Page 36 of Into the Mountains
“Well, it’s better I take it out on them and not the person I want to.” Even though lately, I haven’t felt that. The need to take out my anger on Elias. I’ve felt more friendly. Like I’ve finally decided to wave my white flag and see if he accepts my surrender. It seemed like he did the other night on his couch while we watched TV, but I still can’t fully get a read on him.
“I thought you had started getting along a little bit better?”
“Not really? Honestly, at this point, I don’t even know. We still haven’t even really talked about what happened between us.”
“Do you think you need to?”
I wish we didn’t have to. But I think we both owe it to ourselves to hash things out. There’s so much pain and discomfort wrapped up together for me in that year and he deserves to know why. And I deserve the closure I refused to let the both of us have when he tried to get in touch with me after I left.
“I don’t know.” The sigh that escapes me is slow to release and I try to let all of the anxiety from the past release along with it like air from a balloon. But all I feel is empty. With Sky springing this camping trip onto us, I’m not really sure what to expect. I’ve been camping a dozen times throughout my life. My family used to go on an annual trip to the mountains similar to Blue Grove. One of the reasons I decided to move here with Avery was because it made me feel closer to them than I had in years.
I haven’t been camping since our last trip. The one during the summer before I left for college. We didn’t take the one we planned to that summer I visited afterwards, because of Mom’s health.
“Are you okay?” Avery always looks out for everyone around her and she’s been doing it since the day I met her. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never measure up to the level of friendship she offers me. It’s not until she asks me if I’m okay that I realize I’m not really sure that I am. And it’s then that the tears start to fall and pain starts to crackle in my chest.
Lightning in an overcast sky, a warning of things to come. Thunder rolls through my body as I let the sobs overtake me. Avery just holds me and lets me cry, soaking her shoulder with a mix of tears and the mascara from this morning I hadn’t had a chance to wipe off yet.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ELIAS
After dropping off Ethan and the cats at George and Isabelle’s, I head back to the clinic to meet everyone, the familiar guilt that usually comes when I leave my son with anyone else only growing the further I drive away from him. I constantly fight with myself inside my head, the rational part of me against the irrational part. I know it’s okay to take a break; I deserve a break. But I’m a parent and feeling like I need or even want a break from my kid feels wrong. And it always ends up feeling like the wrong thing to do even when the rational side of me knows it’ll be good for both of us in the end.
Maybe.
This time, who knows if it’ll be good for me. This isn’t some weekend getaway to the mountains or some run of the mill camping trip with friends. This is a planning “work” trip to help us all bond as a team. At least that’s how Sky is spinning it. And from a quick glance I was able to steal at her clipboard before I left the other day, I can fully assume she actually has some team bonding activities for us to participate in.
What she doesn’t know is activities like that are the perfect fuel to the fire for mine and Charlotte’s past rivalry. Current rivalry? I’m not so sure about it.
I pull up to the clinic to the one and only redhead slinging a duffle bag over her shoulder. She spots me and watches me park. She takes a small step like she’s going to go inside and then second guesses herself, turning back toward my car. Then back again. A dance with an invisible partner as her feet shuffle, trying to find the right pattern to follow. Good to know she’s feeling as flustered about this weekend as I am, except there’s something else in her eyes. Something tinged with sadness. I glance down and see her wearing a faded T-shirt that has a character I think is fromStar Warson it with the words “Yoda best dad in the world”scrawled around the wrinkly green guy, in familiar looking font with dark green leggings to match. A battered duffel bag blends in with her pants, the color only interrupted with a poorly patched whole near the top of it.
My mind wanders back to the conversation I overheard between her and Ethan and I think about the night I met her dad after our second date. Both of her parents were waiting up for her on the porch this time. Her mom had a medical book in her hand that she put aside as soon as we got closer to the porch and her dad had a puzzle book he was working on. We had decided to take a walk that night after we got back to her house. It was early and the summer night was cool enough to walk without sweating two minutes into it.
Charlotte’s movements drag me from my thoughts as she finally decides to turn her back on my car and go inside. Getting out, I stand with my door open, arm slung over the top of it, my other elbow resting on the top, and all I can do is stare at the figure walking further and further away from me. And the look of sadness in her eyes makes the pit of guilt I had before lessen a little bit. Because now I have a goal to focus on this weekend. I think I’m going to have to bring back some of our friendly rivalry.
Just a little bit.
“Figured you’d have had more than just the run down duffle, Charlie.” Her body jerks at the proximity of my body to hers.
“Asshole,” she mutters, which is exactly the response I’m looking for.
“Aw, I’m so happy to hear we’ve moved our friendship into the nickname stage, honey bunch,” I say, sarcastically.
This time she looks at me in disgust and I smile, because I’ll take this over the sadness I saw a few minutes ago. I’ll take anything over seeing that sadness again.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Okay, schnookums."
“You’re going to be insufferable this whole trip, aren’t you?” I open my mouth to answer her, but Sky comes through the door with that damn clipboard.
“And that’s exactly why we are taking this trip,” she reminds us. Right, this is completely our fault.
“Sky, why can’t we just do some team building stuff that doesn’t require us to go camping for a whole weekend?”
“Yeah, Princess Charcoal here doesn’t want to get dirty.”
“Oh,I’mthe princess?” She challenges and a familiar fire lights in her eyes. The one she’d feed when we would go against one another our senior year. Except this one is brighter, hotter, making the freckles on her face stand out a bit more than usual. They’re the little embers still hot and red when the rest of the fire has died down. One thing no one should underestimate. You never know when they might spark. I want to trace them to see what would happen if they did.
