Page 53 of Ten Years and Then…
The trail curved out of sight of the house very quickly. There was nothing else to see except nature all around them, and no sounds except their footsteps. It was almost as though the rest of the world had vanished. Like in that movie he’d seen a couple of years ago, where the hero woke up and everyone was gone.
It was kind of unsettling.
“Are you okay?”
He felt Kim’s hand on his arm. He must have been showing his nerves.
“I’m fine,” he said. He didn’t push her hand away, though. He wasn’t sure why. “Just feeling lonely.” He realized as soon as he said it what Kim would think. “Not like that! Not about her. Just—just this weird quiet, like I’m the last person on Earth. I felt creeped out for a minute, that’s all.”
She had been starting to frown, but now she just looked scared instead. She punched his arm, not quite playfully. “God, why did you have to say that? Now you’ve got me thinking it, too. I’d rather talk about her than feel like I’m in a horror movie or something.”
“Do you want to go back?”
Kim still looked scared, but she shook her head. “Your friends were trying to teach Emily that stupid robot fighting game. I’m not letting them drag me into that.”
“Technically they’re not robots,” Daniel said. He knew that would annoy her, but if she was annoyed with him, she’d forget about being scared. That seemed like the chivalrous thing to do.
Daniel, two hours later
“They’re going to send out a search party for us if we don’t head back soon,” Kim said.
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t think Phil or Bob are going to venture out of sight of the house. Neither one of them is exactly a nature lover.” Of course, he wasn’t one either. This was the longest he could recall ever being in any kind of wilderness. Not that this even counted as wilderness, really. “Besides, we’re three quarters of the way around the lake. It won’t be that long.”
Kim was silent for a couple of minutes. Then she grabbed his arm to stop him. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we took a little longer.” She wasn’t letting go. Daniel didn’t understand why she was hanging on to him.
Unless she was—what? Flirting with him?
“Kim?”
She let her fingers trail down his arm, and then she was holding his hand. And staring into his eyes. “This has been really nice.”
It was nice, to clear his head a little, to breathe fresh air and actually force his body to move properly for the first time in a while. And Kim was good company. “Kim, I’m not—I mean, you’re really sweet, and you’re pretty.” God, that sounded horrible. She deserved a better answer. “It’s not anything about you. It’s just that you’re not …”
“I’m not Nora,” she finished for him, with a sad smile. “I guessed you would say that. But I wasn’t sure. It was worth a shot, you know?”
“You’re not angry?” She didn’t seem to be, but it would make the rest of this trip very awkward if she was.
“Not angry. Just a little disappointed. But I get it.” She was still holding his hand. She squeezed it. “You had something real with her, and … I’ve never had that, but I’m sure it’s hard to get past. But if you don’t mind a little free advice, you aren’t ever going to get past her until you start trying to.”
She looked almost nervous then, as if she thought she’d overstepped. He squeezed her hand back before pulling away from her. “That’s what I’m doing here.”
“Miniature robot wars with Bob and Phil isn’t really trying, Daniel.”
He gave her his own sad smile. “It totally is, compared to how I’ve been doing since we broke up. And don’t knock Battletech until you’ve tried it.”
Daniel, March 16
Daniel was officially twenty-one years old. He didn’t feel any different than he had last night, when he was still just twenty.
Sure, he could buy liquor now, but he rarely drank, so that didn’t seem like a big deal. And as of this morning he could go to Atlantic City and gamble in a casino, but he didn’t want to do that anyway.
Even though he’d known intellectually that nothing would really change, he was a little disappointed that he didn’t feel … something. He couldn’t say what it should have been. Just something.
On the plus side, he didn’t feel hungover, unlike everyone else in the house. He’d had one cup of last night’s drink of choice: the cheap vodka Bob had bought mixed with orange Tang that Phil had found in the back of a cupboard. One cup had been more than enough.
Well, Kim wasn’t really hungover. She was the only one who listened to his advice to take three aspirin and drink as much water as she could stomach before going to sleep, and she was the only one who was even halfway functional this morning.
“Thanks, Daniel,” she said while he poured out Cheerios for the two of them. It wasn’t quite stale, and it was also the only breakfast food in the kitchen. Luckily, there was also just enough milk to share between two bowls. “For last night, I mean. And for the breakfast, such as it is.”
