Page 35 of Shy Girl
“Nah. I’m going to talk to Victoria in the morning.”
Now that I’d seen her, talking to Victoria didn’t seem so daunting. Something in breaking the spell she held over my mind removed my uncertainty. In the light of day, Victoria was beautiful, but not in the same way as Dagny. It wasn’t Victoria I couldn’t stop thinking about, at any rate, and that likely meant something.
“Victoria needs a line she can’t cross,” he said, then quietly added, “like we all do.”
Several more minutes, and a murmured conversation from hotel employees cleaning up the dinner, filled the quiet. I let the ease of the day drift in and out of my chest with each breath, feeling farther and farther from my cruiser. From flashing lights. From intensity, long nights, and tough conversations.
I turned and shot Bastian a questioning glance. “You still liking wildland fire?”
He scoffed. “No, I hate it.”
“You always hate it in the summer. Then you love it in the winter.”
“When I’m not doing it.”
I grinned. “Exactly.”
He shook his head, then rubbed a hand along his tricep and shoulder. Mid-summer meant his large body had started to waste away except for a few muscle groups needed when swinging an axe and a shovel. He’d bulk back out through the winter, just in time to qualify for the Hot Shot team again, then lose it in another self-sacrificing summer of heat. There had to be something in the painful cycle that he liked.
“How much longer?” I asked.
“One more year.” He shook his head. “Giving it one more year.”
“Then?”
“No idea.”
Bastian had never been anchored to a single career path. He taught snowboarding in the winter, fought wildland fires all summer, and did whatever he wanted on his cheap computer in the in-between. In the meantime, he stored away money like a squirrel. Until he figured out exactly what he wanted to do, he’d oscillate between the two and not say much in the meantime. He’d been like that in high school, too. A perpetual coaster.
“College?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
Another span of silence. Bastian would be a good college student, “Vik’s upset about Grady getting married,” I said.
“What doesn’t Vik get upset about?”
I laughed. Fair point.
“What about you?” I asked. “Grady’s the first to go.”
Bastian fell quiet for a moment, so I let it ride. Several long minutes later, he replied, “Good for Grady. Not the choice I’d make, but I see why he’s doing it. You?”
Anytime before now, I would have said,Same,but this time the word stuck in my throat. Would I make the same decision as Grady? Any other time, I'd say no. It's why I avoidedabuela, because I knew that I didn't want what she wanted.
These days, I didn’t know.
“I think he might be the smartest one of all of us,” I muttered, and Bastian tilted his head back and laughed.
I fell asleep with the breeze in my ear, and the song of the ocean a soft chant behind it.
11
Dagny
The crash of waves on the beach woke me the next day.
My muscles let out a long, deep sigh when I stretched, a sheet pulled tight around my waist, and luxuriated in the sound of the beach outside. Sunlight streamed through the French doors that led onto the balcony attached to my little room, falling in lovely ribbons across my bed.
