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Trish’s entire face lights up like Christmas came armed.

“Oh, honey.” She reaches into one of the front compartments and returns with a few small packets held in an open palm like she’s presenting me with sacred artifacts. “I have several, but start with this. Hydrate. Stretch if needed. Make good choices. Or at least enthusiastic ones.”

I take it and tuck it into my pocket. “Please never become a sex-ed teacher.”

“Too powerful?”

“Dangerous to society.”

She winks. “Be safe.”

I start walking away.

“Wait,” she calls.

I turn.

She holds up a CD case, grin sharp in the lantern glow. “I’ll set the mood for you two.”

I squint at it. “I bet Leon will love that.”

“Oh, he’ll survive.” She slides the CD into her jacket and heads toward Leon’s truck. “Also, maybe don’t let Edith hear you.”

I stop walking.

Very slowly, I turn my head back toward her. “What does that mean?”

Trish only smiles.

Nope.

Absolutely not asking.

I step away before she can make it worse, though I’m fairly certain that ship is already burning behind me.

The camp falls quiet again as I move past the firelight and into the trees. The dark waits beyond the vehicles, deep and cold and full of sounds I can name now. Leaves shifting. Branches creaking. The distant shuffle of something far enough away not to matter yet.

I brush the pocket where the condoms rest, then the other pocket where Leon’s letters and notes sit heavily against my thigh.

For years, my life was made of things I endured. Things I accepted. Things I survived because I thought surviving was all I was allowed to want.

Tonight, I want.

I want the man who writes me letters. I want the hands that held me without taking. The mouth that kissed me like I was something sacred and sharp. The quiet green eyes that saw me before I remembered how to see myself.

I walk deeper into the dark.

Toward the woods.

Toward my Leon.

TWENTY-FIVE

DRAWN TO YOU

LEON

I keep to the edge of camp, where the firelight dies and the dark takes over.