With plates laden high, I slip back out of the mess hall and follow the path back over to the cabins, smiling to myself. While it might have been an impulsive idea, I am excited to have a private dinner with Benji. I just hope he doesn’t think it’s too over the top.
I have to balance the two plates on one arm, putting my college-time waitering skills back to good use, to knock on Benji’s cabin door, and I wait a little impatiently for him to answer. I can’t hear him moving around inside, though, so I knock again.
There’s still nothing.
“Benji?” I call out.
Silence.
My impatience starts to morph into something else. A low-level niggle at the back of my brain that says something is wrong.
I knock again. Louder this time. More forceful. “Benji? It’s Kris.”
There’s still nothing.
The door to cabin nine opens and a red-headed Little I’ve seen around camp pops her head out. “Counselor Kris!” she greets cheerily, then frowns as she takes in my balanced dinner plates and hand raised to knock at Benji’s door again. “Um,” she bites her lip, “I don’t think he’s there.”
“Oh.” I feel a bit awkward now. Shifting my stance, I ask, “Do you know where he is? He wasn’t at dinner in the hall.”
“Um,” her teeth gnaw at her lip now, “he left. Earlier. Before dinner.” Glancing back over her shoulder she says, “Daddy? Did you see the boy from next door leave?”
Her Daddy steps in behind her, but I don’t really listen to what he says, if he says anything at all. My mind is reeling. “He left?” I repeat, as if that is going to help me make sense of this turn of events. “What do you mean?”
The Girl pouts. “He looked sad. He had his suitcase. We didn’t really make friends, but he said goodbye.”
I’m struggling to understand, and her regressed, disjointed explanation isn’t helping me. I turn my likely confused gaze on her Daddy. “Sorry, what?”
He sighs. “We were just getting back from the playground while all the afternoon activities were happening. Bella gets a bit overstimulated sometimes, so we took advantage of the playground being quieter, y’know? Anyway, the kid next door,” he jerks his chin towards Benji’s door, where I’m still standing uselessly with two cooling plates of food, “looked to be heading out. Had all his stuff with him, told us to enjoy the rest of camp, then headed that way” —he points in the direction of the path that leads to the main building where reception and the little general store are— “and I think he was checking out.”
My stomach sinks, but I muster a grateful smile and raise the plates awkwardly. “That explains why I didn’t see him at dinner, then.” With a smothered sigh, I add, “Thanks. I guess I’ll work out what to do with this stuff. Have a good night.”
I watch them head back inside and, feeling deflated and melancholy in a way I can’t really explain, I make my way to my cabin only a few doors down.
I guess I won’t be seeing Benji again after all.
Chapter Sixteen
Leaving camp was the right choice for me. I felt lighter the farther I drove away from it, a weight slowly lifting from my shoulders with the more distance I put between myself and that so-called ‘vacation’. Nevertheless, I’ve spent the first couple of weeks back home convinced that I’m a misfit among misfits. That I’m so unlovable that I couldn’t even enjoy my own company. That I’m not made for the lifestyle, only for short scenes.
Deep down, I know that’s not true. I know that the camp just wasn’t a good fit for me. I also know that the camp not being a good fit for me doesn’t mean I’m completely awful at being Little or Middle, and that it doesn’t mean I won’t find people to click with.
I mean, just look at how well I clicked with Kris! He was a complete stranger and yet everything between us feltgoodand electric.
Until I ran away.
Pausing in an empty hospital room, I smack my palm down on the bed in frustration at my own thoughts.
I didn’t run away from Kris.
It’s unfortunate that I left without saying goodbye —without getting his number or even leaving a note with mine— but I amangry at the voice in my head for suggesting that I ran from him, because I didn’t.
I ran from the camp. From the awful feeling that I didn’t fit in. From the cloying loneliness.
Not from Kris.
He was —is still— the best thing about the camp for me. A streak of happy memories amongst the discomfort of the rest. But I’m also a realist. We barely spent a few hours together. He probably forgot all about me after the first week, just like I should be trying to forget about him.
Except it’s impossible to forget the Daddy who introduced me to a whole new side of myself. To kinks I hadn’t realized I would enjoy as much as the wetting itself. Not to mention how he managed to somehow be simultaneously sweet and patient while remaining firm with his discipline and consequences. He’s the kind of Daddy who is impossible to forget.
