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“What else do you want?”
Everyone had fallen silent. They were all listening to our conversation. Fuck, this wasnotgoing the way I’d planned at all.
“If that’s not clear by now, Celine, I don’t think it ever will be,” I said tightly. I got up and stomped away from the campground and into the trees.
Why the hell was I still trying with her?
The answer to that was easy, though.
It was Celine. She was the one that had gotten away, the one I didn’t want to get away again. Damn it, whatever it took, I wanted her in my life. I was in love with her.
13
CELINE
“Whydopeopledothis?” I asked Anna the next morning when I woke up at the ass crack of dawn because a tent didn’t have curtains that blocked out the light.
Anna was the only other person awake, and she sat close to a campfire. I had a suspicion she’d built it herself, but I didn’t want to ask in case it was true. It would only make me feel more incompetent than I already felt.
“What? Camping?” Anna asked.
I nodded and sat on the log, wrapping myself in a thick jacket Lorenzo had given me last night—begrudgingly, might I add—because the coat I’d brought along wasn’t right for the weather or the setting.
“I don’t know,” Anna said. “I guess there’s something humbling about being so close to nature. That’s how it is for me, at least. It reminds me that there are bigger things out there, that my troubles aren’t these mountains all around me. The beauty and breaking away from all the crap life tends to dish up falls away out here.”
“I guess so,” I said. I wouldn’t agree that the crap fell away. Or rather, other crap seemed to come with it. Like the fact that there were no bathrooms, which meant last night and this morning, I’d had to pee behind a bush.
A bush! Like an animal.
And the fact that Lorenzo was pissed at me.
After he’d come back from the woods last night, he’d been very closed off to me, civil but closed off. We’d slept in the same tent—which was already the worst thing I could ever imagine—and he’d barely touched me. I’d hoped he would hold on to me, at least.
He’d always done that when we’d slept in the same bed, and as much as I liked to give him shit, now that he hadn’t been close to me, I’d missed it.
Fuck, I hated it when I had so many feelings I couldn’t figure out. It pissed me off—I preferred being a bitch and keeping everyone at arm’s length because then I knew where I stood.
“I think it’s about a break away from reality,” Anna finally said.
“I can break away from reality in a five-star hotel with room service,” I grumbled and reached for a coffee pot that hung over the fire. I poured some into one of the plastic mugs and sipped it. “This tastes like tar.”
Anna raised her eyebrows. “Next time I’ll pack a Nespresso machine.”
“You made this?”
“It’s regular instant coffee.”
God, I’d never had instant coffee.
“Sorry,” I said. I’d already offended one person I was close to. I didn’t want to screw it up with another. I was way out of my depth out here, and if I carried on like this, I would run out of people in no time at all.
“It’s fine,” Anna said. “Are you okay?”
“Perfectly fine,” I lied. When Anna gave me a pointed look, I sighed and added, “I hate this.”
“Is it because Lorenzo is angry?” Anna asked.
“Partly,” I said. “But this shit really isn’t for me, no matter how much I try to tell everyone it is.” I felt okay about admitting that to Anna. She was such a nice person, and she made me want to tell her things I didn’t usually tell anyone.
