Page 41 of Waiting Game

But it had been on my mind a lot lately.

I heard some scuffling below me, and pulled my phone out of my pocket, shining the light on the noise. Valerie was clawing her way up the rock wall, and I held out a hand to pull her up. She hesitated but she took it, sitting next to me on the boulder with a grunt, rubbing her moss covered hands on her jeans.

“I’m like 99 percent sure they were fucking,” she sighed.

“Knowing them,” I chuckled, “I’d say 100 percent.”

“Gross,” she mumbled.

I laughed again, shaking my head.

We sat in silence, and it felt so strange.

I felt like I had gone back in time ten years, sitting here with her.

“Can I borrow your phone?” she asked, holding out her hand.

I gave it to her, and she turned the flashlight back on, rubbing her hand over the rock.

“It’s over here,” I said, moving over so she could see the marking.

She put the light close to it and smiled slightly.

“It’s almost gone,” she said quietly.

“Not completely though.”

The faded heart that we had put there had outlasted us.

Even if it was broken now.

“It sounds silly,” she said slowly, “but I kind of wish we brought paint to fix it. This is our spot, you know. There was nothing else here before us.”

I chuckled, reaching into the hollow between rocks and retrieving the can of spray paint that I had stashed earlier, and handed it to her.

She shook her head but smiled, taking it from my hands and giving it a rattling shake. With a few practised strokes of the spray can, she freshened up the old, faded heart. She looked at it with a satisfied grin, and handed the can back to me.

“When are you leaving?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

She shrugged and sighed, “if you had asked me yesterday, I would have wanted to be on a plane right now.”

“But now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she smiled, “maybe it’s just a case of the grass looking greener, but I miss Antoni. I miss Zarina and Sammy. Maybe I’m just enjoying the time off work.”

“So, it’s nothing to do with me?”

“Ren,” she groaned, “don’t make things harder than they have to be.”

“No, Val. I refuse to believe that you’re not feeling the same things that I’m feeling. Being here, in our spot. Stop lying to yourself,” I rolled my eyes, taking another drink.

She sighed again, shaking her head.

“You know that I’m engaged,” she said, climbing down the rocks and back to the campfire.

“Yeah?” I followed her, jumping down into the muddy ground, “I don’t believe that.”

“Oh really?” she spun around to face me, “why not?”

---