Part Fifteen: Flannel Shirts, Arcades, and Car Doors

"I'm not used to it but I can learn
There's nothing to it, I've never been happier
Never been happier..."

-Paramore

We went back to the cabin early- if you could call 10somethingPM early. I was wound tighter than a spring. My heart was skipping and beating only every other minute. That night was a blur. 

As I crawled into bed, my mind was filled with pictures and images of Jacob and everything that we had done that day. I kept feeling my left hand to remind myself that his had been right... there.

I texted him a bit before I attempted to sleep. We both felt blessed and in shock over the first meeting.

It's incredible. I just pray that I am all you thought I was. You were perfect. Just perfect.

His text described exactly how I felt. That word kept popping into my mind, into conversations, into everything. It was perfect. So perfect.

Fast forward to the next morning. I woke up much too early for someone who traveled extensively, brushed their teeth in a car, and hung out with a bunch of wild and exciting people the day before. I didn't care. I jumped in the shower, ran around the cabin trying to find everything, and licked peanut butter off a spoon. I texted Jacob. He was going to pick me up around 10:30am to go to his house to work on CollegePlus forum election stuff. My mom and sisters would be going to the Biltmore Estate. Afterwards, we would drive to pick up Becki so we all could go on an excursion with Mr. Clifton's homeschooled class to an arcade. Good game plan for a beautiful Friday.

I got many texts from various people asking about how things went. I honestly didn't know how to describe it without sounding like a gushing, overwhelmed girl. I ended up doing exactly that. My heart swells at the thought of just how alive and wonderful I felt that morning. My favorite boy was in the same state. He was driving over to get me in a few hours. I was going to spend ALL day with him. Could life get any better?

I updated facebook, email, googleplus, and anything else that had left poor, innocent people hanging on my lack of description regarding where I had flown off to. I smiled at my computer. I smiled at my phone. I was exhausted already, but I didn't care. I was going to make the most of these next few days while they were in my hands.

Before long, the ironvan was pulling into the driveway and a sweatshirted Jacob and barefooted Aubrey  were making their way to the cabin. Aubrey was generally making a point of how her barefeet hurt against the wood chip-py ground. Within a few minutes however, we were packed up and headed back to the Clifton residence (and yes, about 5 seconds into the car ride we were holding hands again).

Upon reaching our destination, we all piled out and charged into the house. Will and Jimmy were wandering around the kitchen scrounging for food in typical boy fashion. Out of the blue, Jacob told me I needed to help him decide what to wear. 

"Does he always need help getting dressed?" I asked Aubrey.

I didn't argue though and proceeded to help pick out Jacob's choice apparel for the day. Flannel shirt of course. So we could be matching.

Back to the kitchen we went. I sat down at the table and pulled out my computer for a short time before we realized working downstairs would be better for all intensive purposes. Downstairs it was.

What I really loved about this trip was seeing places in the Clifton house I could recognize from picture messages. The downstairs office was once such place. Seeing the complete office was much better than seeing just bits and pieces of it in the background of pictures, however.

The morning passed by with brainstorming and making wild videos from the CollegePlus forums. Jimmy goofed around in the background and generally made for entertaining company. After a 25 minute or longer video, I began editing and finishing things up. Jacob got on the phone with my mom and informed me it was time to go pick up Becki. 

Off we go again!

With Aubrey, Will, and Jimmy in tow, Jacob and I set out for the beginning of another adventure. Between the failed music selections of Kesha, JB, and a CD that skipped every other track, we made our way to meet up with my mom and to intercept Becki. I've never enjoyed a car ride so much. Between the familial love and teasing that was flooding out the side windows and the sunshine tickling the sky outside, everything about this day felt amazing.

Find Becki. Get Becki in the ironvan. Drive off. Try singing Fireflies to a continuously skipping CD. Trying to sing Viva La Vida because the CD isn't skipping quite as much. Pulling into the parking lot and feeling so happy it's ridiculous. Unload a van full of wild children. Walk around the side of the car to the other side. Let my fingers find his again.

Across the parking lot I see a few people who I don't know. No surprise there. Turns out, I'm about to be introduced to Clayton's parents. Clayton, the infamously wild and obnoxiously friendly kid that Jacob has told me so much. 

I somehow logically conclude that his parents won't be as wild as Clayton. Turns out, I was right- they were super nice. After the greetings and smiles, we wandered on into the arcade where I was faced with a group of homeschoolers larger than I'd seen in my whole life.

At 19 years old, maybe I should've been concerned at my lack of experience with large groups of homeschooled students, but I took it in stride. I smiled over at Aubrey, wondering if anyone was going to come up and say hello to the strangers in the group- i.e., me and my sister.

No? No takers?

I took it upon myself and began greeting people. Some dude was trying to call out instructions regarding the arcade and paying and who knows what else. I tried to listen, but it was rather difficult. You see, at that exact moment a certain someone had grabbed onto my hands behind me. A certain someone was generally being a little crazy and doing Lord knows what behind my back. A certain someone named Clayton, you see.

I turned around and greeted him in the best fashion I could. 

"Oh Mr. Dansbury, there's just something about you..." I noted with a raised eyebrow. I promptly adjusted the zipper on the front of his jacket so it was neither zipped nor unzipped. "Oh yes. That was it," I determined with a smirk and walked away.

We all were still hanging around the entrance/lobby area of the arcade. Just a bunch of quiet homeschoolers flocked together in their respective clusters.

"Beth, Beth you see that kid? Go beat him up. He's cocky," Aubrey whispered informatively with a gesture.

I watched the homeschooler convicted by Aubrey's words saunter through the double doors. I measured him up. He was tall, looked a bit sure of himself, but I couldn't really judge anything else. I made my way over and stuck out my hand.

"Hey! My name's Beth, I heard you're cocky," I smiled politely with a handshake. A few people suppressed a laugh behind him, but he himself looked generally confuddled. I didn't have time to let anything else extremely smart come out of my mouth however, as Aubrey had turned me to face another homschooler.

"Beth! This is Teacup!"

A kid named Teacup. A kid named after a cup used to hold tea. I'm sure there was a reason for the nickname, so I decided to go along with it.

"Hiya Teacup! I mean Teapot... t-shirt... teaspoon... tea party... you know what I mean," I grinned as innocently as I could. Innocent grinning. Is it possible?

At this point I hadn't the time for any other hellos as we were moving on. Just as well, as a good deal of the older homeschoolers didn't exactly look like they wanted to be my friend, anyways. Maybe that or they were afraid of what further atrocities would come out of my mouth.

"Ah, where's the bathroom? Where's the bathroom," Aubrey mumbled in my general direction.

"Oh. Well, I'd help you with that, but you see... I've never been here before," I said as straight faced as possible. "Jacob, Aubrey wants to know where the bathroom is."

"What? WHAT? WHERE'S THE BATHROOM? YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE BATHROOM?"

"YES! I mean NO! AUBREY IS!"

Aubrey never did find the bathroom at that moment. I couldn't tell you if she cared too much either way however, as Jacob and I smacked each other a few times and ran off before I could tell what her reaction was.

"So, what do you want to do first?" He asked.

"You know, I live like 15 minutes from the biggest arcade in US, and I've no clue as to what to do in an arcade," I confessed somewhat embarrassedly. "I don't really care. Not to be lame, but..."

Well, the answer to everything in life is guns and cars, so with that we attacked various games of one kind or another, me usually coming in second by a good margin.

"Let's face it, we should never join the military together," I remarked. "This is officially going to be a test of my humility today."

Being uber competitive, it was slightly depressing being so horrible at everything. Granted, I would sometimes come out on top, but not usually. It was a rare occasion. We would run into Becki, Jimmy, and Aubrey from time to time. Eventually however, we decided it was time to do a group-like activity. Mini golfing it was. 

While the idea seemed simple enough, the whole 'golf' concept was lost within 60 seconds. Random and completely illegal shots were taken using feet, hands, and pretty much anything that would get the ball in the cup. The one good swing Jacob did manage with his golf club actually came nowhere near the ball and ended up smacking me in the butt. His bad. 

Jacob and I did a good deal of teasing each other much to the interest of those around us. Clayton acted a bit subdued. Becki looked a bit subdued. Jimmy and Aubrey were trying hard to play by the rules. Ah, nothing says fun like mini golf.

Eventually we got to the end of the golfing adventure and Jacob and I split off from the group once more. A few of the other guys were desperately attempting to beat one of those grabbing claw games. We showed up just in time to see failure #32... at least.

I pronounced the game rigged. No one listened. I pronounced it rigged again. No one listened again.

"Guys, I can't focus with you all watching," the one kid cried out desperately.

"Here here, let's all turn and face the other way, no pressure," I replied, shoving the boy next to me in the other direction. "We'll just look at the trees over here. Nice foliage this time of year, hm? Very green... fake... and... plastic looking. Kinda like my hair."

A good number of heads turned in my direction and stared with a mixture of concern and understood hilarity. Score for comparing my hair to green, plastic-y looking trees.

By failure #43, Jacob and I had had enough. We wandered away again and sat down for a minute. I could see out of the corner of my eye numerous people keeping tabs on us. Not surprising. It did make me smile, though. Clayton's dad came over and teased us a bit. Mr. Clifton came over to see how things were going. We waited for the rest of our crew to find us, then headed off to smack people around in laser tag.

Laser tag in a few words: black lights, funky tunes, funkier backpack things, tramping around, running into people, wacky teams, lots of fun. Okay, so maybe that was more than a few words. It was a good time. The first time we played Becki, Aubrey, Will, another girl, and I were on a team. We generally stunk, however I shot Jacob so that's all I really cared about. I called Clayton 'Jesus' due to his glowing appearance under the black lights. Aubrey was a complete boss. I liked running around in moccasins. We headed out having been defeated by Jacob's team. Thankfully there were 4 teams total, so I didn't have to bear the knowledge of whether or not we came in last. Whew.

We de-geared and headed to the next attraction of the day: go karts. Jacob had been taunting me over the fact that I'd never ridden a go kart. I can't help it. I don't make time for those kinds of things in my busy schedule. I would have to do with go karts what I'd done with so many things this trip- I'd have to wing it. Honestly, I was quite impressed with how well I was handling stinking at everything so far. Maybe I'd have a bit more success in this next opportunity.

By the time we made it to the track, we had to split up a bit due to the number of people. Will went with a few of the other kids while Jimmy, Aubrey, Becki, Jacob and I waited. I was so, so tired by this point. I was still dehydrated from traveling the day before. I was severely lacking in the caloric intake department. I felt kinda like I was going to keel over right then and there, but I didn't have time for that.

As I leaned against the fence separating us from the track prep area, I felt someone's fingers run down my back and gently massage. My face buried against the rail, I smiled under my tangled hair. Mmmm. I smiled again under the tangles.

"Mrrreow. Mrrreow..."

The fingers stopped. I looked up and smiled sweetly at Jacob who was looking from me to Becki with a confused but entertained expression.

"Does she normally do that?" He asked Becki.

"Yes," Becki responded quickly.

I laughed and grabbed his hand again. It was our group's turn to hit the track. For some in our group, it would be time to hit other people. But you'll see what I mean. The best stories usually involve a few broken rules, intentionally or unintentionally, you see.

We all selected karts. I politely nodded at Jacob and jumped in the kart in front of him. That was a mistake.

Considering I could drive a real car, go karts weren't too torturous. Right? Right. I was driving in one way traffic in a circle. This was doable. Alas, regardless of this simplistic scenario, Jacob still managed to side slam my kart into the side of the course. He still denies it, but I know better. He was just mad that he couldn't pass me. Even after I got back on the track, he couldn't pass me. Ah, illegality and rule breaking just come to the guy naturally! Despite this, it was a good time. I was happy. I was tired. I was overwhelmed by how much I loved doing absolutely anything with Jacob, even if it involved my general embarrassment.

After one final game of laser tag (and yes, I was still rather pathetic), we decided to head home, but not before we loaded a few extra kids in the car in a homeschooling carpool effort. Not before Jacob kindly asked that I slam the van door with my beyonce. Not before I got confused as to what he meant. Not before I close the car door on my face. Not before I actually did smack the car door with my butt. Oh, the things I do for him.

The car ride was just as happy inducing as any of the past ones. Wild and decidedly jovial yelling and conversing in the back of the van while Jacob and I were completely and obliviously caught up in each other in the silliest, simplest ways. It was me squeezing his hand a little tighter for no reason in particular. It was him pulling my hand a bit closer until my fingers brushed past his lips. It was all knowing and all telling stares for seconds that lasted eternity. It was the glowing, evening sunlight that warmed the world around us. it was the glowing, evening sunlight that warmed every single piece of my exhausted body.

Dropping off kids. More wild galavanting in the back of the van. It had only been one full day into the trip, but my heart was already overflowing for this state, the people who lived in it, and the fact that I was in said state with said people.

It was around 6pm, but I wasn't worried. We still had hours left in the day. I was going to absorb and enjoy every single second.