Page 13 of Past Tents

She held up a finger as though an idea had been hatched. “That would have been a much better plan.” Looking down at the abrasions on her arms, she winced. “And saved me an evening extracting bits of dirt from my various parts with tweezers.”

It felt wrong to let her tend to her wounds herself, but there was a limit to how pushy I could be without seeming overbearing. She was better trained than I was at knowing how to treat abrasions. Maybe that’s why she was so eager to get away from me.

“I’d like to help you,” I offered. “If you tell me you have someone to look after you, I’ll leave you alone, but otherwise, I’d like to follow you home, or better yet, drive you.” I didn’t want to do these things at all. The longer I spent playing nursemaid to her, the harder it would be to stop.

“Drive me?” She stared at me aghast as though this were a fate worse than death.

“Yes. Someone with a mild concussion shouldn’t get behind the wheel of a car.”

“I’ll Uber.”

“No you won’t. I’ll drive you,” I fired back at her.

“I need my car,” she insisted.

“For what?”

“To get back here in the morning.”

“I’ll come pick you up.” This was not the insurmountable problem she was pretending it was.

“No you won’t.”

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“Why are you?” Her voice went up an octave as she vented her frustration at me. Her shoulders drew up near her ears and she blew out a breath that did nothing to reduce the tension in her body. I had no idea why she felt so resistant to having someone help her, but the more she resisted, the more I needed to understand why.

I took a step back, sensing I needed to give her some physical space or she’d just back up and go for the door again. Her shoulders dropped a few millimeters, but that was it. Then I took a second step back.

She exhaled. The scowl on her face melted away, and her glaring eyes returned to their normal blue innocence. But her cheeks stayed pink, the combination of her creamy pale skin and her fiery disposition.

There was no disputing Ally’s beauty. Shorter than me by nearly a foot, she had curves that I’d tried to ignore when I carried her from the field. Tried and failed.

Her blond hair, golden in the sun, offset the deep pink of her plump lips and a light dusting of freckles across her cheeks. My hands itched to reach out and trace a finger along the round contours of her face, the apples of her cheeks, the dip of her chin that gave her face its heart shape.

Blinking a few times, Ally swallowed hard. I stuffed my hands into my pockets.

“I don’t know why I’m stubborn. I just am,” she admitted quietly as though it cost her something she held dear.

Leaning toward her without taking a step closer, I tried to comfort her without triggering the fight-or-flight response I could see running hot in her veins. I wanted to understand this too.

“I don’t think that it’s necessarily a bad thing,” I reassured her.

She almost laughed. I saw the muscles in her cheeks twitch and pull upward, but she schooled her expression immediately. Like it had betrayed her by almost giving something away.

I wanted to push that button again. Something in me was hooked in getting a response, like a rat pressing a button in order to get a treat. I knew in that moment that I’d do it over and over again, even if it was unhealthy for me.

“Ha. Spoken like someone who’s either equally stubborn or who just isn’t afraid to lose a grudge match.”

“Maybe there’s a third option.” Slowly, I’d nudged her to turn around and move with me toward the door of the office. She didn’t resist, so I continued our walk down the hall.

She was still limping, which made me double down on my theory about a deep bone bruise. If I was right, the initial pain would go away in a few days, but it would still hurt if she tried to run around the track. Probably a good thing if she had any designs on making another grand entrance.

“Yeah, what’s that?”

Making our way toward the teachers’ lounge, we walked slowly. Ally blotted a fresh tissue against her lip a few times and saw that it remained dry, so she tossed it in a trash can.

“I don’t consider being stubborn a bad thing because often it’s how people accomplish great things. By not taking no for an answer, even when the odds are stacked against them,” I told her.

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