Page 88 of Promise Me Sunshine

I cock my head. “Did none of you ever date each other?” I ask curiously.

Rica shakes her head and stretches like a cat. “Everyone falls in love with Jericho at least once in their life, but he just won’t date us.”

“Oh, my God!” Jericho is squirming uncomfortably. “That is so not true.”

“Actually it is,” Jeffy asserts with a nod.

Jericho is eager to change the subject, I can tell. “What about you two?” he asks. “I saw the way you ran across the street to protect Lenny when my bike got hit.”

Miles purses his lips. “We barely knew each other then.”

Which, by the way, does not actually answer the question at hand.

“Don’t stir the pot.” Rica chastises Jericho. “Or, if you must, at least do itsecretly.”

Jeffy and I laugh, thinking she’s being cheeky, but Jericho seems to take her at her word. He leans his camping chair over to Miles and ostentatiously whispers in his ear.

Miles’s eyebrows rise at whatever Jericho’s just said to him. His eyes drop to the ground. He doesn’t look at anything or anyone.

“Yes.”

That’s all he says. Clear and strong. One word.

My world flips upside down for a moment.Yes.I hear it again in my head. There’s no clear reason for me to think thatyeswas about me. But one moment passes and then two. When I look up, everyone is looking at me but Miles.

—

The night becomestipsy and fuzzy and cools down. Before long, the fire is just embers and an occasional snap to remind us it’s alive. Jeffy and Rica head for the big tent and, whenMiles heads to the bathroom, I shove Jericho into Miles’s tent in punishment for being a pot-stirrer. I think everyone assumed Miles and I would share, but I can’t sleep in a tent with Miles and thatyesbanging around in my head.

I zip Jericho in and dust my hands. There!

The regret is almost instantaneous.

When Miles comes back from the shared bathroom after washing up, he finds me still standing at the dying fire.

“What’s wrong?” he asks as soon as he sees my face.

“I…made a miscalculation,” I whisper.

“What’s that?”

“Well, first of all, camping trip! Yay!” I dig the laminated list out of my pocket and cross off number five with my fingertip. And then I look at the list for a long time, the dying fire flickering between light and shadow. Eat something famous you can only get in New York. Go to the Met as often as possible. Find a big boat and doTheTitanicthing. Go see 5Night in concert. Go camping. So many of them are crossed off now, and yet…“I forgot that when you go camping with people, you sleep next to them. And my nights are…you know…still terrible and private and I cry the whole time.”

“Do you want to sleep in my tent?”

“I just sent Jericho in there.”

His head cocks to one side and he studies me for a long beat. “Okay.”

He’s looking for an answer in my expression but I don’t think he’s gonna find one.

“Wait here,” he says. He zips in and then out of his tent, his sleeping bag over one arm.

The air is fresh and cold and lonely. Miles is lit by the moon, which must mean that I am too.

He wordlessly motions me to follow him down the pathtoward the river. On the shore, out of the cover of the trees, everything is cast in silver.

We sit on the riverbank and he unzips the sleeping bag, putting it around our shoulders like a giant blanket. I’m cocooned against him.

---