Her gaze narrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, during our first session, you said that I needed to learn to trust myself. Is the way I’m feeling right now just a simple, natural attraction to someone I spend almost every waking minute with? Or am I subconsciously sabotaging myself?”
Trina frowns. “I see what you mean.” She stares at me for a long moment before shaking her head. “I don’t think I’m the one who can answer that. I know, as do you, that you’ve made a great deal of progress in understanding your relationship with Josh. And seeing some things you might have let yourself ignore over the years.”
I nod because she’s right. The more we’ve talked and the more I’ve journaled, I’ve unearthed both memories and feelings—and patterns—that were there if only I’d given myself permission to observe them.
My people-pleasing habits. Josh’s struggles. His reliance on alcohol. Given the distance the last two months have allowed me, I can see that these issues were at work in our relationship from the beginning. Even when I thought we were happy and relatively carefree.
Physical attraction, novelty, and the reassurance of having someone to cling to during a stressful time—the early, confusing days of a global pandemic—camouflaged a lot of signs. Probably for both of us.
“But you’re still in an incredibly vulnerable place. I think it’s wise and a very promising sign that you are as conscious and as cautious as you are being.” Her stare leaves no room for misinterpretation. “But I can’t say with certainty that you aren’t seeing what you wanted to see, the way you did with Josh. Can you?”
I shake my head. “No. Not at all.”
And it’s that simple. I still don’t trust myself. So I can put these feelings in a Mason jar and examine them from every angle like trapped fireflies, but that’s it. That’s as close as I can get to the bursts of light they give me.
And now that I know they’ve already broken out in the form of me inviting Zach to sleep in my bed the night the roof leaked. Laughing and flirting with him the way I have been. Finding ways to make him smile. Touching him and putting my body near his. All of that has to stop.
Right now.
It’s the right thing to do. The only thing I can do.
I just wish it didn’t feel like the end of oxygen.
ChapterFifteen
ZACH
It costs$358.20 a day to rent a cherry picker.
I know this because I’m standing in the bucket of one, twenty-five feet in the air. For the third day in a row. I spent the morning installing cleats on each vertical pole of the dual catwalk, and now I’m mounting the cabling for both lines of the course.
It would go faster if I weren’t working solo, but the cabins are booked for tonight, so Greta has her hands full. Besides, every time I hit the switch to raise or lower the bucket, this monstrosity free falls a good six inches and rattles like a cocktail shaker.
Scared the piss out of me the first time.
And I don’t like the thought of Greta being jostled around nearly three stories in the air.
Besides, I’m almost finished. Thank God.
I'm anchoring each cable at three points for maximum security. The lines are taut, thanks to the turnbuckles—and a lot of sweat. Technically, we could test the course out today. It would just be better—more responsible—if we had other people here. I have no doubt that Greta could belay me, but it would be smarter to have a spotter. And if we wanted to do a real test, we’d need two of us harnessed and two people on belay, plus a spotter.
The catwalk course looks sort of like a giant H. For the uninitiated, it seems like an impossible ask. Wearing climbing harnesses and helmets, and hooked to belay ropes that snake through pulleys—one on each cable at the very top of the H, both climbers ascend one vertical telephone pole using the climbing cleats. The climb alone can be a test of nerves for most kids and plenty of adults.
When they reach the cross beam, another telephone pole, their job is to traverse it, meeting each other in the middle, and negotiating a way to move past each other without falling off. Balance, cooperation, patience, courage, communication, and so much more are required before each climber can reach the other side.
The whole course can take less than five minutes or it can take twenty, depending on the climbers involved, but it’s a great team-building exercise and an even better confidence builder. Kids. Couples. Co-workers. So many people can benefit from an exercise like this, and there’s nothing close to this kind of experience for miles.
My shoulders are killing me because the work of mounting and tightening the cables has kept my arms raised all day, but I’m stoked about bringing this aspect of Camp Bliss into being.
And I can’t wait to show it to Greta.
I’m making the final adjustments to the last turnbuckle when I nearly drop the wrench at the sound of her voice.
“Oh my God, Zach! You’re finished!”
When I’m sure the tool is still in my hand and my heart is still in my chest, I chuckle in relief and search the ground for her.
