“Tessa!” I call out her name, the wind throwing it back in my face until I roar it so loud I can hear her name echoing despite the terrible storm.
Like the dragging of the furniture, I don’t hear it, but the tell-tale red lights of her purple Volkswagen light up in the darkness.
She’s a good hundred yards from where I am, and I start to sprint towards the lights, but she’s going faster than I can run in just a few seconds.
I call out her name again, the stabbing pain in my chest not from yelling myself hoarse, or from running around the whole camp.
It’s the pain I feel at her leaving.
Leaving without saying anything.
Leaving without me.
Something’s not right.
I know she wouldn’t just leave like this. And I won’t just let her go either.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tessa
I’ve never liked storms, and even being so close to Sean isn’t enough to keep me brave.
Being back at camp, in a storm like this.
It brings it all back as fast and as frightening as one of those sheets of lightning outside.
It scares me half to death, and the fresh memory of it makes me shiver.
How could I have forgotten? It was one of the most humiliating nights of my life, but there were so many after that one, most of high school then college… I just learned to switch off the cruelty of some people. The shallowness and ignorance that some people just seem to be born with.
Wake Sean up, he’ll understand.
I’m scared, confused. And a big part of me feels like a frightened little girl again. But I hadn’t really forgotten, I just pushed it down with all the rest.
It’s the real reason I wanted to be a counselor, to come back to camp and face the memory. Face that childhood fear of the dark. Fear of storms and most of all, the fear of being different.
The heavy girl that no boy wanted and no girls wanted to be seen with.
Wake him up…tell him how you feel… it’s perfectly natural to get frightened during storms, and to have flashbacks when you visit the place you had a traumatic event as a child.
My adult brain sounds logical, but it’s quickly drowned out by the loud thunder, the wind and once the lights pop and I’m plunged into darkness, it’s like that night all over again.
I can’t take it.
Oh, why won’t Sean wake up? Can’t he hear what’s happening, it sounds like the freakin’ world is ending out there.
I’m so scared, it doesn’t even feel real anymore. I just want to go home, but I’m confused. If it wasn’t for Sean I wouldn’t even know where I am, but he won’t wake up, I even try shaking him some but he’s totally out of it. Every time I try to call out to him a deafening crash of thunder drowns me out, sending my anxiety through the roof.
I’ve never been able to sleep like that, especially during a storm.
My teeth are chattering and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m cold, scared or both.
I manage to get out of the bed, not looking at the windows with the shapes of tree branches scratching at them like twisted fingers. I find my clothes and dress myself still shivering. I decide I’ll go back down to my car, get some warmer clothes and then come back.
If I can face the fear of the storm, walk through it and just get to my car and back, I should be fine.
Overcoming fears is about facing them Tessa.
Sean makes a sound in his sleep which gets drowned out by more thunder and I jump, feeling myself squeak with fear but I can’t hear anything. This storm is no ordinary storm.
Either way, I’m gonna need more clothes than just these shorts and a skimpy top.
I’ve got a whole trunk full of clothes, enough for the whole summer and I packed for any weather.
I just need to get down there.
There’s no need to creep in silence, it’s so damned loud. The wind is louder than anything now, it sounds like a vacuum and I wonder if that’s the reason Sean isn’t waking up, it’s like a giant wash of white noise blocking everything out.
The door to the little cottage rips out of my hand, feeling like it’s about to be blown off its hinges and I do my best to secure it before creeping down the path towards the dark shapes which suddenly look nothing like the sunny, warm and bright campsite I saw earlier.
I can’t see my car from the cottage, and try my best to retrace my steps as I attempt to recall the way Sean and I took to get here. I was so engrossed in watching him, feeling his arm around me that I barely took any notices of where we were going.
I remember the new dorms he pointed out, they look lighter against the darkness of the night but still remind me of the buildings that used to be there.
Those old, wide porch, red brick buildings.
I shudder at the memory, it’s as though the voices of the past are carried in the howling wind that starts to sting my ears and numb my body.
I should’ve stayed in the cottage… I should’ve stayed with Sean.
Something moves past me quickly, brushing my leg and making me jump with fear. I can’t tell if it’s an animal or something else. There’s so much debris being blown around. Lawn chairs and all kinds of things being blown out from the pitch blackness of the woods surrounding the camp.
I end up running through the dark, stumbling towards what I hope is the parking lot where I left my car.
My legs feel hot, with the searing pain in my thighs reminding me of the day before, of the way Sean carried me all the way down the hillside.
Reminding me how much my legs rub together, even when I walk, let alone try to run.
With the wind echoing the torments of
