Ten
Sure, world. Be laissez-faire. Continue to spin on your axis like nothing’s changed. Go ahead sun. Rise in the east in all your glory as if my life hasn’t been turned upside down. You too, birds. Sing your heart out like—
Oh, wait. I strained my ears against the morning air. Silence. The birds, at least, had somehow got the memo that the status quo had changed.
I sat up in the top bunk and leaned my head against the wood paneling of the wall, stretching and stifling a yawn. Talk about a long night. If my brain managed to shut off and allow me to sleep even an hour, I’d be surprised. Instead, it decided to obsess over everything. Or, more appropriately, everyone. Claire and her pleading eyes. Ken and his surprising fairness. Landon and his…well, it would be impossible to pinpoint one thing my mind fixated on with him. No, with Landon my thoughts seemed to ricochet around in my head like a pinball.
Nothing is new under the sun. That statement, that truth, had me sifting through my favorite classics like Ponce de León searching for the Fountain of Youth. In my classes, I often take two pieces of literature and compare and contrast them, either the plot or the characters. So it would stand to reason, because everything that can be done has been done, that I’d find some sort of solution in the annals left to us from the masters.
And yet…
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.” I clenched my eyes as I quoted from one of my favorite books of all time.
The mattress below me creaked and I stilled.
“Don Quixote? Really?” Sheets rustled before Landon’s head popped up over the side railing of the bunk. His hair was ruffled from sleep, a piece in the back sticking up.
“Would you prefer”—I cleared my throat and made my voice into a little girl’s—“ ‘But I don’t want to go among mad people.’ ” I tilted my chin down to pitch my voice lower for the second part of the quote.
“ ‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ ” Landon interjected. “ ‘We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’ ”
My eyes widened. He knew Alice in Wonderland? And not the Disney version, but the actual Lewis Carroll quote. “ ‘How do you know I’m mad?’ ” I asked, finishing Alice’s lines in the exchange.
“ ‘You must be,’ ” he said as the Cheshire Cat, “ ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’ ”
I snorted. “Isn’t that the truth.”
Landon grinned in reply.
Rustling sounded from the other side of the room as Claire sat up in bed, blinking at us with sleep in her eyes. She regarded Landon behind squinty lids before glancing my way. “He can finish your dumb book quotes. Marry the man, Ashleigh. He’s obviously your soulmate.” And with that pronouncement, she sagged back into bed and curled the covers around her.
Heat infused in my cheeks. Sister dear was dead meat.
My eyes slid toward Landon, but when our gazes met, they jumped apart like two protons with positive charges.
What? It’s called interdepartmental gatherings. I listened. I learned things.
Not, however, how to handle fragile relationships built upon a foundation of mutual deception.
Landon rubbed his palm along the back of his neck. “About yesterday,” he whispered so the two noseys in the other bunk couldn’t eavesdrop. “Did I do something to—”
“No! No, you were perfect. I’m sorry if I—”
The lyrics from The Little Mermaid’s “Kiss the Girl” came from across the room in a fit of giggles. Whipping my pillow out from behind my back, I launched it through the air.
Red seeped over the smooth skin of Landon’s cheeks above his beard.
“We really have returned to summer camp,” I mumbled under my breath.
A knock sounded on the door. Camp counselor coming to quiet the shenanigans, no doubt.
“Breakfast is ready,” Annie called through the wood.
Landon’s head disappeared again for a minute before he sauntered out of the room.
“What were you thinking?” I hissed as I climbed down the bunk ladder. I turned and planted my hands on my hips, glaring at my sister.
Claire shrugged. “Think of me as the supporting character of this story.” She pulled on a shoe. “The pacing was a little slow, so I thought I could speed it up with some levity.”
