I reached over and shoved him, very satisfied when he stumbled a little from the force. I actually wasn’t cold at all. Maybe it was because my heart felt like it was pumping a hundred miles a minute.
“So that’s all Shay said?” I asked.
“Shay?”
“The girl on the phone.”
“Right. She said she’d keep calling if I didn’t get you and she said she was your best friend, so I figured you’d want to talk to her.”
I hesitated.
“Would you like me to ask her what she plans to say to you?”
“Will you? Please,” I joked.
He saw through me. “You don’t want to talk to her.”
“I don’t.” I closed my eyes and blew out a slow breath. All the anxiety I’d felt since the moment I’d found out about Shay and Trent seemed to have grown into an elephant sitting on my chest. I leaned over and braced my hands on my knees.
“Whoa. You okay?” Brooks asked. It sounded like he was speaking underwater.
“Yes, fine. I just need to…I just need to sit for a second.” I lowered myself to the dirt path just as a woman walked by with a small child. I could feel her eyes on me. My cheeks heated up as my eyes stung with tears. Small rocks dug into my palms.
Brooks squatted down in front of me. “What is it?” he asked quietly, concerned.
“I can’t talk to her,” I said. “She just called to make herself feel better. This is not going to make me feel better.” A tear slipped down my cheek and I swiped at it in frustration.
“There’s a bench up there. Let me take you.” He helped me to stand, then led me up the hill, past the Employees Only sign, and to the back side of the bathrooms. I could hear showers running inside as he pointed to the bench.
I lowered myself down and took several calming breaths. “You guys don’t have bathrooms in your cabins?”
He let me change the subject. “No. We have good old-fashioned communal bathrooms and showers.” He patted the log building behind me.
I nodded and toed a pine cone by my foot. I pushed it one way and then the other several times. “I’m sorry. I’m okay.”
His eyebrows lowered. “You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to.”
But didn’t I? It may have felt like I was a million miles away at the moment, but summer wouldn’t last forever and I’d have to go home and deal with this. It would be easier to just get it over with now, not let it stew all summer. She felt bad. I just needed to talk to her. “Where is this pay phone?”
He waited a beat, seeming to gauge my sincerity, but when I stood, determined, he led me around the corner. Sure enough, on the far side of the bathrooms stood a single pay phone. The black handle was dangling at the end of the stiff metal cord. Had she been waiting for me this whole time?
Even though I hadn’t seen it happen, a flash of Trent and Shay kissing invaded my brain. It was just an accident, she had said. They had been talking about how much they would miss me. Another memory I had almost forgotten about flooded my brain along with this one. Last summer, at a pool party, I had overheard Shay and another girl talking bad about me. Shay had assured me she was just trying to get all the information so she could set the record straight. For me.
My eyes went to the dangling phone again. I took several sips of air, not able to fill my lungs fully. I leaned a hand against the wall, bracing myself, trying to force my other hand to grab the handle. That’s when Brooks picked up the phone and held it to his ear.
“Hi, Shay, is it?”
Shay must’ve responded.
“How did you get this number?” He listened for a moment, a dark expression, the one I realized I hadn’t seen since the campfire, on his face. “Google?”
He met my eyes, his brows rising in question, and I just stared, frozen.
“Avery is unavailable at the moment. She’ll call you back at her convenience, not yours. Please respect her request.” With that, he hung up. I leaned my back against the wall, then slid down to the ground in relief.
“Should I have done that?” he asked.
I nodded over and over, grateful. “I’m not normally this dramatic.” I let out a shaky laugh. “That’s my sister’s role.”
He shrugged. “It’s not drama if it’s real.”
I gnawed at the inside of my cheeks. It was so real. I’d just been pushing it down, trying not to think about it. Now it was demanding to be thought about. “Well, thank you. For that.” I nodded toward the phone. “And that.” I gestured back toward the bench.
“No problem.” He looked to his left, where someone was exiting the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel, carrying a caddy of toiletries. He waited until she was out of earshot before saying, “Are you okay? I mean, obviously you’re not okay, but can I…Do you need anything?”
I stood and brushed the dust off my backside. “I’ve made you feel enough pity for me that you don’t hate me anymore?”
“I never hated you.” It took him a second to realize I was kidding. The crease between his brows relaxed and he said, “I really was a jerk. I just have a lot going on. I’m four hundred miles from home and I can never quite leave it behind.” He stared into the distance as if he could see some scene playing out in front of him.
“You want to?” I asked.
He held his hands out to the sides as if this entire forest was the answer to my question.
“What are you running from?”
“Life, reality…responsibility.” He looked at the pay phone. “What about you?”
I thought about that for a moment. “Life, reality…decisions…apparently.”
Just as I was
