He doesn’t know how to say what we both know needs to be said.
He told me this couldn’t happen. And like an idiot, I thought that was negotiable.
But if I got what I wanted, why do I feel like pieces of my heart are scattered around my feet?
The next few minutes on the gravel road back into camp, Price accelerates like he’s ready to be away from the tension that thickens the small interior of the Jeep.
“See ya,” I say as casually as I can muster when he slows and parks the Jeep in front of the main hall. Counselors are waving as some early families pull in to drop off their kiddos for the next few weeks.
I grab the handle to the door and pull, swinging it open and hopping onto the ground before Price has the ignition off.
***
Hailey is a handful in the best sort of way. Her IQ has to be off the charts, but it’s also her personality. She’s forty years of wisdom and sass packed into a six-year-old’s body.
The rest of the counselors were organized at tables checking in campers when we got back. I scooted off to my bunkhouse, jumped into a lukewarm shower, trying to wash away the clutching feeling in my chest along with Price’s scent.
As I dressed, the reality of what we did came crashing down around me.
Raw. No condom.
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
It’s been a few hours now, there’s campers all around finding their way, and Ted asked me to stick by Hailey because the older woman that’s her sort of nanny-ish stand-in grandmother, Wiley, is down with a migraine and Ted and Price have official new camp owner and TV network duties to tend to.
Hailey’s been trying to teach me how to climb the rope in the outdoor obstacle course, scurrying up it like it’s a ladder, then touching the branch it’s attached to and inching back down. And I can tell how proud she is of keeping up with the exercises we were practicing yesterday, her ‘s’ sounds much more sibilant as she repeats the tongue twister I taught her as she goes up and down the rope.
Funny, I sort of feel settled here. Not out of place with a desire for a Starbucks, or the sirens and twenty-four hour noise of the city.
I thought I wasn’t the outdoors type, but here I am being taught to climb ropes by a six-year-old, and yesterday I went hiking in the wilderness. And I’m having fun doing it.
I did break a nail earlier today, and there was a quick twinge of angst that there’s nowhere to go for a fix, but other than that, I’m getting downright outdoorsy.
Hailey waves at someone over my head, and I turn to see Price addressing a group of older kids by the start to the bigger obstacle course. His voice carries on the warmth of the summer breeze as he waves his thick arm toward a steep wooden wall with a knotted rope hanging down. He’s covering rules and safety stuff, then, like magic, he’s giving a quick demo of how to climb the wall.
In five effortless, hand over hand movements, he’s pulled his entire body weight up the rope, then flings himself over, falling onto his feet in a superhero landing on the other side, in a puff of dust.
The depth of his strength and skill leave me frozen and rapt as he comes around, wiping his hands down the front of his t-shirt, then claps three times, making a gesture for the campers to give it a try.
“Do you think my dad will mawwy you?” Hailey suddenly says, drawing my attention back to her.
I want to say no, because honestly, I think Price has made his choice and I know I should say no, but my tongue has a mind of its own. “How would you feel about that?”
“I’d wike it.” She frowns. “Then you’d be my mom, sort of.”
“Hailey.” I crouch down to her level as she wipes at her eyes.
“Idohave a mom already…”
“I know,” I tell her. “Nobody can ever take that away.”
“But you can have two moms, can’t you?”
“You can. Lots of people do. But I think your dad wants it to just be the two of you for a while.”
She shakes her head. “Uh uh. He wooks at you wike he wooks at me, except I’m his daughter. You’renothis daughter.”
“No. I’m not,” I agree. “But me and your dad, I think we’re just friends.”
