Part 3: Crocodiles and Tears, but no Crocodile Tears

My summers never used to be this eventful. I often just found myself wasting time in front of the computer, playing videogames, and occasionally hanging out with Cory and Mark. I haven't seen Mark in ages, since he moved to Pittsburgh. In fact, the last "road trip" I'd had before this was going to Pittsburgh to visit him last year during winter break. I remember Cory and I both had a hard time trying to get the same four days off, especially considering that he had just started not even a month earlier. Obviously, Faye didn't come with, as she had never met Mark, and was still just getting to know Cory.

It was shocking to see how much Mark had changed since the last time we'd seen him. Pittsburgh is definitely a much larger city than Elyria. For the first time in a long time, we actually had a lot to talk about. Mark and I were close for about a year, but we quickly grew into two very different people and ran out of things to talk about. It's not like we didn't get along, but we just grew apart. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever see him again. He still has family back in Elyria, and usually calls us up when he comes back to visit for a week, but I haven't heard from him in a long time.

The last time he visited was a bit over a year before the trip, around the time that Cory and Faye started getting serious about each other. They had already been casually dating and hanging out for a while. I was completely cool about it at first. It's not like I hadn't considered asking out Faye before, but I wasn't quite sure what her status was. Apparently she was kind of in an on again/off again type of relationship with a guy whom she liked a lot but was a bit of a jerk to her. She didn't talk about him much, so I was never sure whether they were on or off.

Mark had pulled me over after Cory introduced Faye to him as his girlfriend. He said that from the way I used to speak of Faye when I first started working with her that he thought I was interested in her. I guess I just wasn't sure how I felt at the time. Come to think of it, I guess I did get a bit of a jealous shock the first time I saw them holding hands at school, but I shrugged it off. I saw Faye later on that day at work, and I remember saying something along the lines of, "Yeah, I saw you guys holding hands today, and I thought, 'geez, finally they're officially dating,'" when we went on break. She looked off to the side and flashed that really cute type of smile where the cheeks rise so the eyes look like they're nearly closed.

Obviously, I would be exactly sure how I felt about her not too long later. My grandmother had to be put on Hospice around November of my senior year of high school, which hit the family very hard. My grandfather didn't want to have Hospice Care workers at his house 24/7, so my mother, my aunt and my uncle all had to take care of her. I remember going to their house after school, seeing my grandmother's gradually worsening condition everyday. Her personality disappeared and after a while she began to start speaking like a young child, until the point where she was making unintelligible sentences and forgetting who her family was.

It was a full month before she finally died on the fifth of December. By the time she had passed pretty much our whole family needed a break from each other. Everyone was exhausted, and sick of each other. My grandfather had literally gone insane. To this day, he still hasn't fully recovered at all, and a picture of my grandmother sits on her piano, next to a clipout of her obituary from the newspaper and a vase full of roses.

I was especially drained. I remember confiding in Faye about the whole situation. I remember holding her in my arms and starting to cry. This was when I realized I was in love with her. I had been for a long time, it was just a matter of admitting it to myself. All this time, I had been trying to pawn my feelings off by being somewhat flirtatious with Maggie, who I guess I saw as almost kind of a backup in case I couldn't get who I really wanted.

Maggie had confided in me a bit later about her crush on Jack. I guess I was kind of jealous, but I knew that Faye was the one who I really wanted.

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I woke up in the hotel the next morning with the back of Maggie's hand laying on my face, as if she had meant to slap me in my sleep. Cory had already woken up, and I could hear him humming as he brushed his teeth in the bathroom. I turned my head over to Faye. Her hair was all tangled, and her face hadn't been made up yet, but she was still beautiful. She never wore a lot of makeup, anyways.

I'd had a strange dream the night before. I was at my house, walking into the kitchen, and there was a giant crocodile laying on deck with his head stuck in the patio door. I went to check the front door, but when I walked back toward the kitchen, the croc suddenly jolted upwards and started raging around the house. I ran as fast as I could, so as not to be bitten by the giant reptile that was snapping at me furiously.

I moved Maggie's hand off my quietly and sat up. Cory poked his head into the room with the toothbrush in his mouth to check to see who was moving. He was all set to go jogging, so it seemed. He spit out his toothpaste in the sink and walked in, asking me if I wanted to go. I declined, stating I wasn't ready to go jogging quite yet.

After he left, I sat and admired Faye for a bit while the others slept. As she began to wake up, I went to take a shower and prepare for another long day of driving.