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After a few minutes, he shifted again. “Penny, what happened after I left?”
I let out a small groan. “Blake… do we have to keep doing this?” I tried to follow with a smile, but I was too tense. Too on edge.
Exasperated with myself… with Blake… and our whole predicament, I glanced back at the fire, needing a few seconds to center myself.
The others were goofing around, making the most of our downtime before the last group arrived tomorrow. Marissa cozied up in front of the fire next to Sam who, despite her best efforts, still looked more interested in his s’mores than in her. Her persistence made me smile.
Marissa had become a good friend. I was going to miss her.
“I’m sorry.” Blake sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. “I just feel like we’re losing time, and there’s still so much I want to know.” A beat passed. The air shifting around us. “There’s not enough time, Penny,” he whispered, the defeat in his voice making my chest tighten.
You don’t want to know, I whispered silently to myself.
“I don’t want to walk away from here in two weeks and regret things.Morethings.”
He was making up for lost time or, at least, trying to.
I got that.
I did.
But opening up didn’t come easy for me. I was used to bottling things up until I was l ready to explode, and even then, I could only give so much.
Only things that felt safe to reveal.
“After you left, things were okay for a while,” I said. “Derek and Marie even managed to be nice to us occasionally. I hate to say it, Blake, but it was almost like they were glad to see you go.”
He tried to look offended but ended up laughing. “Doesn’t surprise me. Derek hated me.”
Those three words changed the energy around us. The silence no longer felt comfortable but strained.
It was like no matter what we talked about, however hard we tried to avoid it, everything always led back to the one thing too painful to talk about.
This was our legacy.
The one thing that, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t rewrite.
“Not as much as he hated Chris,” I said. “Those two really went at it.”
“Someone finally stood up to him?” Blake sounded surprised, but I also heard a tinge of regret in his voice.
My gaze dropped from his face and swept down his frame. Fists clenched at his sides, his entire posture was tense and on edge. Blake played a good game of seeming as if he was in control, but I saw the truth.
He was standing on the precipice about to fall over at any second.
I guess some things never changed.
“You could say that.” Wanting to bring him back to me, I added, “Remember when Lucas aged out? I’ll never forget the look on Marie’s face as he strolled up the path yelling at the top of his lungs, ‘so long, fuckers.’”
Blake’s jaw relaxed a little, and he tilted his head at me. “Yeah, I remember. It wasn’t all bad in there.” His voice dropped an octave. “I earned your first kiss, didn’t I?”
He’d earned more than just that, but I didn’t correct him.
The playfulness I had become accustomed to whenever Blake interacted with the boys and other counselors was back, and just like that, some of the tension evaporated. I didn’t doubt it would return. It was always with us—just under the surface. Circling like a shark scenting blood in the distance.
But for now, we could bury our heads until the next time.
* * *
