Page 53

I blinked out at the field. “You never graduated high school?”

“Nope.” More splashing. “Ugh, it’s gonna be see-through until it dries,” she said.

“Do you want my shirt?” I asked over my shoulder.

“You’d give me your shirt?”

“If you need it, yeah.”

She groaned. “I might have to take you up on it. My bra is lace. I don’t want to flash anyone—Oh! I have my sweatshirt. I’ll just wear that.”

“No.” I was already peeling off my tee. “It’s too hot. We don’t even have good water, you’ll get heat stroke. Here.” I handed it over without looking. A moment later I felt her take it. I was glad my back was to her so she couldn’t see me blushing.

I was in decent shape, but my body was nothing compared to Mike’s. Why did her seeing me shirtless make me self-conscious? Maybe I’d care if it were Becca or Xavier’s wife, Samantha, too?

But I knew even as I thought it, I wouldn’t. This feeling was something very specific to Larissa, and I didn’t know why. I cared if she didn’t like what she saw—and then I felt so shitty about that that I wanted her to see me with my shirt off and compare my pitiful physique to her personal trainer boyfriend’s as punishment for my brain even going there. I was simultaneously hoping she was disgusted when she looked at me and hoping that she wasn’t.

“At least it’s cold water,” she said. “Good for getting blood off.”

“It could be worse,” I said over my shoulder.

“And how is that?”

“It could have been a skunk.”

“Don’t jinx us, Christopher. This day isn’t over yet.”

I smiled out across the field of wildflowers in front of me. “You still glad we kept going instead of going back the way we came?”

“Yes,” she said from behind me. “You know what I think about a lot?” she said.

“What?”

“There was this book I read once that talked about the psychology of people in survival situations. How humans have a hard time rewriting the script in their head. Did you know in an emergency people tend to escape out the door they came in, even if it’s not the safest route, because that’s the door they know? They’ll run right into the danger they’re trying to get out of, just because it’s familiar. I think about that like once a day. Most people go their whole life like that, escaping out the door they know. It actually changed the way I live my life.”

“How’s that?” I said.

“I ask myself if I’m doing something because it’s what I’m used to, or if I’m doing it because it’s objectively the best thing to do.”

“And going the way we haven’t already gone was the objectively best thing to do?”

“Well, it was at the time.” I heard her come up behind me again. “Dressed.”

I turned to look at her. She was standing there in my T-shirt, holding hers in her hand.

“Better?” I asked.

“I’m just glad the mess was on my shirt and not my pants.”

“Can’t have you running around the park Winnie-the-Pooh style,” I said.

She laughed and held up the wet shirt. “I wrung it out, but it’s cotton. Hopefully it dries soon.”

“We should hang it off your backpack. That way it gets full sun.”

I attached it to her bag for her, making sure to spread it out.

When I was done, she turned back around. Her eyes flickered for a split second to my bare chest. She cleared her throat. “You should probably put sunblock on. I can do your back.”