let’s just not talk about them today, okay?” Jamie approached Kayla and grabbed her bottom jaw for a kiss.

I gagged dramatically and squirted them with my water bottle. “Ugh I know I’m not important but could ya keep the kissing to a minimum?” I paused, “Are the two of you just gonna keep dragging those neanderthals along while you tongue fuck each other on the side? I know they’re clearly too wrapped up in themselves to notice lately but there’s gotta be some kind of guilt that’s brewing right?”

“Shut up Cara!” Jamie snapped, “It’s none of your goddamn business now is it?” Kayla just looked away and then started walking towards the pond again. Jamie looked at her and then stared daggers back at me before she kept walking too. I clearly hit a nerve but screw them. Jake and Danny may be self centered jerks sometimes but they deserved to be let down easily. There had already been a rumor before that Kayla and Jamie were lesbians in the summer before freshman year which was started by Casey McCormick, who swears she saw them kissing at her back to school party in the bathroom. They were teased for weeks but then they started dating the guys around homecoming so it died off. Casey was a bitch anyhow. She spread rumors about herself just so the guys would think she was a good kisser and had the cool house for parties. She was the full package apparently.

But now that Jamie and Kayla were “together,” they were extra careful when sneaking around and made sure to still be the overly affectionate girlfriends at every basketball game or dance. I was the first and only other person that knew about them. I caught them for the first time when I came home from my after school pottery class earlier than normal. I fully expected to be home alone, but I found them making out on the couch practically naked. I didn’t know what to say so I ran upstairs and shut my door behind me. I just sat at my desk and started sketching like I hadn’t seen anything, but a few minutes later Jamie came in bawling her eyes out and told me everything.

She said they had first started liking each other in eighth grade but, as I already knew, Kayla’s parents would’ve shipped her off to gay away camp if they ever even sniffed a pride flag on her so they didn’t do anything about it then. But Kayla got into Casey’s mom’s wine at that party and drunkenly pulled Jamie into the bathroom before kissing her right there. That’s when Casey did catch them, but she was also tipsy and had stumbled into the bathroom to throw up her peach schnapps so she wasn’t really sure what she had seen. They had created the plan to go out with Jake and Danny a few weeks later. Jake had always had a thing for Kayla since 6th grade and Danny was just an afterthought. Kayla had flirted enough over Snapchat that she got him to ask her about homecoming successfully and begged him to bring a friend for Jamie since it was their first high school dance. She just needed a kind sophomore to “show her the ropes” as she put it. Jamie told me that they actually had some things in common so Kayla and her just continued to make public appearances with them ever since.

Kayla shared her side of the story too eventually, which was fairly similar. But she confessed that she genuinely liked being with Jake. It wasn’t the same way as she felt for Jamie, obviously, but they had grown quite close and she didn’t mind it when he kissed her. Jamie had complained numerous times that Danny was a sloppy kisser and too handsy, but it kept everyone off their backs so they went with it. I see the way Kayla still smiles lovingly at Jake though. It makes me worry that her feelings may be more than just for show with him. Jamie on the other hand is clearly repulsed by Danny’s touch but he’s clueless enough that he’ll never realize it until she blatantly tells him to F off someday.

I could finally see the stone stairs that led up to the pond. Kayla and Jamie were almost at the top when I stopped again. There was nothing but trees, sunshine, and stupid squirrels that I could see but something felt weird. I just chopped it up to the aftershock of that squirrel’s tail touching me, which made me shiver again and I kept walking. Finally, we had made it to the pond and the cool breeze from the water was soothing already. Kayala and Jamie were grabbing the canopy out of the tiny shed Kayla’s parents had stashed here to keep their wood supply dry, some food and drinks, and other camping-type supplies for when they decided to spend the night here. They have to be paying the forest rangers a couple hundred bucks a month to keep this here. I know this has to be state park land. But whatever, I’ve told Jamie a dozen times, if we ever got caught here, we could just cry until the cops just took us home. Officer Carson was a sucker for crying. My mom said she got out of a DUI on prom night for crying. He just drove her and her friends home and told my grandpa where to pick up the car. She still got in trouble with my grandpa, but at least she didn’t lose her license.

“Cara, come help us set up the canopy please. I need someone to hold the legs down while we push up,” Kayla asked, clearly forgiving me faster than Jamie would.

I set my pack down and we got the area set up quickly. I even volunteered to get the fire going for our lunch so they could get in the water faster to cool off. Jamie was starting to look like an angry tomato anyhow. They stripped down to their bikinis and dove in the water. It wasn’t that big of a pond, but it was big enough for a small party or family camping trip. The stream that fed into it came from the larger reservoir in the mountain so this pond was only nice whenever the rain had been heavy. It dries up every fall but July had been extremely rainy so it would probably only be here another couple of weeks anyhow.

I could hear Jamie and Kayla laughing and whispering to each other. I decided hotdog duty for me would be the best way to smooth over the nerve I hit earlier. Why do I care if Jake and Danny were being duped? It’s not like they ever acknowledged my presence when I went out with them all together anyhow. At least Kayla and I were friends outside of my sister. Kayla was also in my art club even though she rarely attended anymore. She took incredible photos of people and the surrounding landscape. Her pictures told stories rather than showcased filters. She even took beautiful photos of Jamie and me on our 14th birthday. We had talked our parents into letting us decorate the backyard for a moonlight dance party and begged them to go to the neighbors for the night. They reluctantly agreed but we actually just had a good time with all of our friends, squealing and singing badly to Taylor Swift songs. But Kayla couldn’t resist the set up of the full moon summer sky and took pictures of everything.

My favorite one from the evening was the one of Jamie and I sitting next to the fire with a blanket wrapped around us. The moon and stars had been peeking out from behind the trees in the background and the bonfire light glowed from below us. Jamie had been singing louder and as terrible as I had ever heard her before, making us all cackle so hard we started crying. I can remember just feeling so happy in that moment with Jamie that I never wanted that night to end. Kayla had that picture framed for us within a week and I treasured it dearly.

“Hot dogs are ready if y’all want to eat,” I called out to Jamie and Kayla over their splashing. They kissed passionately before coming out of the water and I rolled my eyes, while I waited for them to dry off.

“Did you burn one for me?” Jamie said with a smile, clearly having forgave me finally.

“Of course I did, but I don’t know why you always want to eat charcoal hotdogs.”

“Yeah, I like mine barely toasted,” Kayla added.

“I made good ones for us Kayla, don’t you worry.” I smiled back at them while handing them their plates. We sat in the shade on the folding chairs enjoying our lunch together when I looked out behind Jamie’s head and what I thought I saw was that gray shape again. I put my plate down on the ground next to me and stood up quickly. It was still there moving behind the thick blackberry bushes next to the water, maybe thirty feet away from us.

Jamie giggled and looked up to me, “What are you doing, Cara? See another–” I cut her off with a sharp “Shhhh!”

“Look behind you. I think something’s in the bush moving!” I whispered quickly.

Both Kayla and Jamie looked in the same direction now slowly. The gray shape moved further away from us at a relaxed pace, but not because it was trying to be undetected like a deer might be. It felt more like it was recalculating. I slowly grabbed the hotdog stick that was propped up against my chair still watching the shape move down the bank of the pond within the safety of the shrubbery. Then, a loud, deep SPLOOSH! Hit the water, making us all jump and grab each other. The gray shape was now sprinting away out of sight within the trees and the water was rippling wildly. I watched the way the shape jumped easily over the rocky ground and maneuvered swiftly within the prickly berry bushes that I knew the shape would be getting caught on. But Jamie and Kayla squeezed me on both sides, shaking me.

“Cara! Look! Look in the fucking water!” Jamie whispered loudly in my ear. I looked in the water. There was a cheesy blow up doll bobbing upright in the water like it had a rock holding down its foot with black X’s over its eyes and what looked like a sock shoved in its mouth hole.

I whispered back, “What the fuucckk…”

“Guys, we need to get the fuck outta here! Now, move!” Kayla pulled me towards her before letting go to slide her shoes on without socks. Jamie did the same as I grabbed my phone laying on the chair. Then we were sprinting. I’ve never ran so fast in my life and I was still taking up the rear of the pack. Jamie and Kayla were sliding down the pathway in front of me when I slowed down to not fall. A flash out of the side of my eye makes me turn to my left. In the distance, under a tree in the small clearing of the bushes, a tall, wide person is standing with his hood up and hands in his pockets. Then, as soon as I see them, they turn and jog off deeper into the woods away from us.

“Jamie! Kayla!” They both stop and turn back to me and hug my sides, “There’s someone out there! I just saw them turn to go deeper into the trees!”

“I see him!” Jamie squeezed me. “Let’s go! Go! We need to go!”

We all hold hands now and are running down the pathway. Something else begins running on the right of us though. “Cara! Hurry!” Kayla screams. I don’t even look over. I just focus on my feet, begging them to move faster for once. I can see the fence that surrounded Kayla’s parents’ yard and feel a slight chance of hope.

“Go! We’re almost there! I can see the house!” Jamie yelled. I could hear the crunching leaves beside us slowing down though. I turn for a moment and see another gray figure falling behind us, but breathing heavily until he stops completely. I can’t make out anything about this one either but I was thankful that the fence door had been carelessly left unlocked by us earlier. Once inside the fence, Kayla slammed the door shut and locked it before we all ran inside the kitchen sliding doors and shut the blinds.

We caught our breaths but were all still shaking. Kayla began crying, “What the fuck was that?! What do we do now? Should we call the police?”

“No! What if we get in trouble for being out there?” Jamie said between heavy breaths.

“But what if that guy comes after us again?”

While they continued fighting about what to do, I cautiously looked out the window and gasped at what I saw on the fence in red spray paint. The message read, Naughty lesbians will float if they get caught. I stepped back. Kayla and Jamie came over next to me and read what I saw too. We just all stood there silently, barely breathing.