A Fleeting Love Story.
In August of 2008, shortly after my 14th birthday, my father took me to my second music festival. At this time in my life I had started gaining a huge interest in 80's hair bands, so I spent the whole summer extremely excited for Crue Fest. Motley Crue is definitely one of my favorites.
The day before the festival my dad drove the two best friends I had in Washington, and I down south through Seattle. Windows down, blasting music all the way. We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge that night, which had an incredible water park, and tons of games and activities throughout the building. Kat, Alice, and I went to look at the water park while my dad and his girlfriend checked us in.
We were a sweaty mess from the long, hot car ride, and I too was busy zoning out on how wonderful the pool looked when Alice grabbed me by the arm. “Danni, look over there.” I turned in the direction she was nodding, just to lock eyes with a tall, dark haired boy across the room. He was in swimming trunks, and standing with a slightly taller, thinner boy. “Are they checking us out?”, I squeaked as I attempted to hide behind her. (They were definitely checking us out.)
After getting settled into our room, and changing into our swimsuits, the three of us made our way down to the water park with our towels. We went down the biggest water slide once, and then headed to the pool to relax and cool off. That's where the two boys found us. James and Jackson where brothers from Everett, just a half an hour south of the town that Alice, Kat, and I lived in. We were all instantly interested. Eventually we paired off, leaving Kat as a sort of fifth wheel, and very upset. Alice and I didn't realize Kat was left out until she stormed off, we were just too involved in getting to know these two perfect strangers.
I spent most of the afternoon talking (and goofing off) with Jackson in the pool, until I was all pruney. Eventually James and Alice found us and we all went down the huge water slide in one of the four person inner tubes. We had a blast together going on rides, splashing around in the pool, talking about music (they were in a band *sigh*), and exchanging contact information. Alice and I were so in to them, as were they to us, and it had only been an afternoon.
Eventually their parents showed up, they could no longer wait, they had no more time to give us, it was time for James and Jackson to go home. We hugged them goodbye, once in the water park, and once in the lobby as they were leaving, while promising to keep in contact. And then the two of us became very overly dramatic girls...
We somehow read each others minds, and the second they walked out the door, the two of us were running up the four flights of stairs (no time for elevators), and barging into our room (we probably would have broken down the door if we could have). We ran to the window, forgetting that hotel windows don't open, and almost broke the thing trying to open it. When that failed, we began banging on the window until the boys looked up at us from the parking lot. As soon as we had their attention, and probably the rest of the parking lot's attention, we began waving our arms around violently, and screaming through the inch crack we happened to get the window open to, our goodbyes and "we'll miss you"'s. It was a very ridiculous scene that James and Jackson played in to perfectly.
Alice and I "loved" those boys. We spent the rest of the night, and the next day -until the concert- texting them. They even called us during their band practice, to play "I Miss You"- by Blink-182 for us. It was all very adorable.
We didn't talk to them much after that week, but every once in a while I come across a photo that my dad took of the four of us, in the middle of the water park.. and it makes me laugh EVERY TIME.
