Chapter 2: Chapter 2
The water held its cold shock around her. Kevin’s words, loud and unvarnished, seemed to hang in the air over the creek, mixing with the woodsmoke. Love the bathing suit. I had no idea you had such a fine-looking ass.
It wasn’t malicious. That was the strangest part. In the dim firelight, his expression was one of simple, appreciative surprise. But it was a spotlight, nonetheless. It yanked the moment out of the weightless dark and back onto the solid, judging bank.
Denny righted herself, feet finding the slick, rounded stones of the creek bed. The water now felt like a thin veil, not a shield.
“Shut up, Kevin,” Ben said, but he was laughing, splashing a handful of water in his direction.
“What? It’s a compliment!” Kevin protested, grinning, holding his hands up in surrender. He took a swig from his beer.
Denny forced a laugh. It sounded hollow in her own ears. She pushed through the water toward the shore, the current tugging at her legs. “You guys are all so subtle,” she said, to no one in particular.
She emerged, the water sluicing off the black monokini. The night air was a new kind of exposure, raising goosebumps on her skin. She kept her back to the group, walking straight to her towel. She wrapped the thick terrycloth around her waist, knotting it securely, ignoring flannel shirt she'd worn as armour before.
The chatter from the water continued, unconcerned. She sat on her log, watching the flames twist and curl. Her heart still pattered from the adrenaline of being named so publicly, even in jest. A fine-looking ass. That’s what he’d chosen to see. A single, normalized part. It was almost worse than a tease about her chest; it was a reduction in a different direction. She was a collection of comment-worthy fragments.
Ben hauled himself out of the water a while later, dripping and breathless. He dropped onto the gravel beside her log. “Kevin’s an idiot,” he said, grabbing his own towel. “He doesn’t know how to just… be cool.”
“It’s fine,” Denny said, and it almost was. The heat from the fire was beginning to seep into her skin. “Just… unexpected.”
“The whole day’s been unexpected,” Ben said, rubbing his hair dry. He glanced at her. “In a good way, mostly.”
She met his look. In the flickering light, his features were soft, open. He’d been her accidental ally today. It created a fragile, new tether between them. “Mostly?" she asked.
"Yeah, mostly," he repeated. "So far, so good." He offered her a fresh beer from the cooler. The can was cold and beaded with moisture.
"Thanks," she said, taking the can. The aluminum feeling solid, an anchor in her hand.
"No problem." He leaned back on his elbows, staring at the fire. "You know, I always figured you for the quiet, artistic type who hated everyone."
"Is that a diagnosis?" Denny asked, a trace of her dry wit returning. She took a sip. The beer was better now, crisp.
"An observation." He shrugged. "But today? That was a statement. Loud and clear without saying much at all. It takes guts to walk into Greeley's homeroom like that."
She picked at the label on her can. The paper came away in damp, stubborn curls. "It didn't feel like guts. It felt like the only option left."
"Sometimes that's what guts are," Ben said. He sat up, facing her. "The last option before you disappear completely."
His words landed with an accuracy that startled her. She looked at him, really looked. The firelight caught the angles of his face, the earnest set of his mouth. He wasn't just making conversation. He was trying to understand.
The night deepened and cooled, and the guys gradually retreated from the water for the warmth of the fire. Beers were drank, laughs were shared and everything seemed different to Denny.
It was Jerry who broke the mood, his beer-fuelled curiosity blunt and uncomplicated as he turned toward Denny. “So AC/DC,” he said, his voice loud in the hollow space. “What’s it like? You know, being AC and DC?”
The question hung there, naked and simple. It wasn’t mean. It was a question everyone had but no one ever asked, coated in the nickname they all used. All chatter died. Every eye turned to her.
Denny felt the weight of the question, ever-present but never before asked outright. She looked at Jerry’s open, genuinely curious face, then at Ben’s still, attentive posture. This was the heart of it, the crude, technical curiosity beneath all the stares and whispers.
She took a slow breath, the damp air cool in her lungs. “It’s like always carrying a puzzle that everyone can see,” she said, her voice clear against the concrete. “One side is a kid. The other… isn’t. Buying a shirt is a geometry problem. Bra shopping is a nightmare.”
She paused, looking around at the focused faces of half a dozen curious guys. “Some days it just feels like a fact, like having brown hair. Other days it feels like the only fact about me that matters to anyone else.”
The group was utterly silent, absorbing this. It was more truth than they’d bargained for. Kevin looked down, scuffing his shoe on the gritty floor. Jess stopped preening in the glass.
Ben pushed off from the wall. “Sounds exhausting,” he said, his words soft but carrying.
A surprised, almost grateful laugh escaped Denny. “Yeah,” she said, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “It really is.”
Jerry nodded slowly, as if she’d just explained a complex math theorem. Everyone else seemed to be mulling her words over in their own silence. Still wondering, but now having something to think about.
Denny broke the spell with a sigh and, "I suppose you guys all want to see them now, eh?" The question came out raw and unvarnished and Denny would later blame the beer for it. But something had shifted in her, imperceptible but real. Her nickname had been given definition. Not by the people who coined it, but by her, the person who wore it.
The silence that followed her question was different from the stunned quiet of homeroom. This was thicker, charged with the crackle of the fire and the rushing creek. It was full of held breaths and the palpable weight of a line being crossed.
Jerry choked on his beer. Mark stared intently at a knot in the log he was sitting on, his ears turning red. Kevin opened his mouth, then closed it, his earlier bravado evaporating.
Denny laughed, feeling oddly in control of a suddenly out of control situation. "I'll just take your deafening silence as a yes," she decided aloud.
For a full three seconds, the only sounds were the fire popping and the relentless creek. No one moved. They were statues in the flickering light, caught between juvenile desire and the sudden, sobering reality of being called out.
Ben was the first to find his voice. "Denny, you don't have to—"
"No," she said, cutting him off. Her tone wasn't angry. It was decisive, like she’d just solved for X. "I think I do."
A strange calm settled over her. This wasn't the defiant performance of the AC/DC shirt. That was reclaiming a slur. This was different. This was answering the question Jerry had been too clumsy to ask properly. What’s it like? Here’s what it’s like.
Her fingers went to the knot at her hip. The terrycloth was heavy with creek water. She loosened it.
Mark made a small, strangled sound and turned his head sharply toward the trees. Kevin’s mouth was a perfect, comical 'O'. Jerry just stared, his beer forgotten.
The towel pooled at her feet on the gravel. The night air was a full shock against her wet skin. She didn't look down. She kept her eyes on them, a blue challenge in the firelight.
She hooked her thumbs under the thin straps of the monokini. She took a steadying breath, felt the cool metal of the ring pull against her skin. Then she slid the top down.
It was over in two seconds. The spandex peeled away, releasing the asymmetry into the open air. She let the garment fall to her waist, the fire painting warm light across one small, peaked breast and one fuller, heavier one.
The silence was absolute now. Even the creek seemed to hush.
It wasn't sexual. The presentation was too stark, too clinical. It was simply a fact, displayed. Like turning over a peculiar stone to show its underside.
"Oh," Jerry breathed, the word barely audible. His gaze wasn't lecherous; it was wide with a kind of astonished comprehension.
Todd had a hand over his mouth, his eyes huge. Kevin had gone pale.
Denny’s heart was a frantic, trapped thing against her ribs, but her voice was steady. "So that's it," she said. Her arms stayed at her sides. No attempt to cover up. "The big mystery. AC," she cupped and jiggled her tiny right breast, "and DC," she repeated the exercise with her D-cup breast on the left.
Ben hadn't looked away. His expression was unreadable, intense. He wasn't staring at her chest; he was staring at her face, as if trying to decipher a complex code written there.
The moment stretched, taut and brittle. A log collapsed in the fire, sending a fountain of sparks spiraling into the dark.
Then, moving slowly, Denny sat back down, her bathing suit still down around her waist. Ben seemed to be holding his breath. Without a word, is gaze never left her bared, mismatched breasts.
"Okay," he said softly, to her, to the group. "Okay."
The spell broke. Mark coughed. Kevin finally remembered to breathe, sucking in a loud gulp of air. Todd lowered his hand from his mouth, his expression shifting from surprise to something uncertain, almost embarrassed.
"Jesus, Roberts," Jerry muttered, shaking his head. He ran a hand through his hair. "I just asked what it was like. You didn't have to... fully illustrate the damn thesis."
A laugh bubbled up in Denny's throat, sharp and real. It cut through the remaining tension. "Visual aids are important for comprehension, Jerry."
He barked a short, surprised laugh in return. "Yeah. Message received. Loud and fucking clear. And for what it's worth," he said, picking up a pebble and tossing it into the darkness toward the creek, "I don't think any of us will ever forget that answer."
She smiled faintly and reached for a fresh beer to wet her parched throat. "Good."
The fire crackled, swallowing the heavy silence that had fallen. Jerry cleared his throat, the sound awkward in the damp air, and took a long pull from his beer. No one else seemed to know where to look.
Denny reached down, her fingers finding the cool, damp spandex at her waist. She pulled the monokini top back into place with a deliberate snap, the motion clinical and final. The exposed skin tingled, not from cold, but from the aftermath of a deliberate violation she had authored herself.
"Visual aids," Jerry repeated, shaking his head with a low whistle. "Yeah, man. That's one way to do it."
Ben hadn't moved from his spot beside her. His knee was almost touching her thigh, a point of warmth. "You okay?" he asked, his voice so low it was almost lost under the creek's rush.
Denny nodded, wrapping her arms around her knees. The adrenaline was ebbing, leaving a hollow, shaky feeling in its wake. "I am now," she said, and it was a promise to herself.
Kevin finally stood up, brushing gravel from his shorts. "I'm... gonna get another beer," he muttered, his eyes carefully avoiding Denny as he trudged toward the cooler. With Denny sitting amongst them topless, AC and DC on full display, the more casual rhythm of the night was broken, and everyone felt it.
Jerry uncurled himself from his towel, shooting Denny a look that was part awe, part something else. "That was... intense," he said, then turned to follow Kevin. "I need a smoke."
The group fractured slowly, conversations starting up in hushed, sidelong tones. The fire popped, sending embers spiraling into the blackness above the creek. Denny watched them rise and fade, feeling strangely detached from her own body.
Ben picked up a stick and poked at the burning logs. "Jerry's an ass, but he's not wrong," he said, not looking at her. "No one's forgetting that."
"Is that the point?" Denny asked, her voice flat. She tucked a damp curl behind her ear. "To be memorable?"
"No," Ben said, finally turning his head. The firelight caught the green in his hazel eyes. "The point was to be done with it. To show them the thing so they'd stop wondering about it. Now they know."
He made it sound so simple, so logical. Denny let out a shaky breath. "It doesn't feel done."
"What do you mean?" he asked, tossing a stick into the flames.
"I mean this!" she replied, clutching her bare breasts and shaking them for emphasis before letting them go again. "This... feels good. Unhidden, out in the open. Free."
Ben glanced around at the others. Some were surreptitious in their observations while others were still staring bluntly. "Well, I don't think anyone here would begrudge you that," he said.
"Good," she said. "Because I'm done hiding." Lifting her bum, she peeled the rest of her monokini down, slid it along her legs and kicked it off to the side.
"Much better," she sighed, now completely naked.
Ben’s breath caught. It wasn’t a leer. It was something quieter, more profound—a total recalibration of this girl before him. The firelight danced over her skin, illuminating the truth of her in a way no whispered nickname ever could.
The other guys were statues. Kevin’s jaw had actually gone slack. Mark had turned a deep, mottled red. Jerry just stared, his earlier bravado evaporated, replaced by a naked, almost childlike awe.
Denny hugged her knees to her chest, not hiding, just resting. The cool air was a full-bodied shock, a baptism. "You all look like you've seen a ghost," she said, her voice cutting the thick silence.
"You're just... out there," Kevin managed, his words stumbling. "Like, all the way out there."
"Astute observation," Denny said, a faint smile touching her lips. She felt terrifyingly light, as if she’d stepped out of a heavy, ill-fitting costume she didn't know she’d been wearing.
Ben moved first. He shrugged out of his own damp flannel shirt, the fabric soft and worn. Without a word, he offered it to her, holding it by the shoulders. His gaze was steady, meeting hers. "In case you get cold," he said. It wasn't a suggestion to cover up. It was an offering of warmth, on her terms.
She looked at the shirt, then at him. "No thanks," she said, "I think I'm good."
The spell was officially broken. Jerry coughed, shaking his head as if clearing water from his ears. "Okay. Wow. I need another beer. Or six." He stumbled toward the cooler, the mundane action grounding the night back into reality.
One by one, the others found excuses to move, to talk, to breathe again. The conversation that resumed was hushed, fractured, shot through with glances she could feel like heat on her skin. But they were looks of recalculation, not ridicule.
Ben sat back down beside her, closer now. Their shoulders nearly touched. "That was the nuclear option," he said quietly, poking the fire with a long stick.
"Seemed proportionate," Denny replied. She watched the embers swirl upward into the vast, star-pricked black. "I've been living in hiding since puberty. Time to make up for lost time I think... starting now."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the clumsy, renewed chatter of their friends. The power in the clearing had irrevocably shifted. She was no longer the subject of a joke. She was a fact. A territory they had all now seen, and were quietly, individually, navigating.
Ben’s voice was low, just for her. "So does it feel different now? Now that they've seen like, all of you?"
Denny considered it, the cool night air on her bare skin. "It does. It feels... better," she said finally. "The wondering is gone. All that's left is the thing itself."
"The thing itself isn't so bad," Ben said. He didn't look at her body. He looked at the fire, his profile sharp in the orange light. "For the record."
Her heart did a slow, deliberate roll in her chest. "Noted," she said with a smile.
"So what's next for AC/DC?" Ben asked.
Denny laid back on her towel. She laced her behind her head stared up at the night-swathed canopy above her, completely comfortable in her bare skin. "I don't know," she admitted. "Sex probably. Lots and lots of it. You know... to make up for lost time."
Ben’s stick froze mid-poke in the embers. The words hung between them, a different kind of exposure. He slowly turned his head to look at her. Her expression was calm, matter-of-fact, her blue eyes reflecting the fire’s dance.
“That’s… direct,” he finally said, his voice a little rough.
Denny laughed. “Seems like the day for it,” she replied, not looking away. The power of her own statement thrummed inside her, a live wire. It wasn’t a proposition for him, not specifically. It was a declaration to the universe, spoken aloud for the first time. A reclaiming of desire, too long buried under shame.
A loud splash and whoop came from the creek where Jerry and Kevin had wandered back in. The normal world, oblivious, continued its orbit.
Ben tossed his stick into the fire. He wiped his palms on his jeans. “Lost time, huh?”
“Years of it.” She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest again, but making no move to cover herself. The night air was a constant, gentle shock. “Spent trying to fold myself into shapes that didn’t fit. Apologizing for taking up space. Hating mirrors.” She glanced at him. “You spend enough time thinking you’re broken, you forget you’re allowed to want things.”
He absorbed this, his gaze steady on her face. “And what do you want?”
The question was dangerously simple. She looked past him, at the dark silhouette of the leaning oak. “To not feel like a visitor in my own skin. To have someone look at me—all of me—and not see a problem to solve or a joke to tell.” She brought her eyes back to his. “To feel good. Simple as that.”
Ben nodded slowly. The noise from their friends seemed to fade into a distant murmur. The space around their log felt insulated, charged. He looked at her, really looked, his eyes traveling from her face, down her neck, over the exposed, asymmetrical lines of her body, and back up. It was a slow, comprehensive study.
Denny held still, letting him look. Her heart hammered, but it was a clean, sharp pulse. This was the test. Not the crude, gaping stare of the homeroom, or the shocked gawk of minutes ago. This was a conscious observation.
“You’re not broken,” he said, the words quiet but absolute.
A tremor went through her. She hadn’t realized how badly she needed to hear that from someone else, someone whose opinion hadn’t yet been formed. “I’m different.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, no hesitation. “You are.” A faint, lopsided smile touched his mouth. “AC/DC. It’s a shitty nickname. But it’s not wrong. It’s just… descriptive. Now I know what it describes.”
He reached out then, not towards her body, but towards her hand, which was resting on her knee. His fingers brushed the back of her knuckles, a question. His skin was warm from the fire.
Denny turned her hand over, palm up. An invitation.
His fingers slid between hers, calloused and sure. The contact was electric, a current that shot straight up her arm. It was the first touch she’d received all day that wasn’t predicated on shock, pity, or mockery. It was just touch.
“Ben! We’re out of ice!” Jerry’s shout shattered the moment.
Ben didn’t drop her hand. He squeezed it once, then released it, standing up. “Duty calls,” he said, his voice regaining its normal timbre, though his eyes stayed on her. “You staying there?”
“For a minute,” Denny said.
He nodded and headed toward the cooler, leaving her in the circle of firelight. She let out a long, shaky breath. The imprint of his fingers felt brandished into her skin.
She watched him go, watched the easy way he fell back into conversation with Jerry, grabbing a bag of semi-melted ice. He was part of that world, the normal, laughing world by the creek. And for a moment, he had stepped into hers.
The thought was terrifying. And exhilarating.
She stood, leaving her towel on the ground behind her. The group by the cooler glanced over. Their eyes registered her nudity, the seemingly contained normalcy of it. The seismic event was over. The aftershocks were now a private rumble.
She walked to the water’s edge, away from the fire. The creek looked black and endless. She could feel the gaze on her bare backside. Sitting on the flat rock again, she dipped her feet in. The cold was a bracing slap.