kore 3

secretly, kore is hoping maybe she will finally get to hook up or try drugs.

{ kore 2 withheld from the internet due to rampant pedophilia –– it possibly be in the published version. what would the world be like if there were room to acknowledge & support the erotic lives of children without adults exploiting & harming them? }

photo by james collington: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sunset-view-of-pismo-beach-cliffs-california-29808921/

the summer kore is 13, her kindergarten best friend convinces her to go on a weeklong surfing & camping trip for teenagers through the YMCA called california coast caravan. secretly, kore is hoping maybe she will finally get to hook up or try drugs. contrary to what D.A.R.E. told her to expect, no one in middle school has tried to make her do drugs or hook up in the bathroom.

their parents drop them & their bags off & the van is loaded up: three rows of seats for ten teenagers, two seats up front for the counselors. it’s the summer all killer no filler drops & “fat lip” hits number 1 on the alt charts & the cutest boy on the trip decides that’s their theme song of the summer, so everyone is forced to listen to it multiple times a day for the whole two weeks.

though kore aspires to experimentation, she seems not to be who boys want to experiment with. on this trip, it’s mostly boys: boys whose voices have recently dropped, boys who fart & punch each other in the way back of the van. mostly they tease each other but occasionally they tease or dare each other into talking to one of the girls. kore never knows whether to take it seriously; she’s seen enough teen movies to know she’s more a katarina stratford than a cher horowitz, more likely to be reviled than pursued.

there is a third girl named kellen who wants to be an architect. she spends most of the van rides sketching blueprints while everyone else listens to music or naps. kore notices her short hair falling into her face, how her hands plane smooth surfaces across the pages.