At this point, I could tell you all the stories pertaining to our adventures in the outer worlds, and our mission to stop the marriage of the Dark Lord and the Lady of Shadows. I could, but I won’t. For one thing, while the mission did take up a good portion of our time, it has little bearing on how the summer turned out. Also, that mission was a complete failure, due to the events I am going to tell you about, we totally failed to stop the marriage. Yeah, that’s right, the Dark Lord married the Lady of Shadows, and for a while at least, the Balance was totally screwed up. We did eventually restore the balance, but that was long after the summer, and is another story that may be told another time. I could tell you about a few more encounters with Jeremy’s loser cousin, but again, that creep and his antics bear little on the events that I am going to tell you about. Jeremy himself does have a part to play in the story, but we’ll get to that part.
Now, that said, we did have many adventures in the outer worlds, and many in our own back yards. Whether swimming naked in the little lake, or exploring the many hidden paths, our summer was certainly filled with lots of fun, and the three of us shared it all together.
That is until some time in late August, when Billy went with his family on their annual camping trip. They liked to call it a pilgrimage, and every year they made it, out into the wilderness as a family, for a week. Anyway, for the first few days things didn’t change much, other than there being only two of us. Then, a few days into Billy’s vacation, something happened. It was another scorcher of a day, so Sam and I were at the little lake, darting around in the water, wearing nothing more than what we were born in. This was not an uncommon occasion, yet somehow, on that day, something was different. I’d known Sam for about two months, and we’d become quite good friends. However, on that day, when I looked over at Sam, I saw her in a completely different light, one I’d never seen anyone in before. She was beautiful. Not fairy-princess, make-believe beautiful, but truly spellbinding. I was caught in her magic. How could I had not noticed before? Her wild dark hair, shining darkly in the bright sun. Her ever-changing eyes were somewhere between green and blue on that day, with a touch of gold flakes crowning her infinitely black pupils, in which I saw the endless expanse of the universe unfolding before me. Her well-tanned skin itself seemed to sparkle on that day, the lake water rolling down her perfect body, reflecting the sunlight like the aura around an angel. Everything about her was perfection, and I was finding these new feelings a little hard to handle.
Sam must have noticed the way I was lost in her, for she walked up to me, smiling her devilish smile, pressed herself against me, and locked her lips onto mine. I thought I must have died, and gone to heaven. Surely this is what angels are like. The kiss seemed to last forever, although I’m sure it was no more than a few seconds. A few seconds in heaven is a fraction of eternity to those who experience it. After it was over, she smiled at me again, giggled, and splashed off toward the shore. I stood there unable to move for a moment, then turned to follow Sam. I caught up with her at the edge of the lake, getting dressed. “I should get back to my aunt’s place, I’ll see you later, kay?”
I nodded. I knew something magic, and maybe just a bit weird had happened that afternoon. I didn’t know how much it would change things. If I had, would I have changed it? Prevented it from happening? Not on your life. That afternoon was an awakening for me, and I will never forget it, nor would I change it for the world.