We walked out the door, the heat rushing in as we exited the main building of our boarding school. We walked through the campus, the wet afternoon air hanging on my lungs, making it hard to breath. I had asked him if he wanted to pick raspberries with me for the raspberry chocolate cookies I was going to bake. He stood there contemplating for a minute while I gazed at him, the same ball of fear of rejection that had been rolling around my stomach for three years now.
As he thought about if he wanted to join me, his blue eyes were slanted slightly upwards, towards the ceiling. He was wearing a white tank top and orange cargo shorts. His hair was slicked back with gel and he look like a tool, like he was in one of those fifties greaser gangs. He liked to think he was a bad boy, but at heart he was quiet and caring. This “I don’t care what you think about me” look he was going for wasn’t working on me; it just made me want him more. He finally looked me in the eyes and said simply “Sure.”
We walked along the path leading to our schools farm. The raspberry patch was about a fifteen minute walk from the main campus and I was already starting to sweat in the late-summer heat. After a few minutes of silence, he broke it.
“Nice shoes.” He said, gesturing to them.
When I had purchased them, I had him in mind. The laces were purple and blue, and I knew those were two if his favorite colors. I was ill prepared for our trip to the farm, but didn’t want to make him wait while I went to change, so I wore them out onto the muddy, dew covered path.
“Thanks, I got them in California.” I replied, surprised that he had given me a compliment. It’s not that he was rude, but if he walked into you, I wouldn’t have expected him to apologize. It just wasn’t the way he was raised. 
“Yeah, they go really well with those pants. You must have like every color of pants imaginable now, right?” He asked.
My pants were a medium grade purple denim that I had spent months trying to find. I had almost every other color of pants, yellow, green, orange, but I could not find purple anywhere online or in store.
“I do have a lot of colors. These were the hardest to find though. I looked in some random thrift store in town and saw these on the rack. I was really lucky. They only had one pair and it was in my size.”
“Really? Can I borrow them sometime?” He said excitedly.
“Uhm yeah. Are we the same size though?” I responded.
“Probably not,” He said, the excitement dropping out of his voice.
“I bet you are. I’m a 28-30,” I said.
“D**n you must have like no waste! I’m a 32-32.” He said laughing. 
“Yep, I’ve been wearing the same size for the last three years.” I replied proudly. I loved my slim figure and thought of it as one of my greatest advantages.
We were now walking up a semi-steep grassy area. There mixture of heat and ascent was starting to make me breath heavier than usual as we stepped on the small path, surrounded on both sides by fields of what looked like grain. I walked gingerly, not knowing if there would be snakes slithering through the tall grass. His strides were long and fast and I had to struggle to keep up with him as the hill increased.
“You know this is only the second time I have ever gone to the farm of me own free will.” I said, trying to keep the panting out of my voice.
“Really?” He said.
Not knowing if “really” meant that I should go on with the story, or stop because he wasn’t interested, I decided to finish it.
“Yeah, I came out here with your brother to help him feed and water the animals.” I said pausing for a moment.
“Then he locked me in the old farmhouse.” I finished.
“That a boy.” He said stopping his strides and laughing.
I too stopped. I picked a piece of grain off one of the stocks and threw it at him. The wind carried it for a few seconds before it fell pathetical to the ground. We both stood there just looking at it.
“That was very affective,” he said, giving me a cocky smile. 
Then it happened. It was one of those moments where the clouds covered the sun, and everything all at once got darker. The temperature felt like it had dropped ten degrees in a matter of seconds. I turned my head to the sky and wondered if that was a sign; some signal that this was unnatural. I shouldn’t be laughing with him; I should be quietly hating him. I should be living in a quiet desperation, always wanting of his love and hating him for not supplying it. We both fell silent. I looked over at him and gave him a quick nod and we both returned to our walking.
After about two minutes we arrived at a lone strand of wire, cutting the path off horizontally. We could now see the raspberry patch in the distance.
“Do you think the electricity is on?” He asked me, playfully reaching out a hand for the wire.
It was one of the electric wires we had up all over the farm to keep the livestock from escaping. I had never been shocked by one before, and that’s the way I wanted it to stay.
“No, but I don’t want to find out.” I said, as I started to swoop under it.
“Come on. Live a little dangerously.” He said, reaching out, his index finger about a centimeter form the black and white nylon covering the electric wire.
“No, I don’t think I need a shock to live dangerously,” I said. I was thinking about my affection for him. I knew falling in love with someone that was indifferent towards me was a bad idea. I knew it was dangerous to feel such strong emotions while he felt none, but that didn’t stop me.
“Come on, you grab it, and I’ll hold on to you so I absorb the shock.” He said, there was a dangerous glint in his eyes and I have to admit I loved it.
“I don’t trust you enough for that,” I said, not knowing if it were true or not.
At one point, this would have been a no brainer. I would have blindly followed his suggestion, thinking that he would never purposefully hurt me. I would have sacrificed anything for him, but now, I had to fight that. I still wanted to trust him, to think he had my best interest at heart, but I couldn’t do it. As his eyes bore into mine, I knew that he had won a battle in me that he didn’t even know was taking place.
  I rolled my eyes and came back under the wire, taking stock of what I was about to do. He stepped back and held his hand out ready for me to take. I grasped his concourse skin and felt the sweat on his palm press against mine. I felt the shock, the warmth went up my body and traveled through each muscle, my heart started to race faster and faster and the rush of pure and intense energy rushed up my spine, making the little hairs on the back of my neck stand straight. All this happened in an instant, and then I looked down to my right hand, which was still pressed inside the pocket of my purple pants.
I looked back at him, that glint still in his eye. He nodded at me and with that, I hesitantly reached my hand out to grab the electric fence. My fingers curled around the wire as if I were knocking on a door and I felt a surge run through me. It wasn’t painful, it was just there. Without letting go, I looked back at him to see his face, his eyes tightly shut, his nose scrunched up, and his mouth open, teeth gritted in pain.
I let go, and his face returned to normal. He opened his eyes to see me staring at him, concernedly.
“What?” He said. His lips pursed in a smile as he stared back at me.
“Are you done playing with fire now?” I asked him, wondering why people do such things as this. Is it to prove that they are man enough to take the pain, or is it simply out of boredom?
“No, let’s go again,” He said, his face expressionless.
My look grew more concerned. He must have noticed because he responded with “I’m kidding.”
While I decided to go under the wire, he decided to take the more adventurous route, stepping back a few paces and then jumping over it. He over shot it and landed spread-eagled on the muddy ground. He got up and dusted himself off. The thin white fibers of the hole that was starting to wear on the right knee of his baggy jeans were now completely brown. There was a sprinkling of watered down mud spread across his face. Two of the larger dots were located right in the center of his nose and just under his left eye.
“Smooth move,” I said.
“Shut up,” he said, laughing at his own blunder.
  We started walking again and it wasn’t’ long before we arrived at the three long rows of raspberry bushes. I immediately started pulling only the red and juiciest raspberries off of the bushes. He came up behind me and held the plastic cup up so I could deposit my findings. We went up the row and then down the other side. I could hear an incessant chewing sound coming from behind me.
“Are you going to eat all the raspberries, or can we save some for cookies?” I asked him, mostly joking.
“I haven’t even eaten that many!” He said, holding a sticky hand up in the air as to surrender. As he said it a drop of succulent red juice ran down his hand and into the pitcher.
“Looks like I caught you red handed.” I said, pointing to a new stream now running down the ghostly blue center vein of his right hand.
He quickly wiped it on his jeans and responded “you can’t prove anything.”
I rolled my eyes playfully and continued to pick berries off the bush. I kept having to pause to push my dyed platinum blonde hair out of my eyes. I had knocked down two caterpillars already as well as countless other bugs in my relentless search for ALL the ripe raspberries there were. I didn’t want to have to make this trip again if I didn’t end up with enough. Just as I grasped onto a branch with a record number of 12 ripe berries, we heard a loud crack against the sky. I cringed a little and the entire branch came off in my hand.
“We better head back,” I said depositing the branch in the pitcher.
He nodded and reached a hand into the pitcher, throwing a fistful of berries into his mouth.
We walked quickly towards the main campus. After a few minutes we reached the wire. I started to walk under it again and he stopped me.
“Come on, you have to try it,” He said.
I just looked at him, my mouth slightly gaping. Why did he care so much?
“We don’t have time,” I said, continuing my limbo like maneuvering under the wire.
I got to the other side and turned back. He hadn’t moved.
“Come on. Before the rain starts,” I said, ushering him over.
“I’m not going anywhere until you touch the fence,” He said, giving me a stubborn grin.
“Why?” I said, exasperatedly.
“Because you live your life in this safety bubble, so afraid of getting hurt you don’t live. Well not with me.” He said.
He was right, I knew he was, but I hated that he thought he knew who I was. Hated that he saw me as something he had to fix, to tinker with until I was whole again.
We stood there for another couple seconds before I said “Fine, but you have to do it too.”
“Ok, on three then,” He said, reaching out his hand. I could still see some residual raspberry juice, like a red glaze on his tanned hand.
I nodded.
“One, two, three!” He said.
I grabbed the wire, and for a second, nothing happened. I didn’t take my eyes off him, and then I saw his face tense again, his whole body quivered, but his eyes stayed glued to mine. A millisecond later, it hit me. It felt like my heart skipped a beat. Adrenaline coursed through me body and I heard a sparking noise as the electricity coursed through us. As I stared into his eyes, I could see that he was fearless; he didn’t even squint when he felt the shock. As he looked back into mine, I wondered if he could see the fear in them, the vulnerability that was hidden behind the sea blue surface.
It was like the shock wasn’t coming from the fence at all, but from our stare. A bond of electricity so strong I never wanted it to end. For a second I thought he had felt it too, but when he dropped his gaze and let go of the fence. I did the same. All I wanted was to join him, I knew that when I was with him everything was ok, but we were on opposite sides and the only way to get to him was to get hurt. My hand felt numb from the shock, but the rest of me felt proud. Proud that I hadn’t let my fear get the best of me.
“That was exhilarating,” I said.
“See, isn’t it fun to not always be so worried and tense?” He said as he too came under the fence.
“Yeah, thanks for making me try it,” I replied, as we started our decent to campus.
“Anytime,” he replied with a weary smile.
I knew I was playing a dangerous game. That the spark I felt for him was a one way thing. I knew that we were just friends, but that didn’t stop me from wanting more. I wanted him to love me. I wanted him to save me from myself, to help me live a little. I wanted him to care about me like no one else, but more then all, I wanted the wire between us to be live, emitting fireworks of orange and yellow sparks in the mid-evening light.