Chapter 18 Eden #2
to make a few awkward mistakes in her life? It wouldn’t make me a bad person, even if I had done it. People do far wilder things every day. People break each other’s hearts every day—carelessly.
I would know.
I’ve done it. On purpose.
I’ve hurt other guys since breaking up with Leo. Let them think we were going somewhere, then ghosted them. I’ve watched as
realization sank in that I didn’t care as much as they hoped. I have even—I can admit this—savored the little high of knowing
I can hurt someone first, before they hurt me.
I’m not saying I’m proud of any of this.
I’m just saying I’m human, and even if I did mess up—back then or now—I deserve to be forgiven.
Leo has shown me his true colors again and again, and I went ahead and decided to give him another chance, even as a friend.
I should’ve known better.
I guess the joke’s on me.
We’ve been hiking together but separately—me trailing about twenty feet behind, both of us silently seething—for about forty-five minutes when the first fat droplets of rain begin to fall.
All this time, I’ve been so concerned about not making camp before dusk that I forgot to worry about the weather! The forecast
had said partly sunny conditions would last until tomorrow, but that’s the Catskills for you. It rains when it feels like
raining.
Leo stops and squints up into the canopy, putting out a hand.
Though I have no desire to be close to him, I approach slowly anyway. “What do we do now?” I keep my voice flat, dry, trying
to stay focused on getting through this nightmare. We’re lost in the woods, in the rain. In a fight. The only way this could get worse is if we were also in a bear’s stomach.
He sighs. “We clear a site as best we can, and we start setting up camp.”
“Now? Here?”
He turns to me. “Got a better plan?”
“Not unless you have a time machine.” I would go back to before I even agreed to my parents that I’d do this program.
Who knows, maybe I’d just go all the way on back to before Becca’s birthday two years ago.
“Shoot. Left my time machine at home with my watch and phone.”
“Ha.”
“Come on, then. Help me clear the site.”
We remove twigs, rocks, and underbrush, trying to get enough flat ground space with no impeding branches in the air that could tear the side of the tent.
We work in silence as the rain picks up.
I pull my Zara poncho out and put it on, squishing around as I work.
All I can hear is the sound of the rain pattering against the slick, not-as-waterproof-as-advertised material of the poncho and the sound of our heavy breathing.
We manage to get the tarp spread out, but the tent gives us trouble.
A gust of wind throws me and the tent over sideways into a muddy area.
I hit my hip against a tree root and it really hurts, but I don’t let the pain show.
I just grind myself up to a kneeling position and pull the tent up with me.
Mud drips off my knees. I feel it gathering inside my shoes.
And, obviously, my bladder chooses this brilliant moment to remember all the soda I had while we were hiking. I tried to limit
my intake but the more stressed I got, the more I absentmindedly kept sipping. The theme of today: Eden doesn’t learn her
lessons. She makes the same mistakes again and again.
“I have to pee,” I mutter.
“What?” he shouts, looking stressed. The wind flapping the tent around and the rain falling harder now on our heads, and the
tent, and the trees, makes it hard to hear.
“Pee! I have to pee!”
“Put on your headlamp,” he says, brow furrowed. But at first, I hear something that sounds like deadlands.
“Huh? What?”
“HEADLAMP!” he shouts, pointing to his forehead.
“Okay, jeez.” He is being such a complete jerk, I can’t even believe I was starting to think we could be friends.
I put on the stupidly embarrassing headlamp and march into the trees, searching around for a secluded spot to squat. Frankly, all the spots are secluded.
When I finish peeing, my entire butt is drenched from rain. At least I didn’t get attacked by a bear with my pants down. I’d
much rather get attacked by a bear while fully clothed.
There’s a moment where I freeze, unable to see Leo or the campsite.
Oh no, have I gone too far?
But then I notice a flicker of light. Leo put on his headlamp, too.
By the time I trudge back to the site, the tent is set up.
“Get inside,” he says.
“What?”
“GET INSIDE WHERE IT’S DRY!” he barks out. “ISH.”
“Okay, okay.” I unzip the tent, but before I step in, he grabs me.
“Wait. Take off your boots first. They’re muddy. Let’s go in barefoot so we don’t make it as muddy in there as it is out here.”
He has a point, even though taking my muddy boots off while standing in the mud in the rain is not easy to do. I try to lean onto the tent but it veers precariously toward the ground, so I grab
on to Leo instead. I feel his bicep flex beneath his rain jacket as I wrap my hand around his upper arm. My lord. Does he really need to choose this moment to be vain about his muscles? Come on. Stop showing off.
I kick off the shoes and step in wet socks onto the inner ledge of the tent.
“Here!” he says, holding out a hand. I hand over my dripping, gross boots. He swiftly opens his gear pack and pulls out a plastic bag, wrapping my boots in it. “Go inside, I’m fine!” he shouts. So I go in and wait for him to figure out how to get his boots off on his own.
Inside the tent is . . . small.
Like, very, very small.
After a minute or two, Leo slumps down wetly onto the tarp beside me.
“Ow, your lamp is shining straight into my eyes,” I say.
“So is yours.”
We both turn them off, and then it’s almost too dark. I shiver. My whole body is soaked through. I don’t know how I’m ever
going to get comfortable.
“You look like a drenched puppy,” he says.
“Uh, thanks?”
“I have an idea.” He digs around in his gear pack and pulls out a dry T-shirt. “Do you want to borrow this? You could change
underneath it. I’ve seen my sisters do that.”
I really don’t want to say yes, but I also don’t want to sit in these wet clothes, and the alternative would be changing in
front of him with no cover at all. And it isn’t that dark in here. So, I accept the offer.
I take off my poncho and pile my wet stuff all in one corner. Once I slip on his loose T-shirt, it’s easy to pull my wet tank
top off by the straps. The pants are a bit trickier; the T-shirt comes halfway down my thighs, but I can’t fully stand upright
in the tent, so I have to shimmy and slide around to get changed.
Meanwhile, I can’t help but notice that Leo has just whipped his wet shirt off and .
. . left it off. Guys have it so easy! I avert my eyes.
I don’t need to be taking in his chiseled chest right now.
Is that a tiny patch of hair sprouting down below his belly button, toward the line of his pants?
No, no it’s not, because I’m not looking.
Finally I manage to slip on a dry pair of shorts. “Can I just leave this T-shirt on for now?” I ask. I don’t have the energy
to maneuver a new shirt on underneath.
“Sure,” he says.
I sit, enveloped in the scent of his T-shirt, while he sits just a few inches away from me in the tent, not wearing one at
all.
“Now what?” I ask.
“Well, we can’t really start a fire in this weather, but most of the food we brought doesn’t need to be cooked,” he reminds
me, pulling out cut veggies, trail mix, and . . . a can of beans and a can opener.
As if.
“These don’t need to be cooked either,” I say, reaching into my pack for the extra snacks I packed: a bag of SunChips, a bunch
of Rice Krispies treats, and a jumbo package of peanut M&M’s. “Sorry for being a genius.”
He looks at my stash with some mix of gratitude and hunger, and lets out a very sexual-sounding groan. “Never apologize for
your genius.”
I mentally file that groan away under things to not pay too much attention to right now. He used to make that sound sometimes, when we were alone together. Making out. In his room at his parents’ apartment, or sometimes in the study room at the back of the library when no one was around . . .
I smile to myself inadvertently, remembering the time the librarian caught us.
“What? What’s so funny?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
We eat in silence, our hands occasionally brushing against each other’s as we dive into the junk food I brought.
“Can we, uh, talk about our argument back there?” Leo says after a bit.
I finish crunching my SunChips, thankful to be inside the tent, safe from the rain, and consuming salt and sugar. I don’t
see any value in continuing to reopen old wounds again and again with him, so I say, “I’d rather not. My ass is still damp
and I’m not in the mood.”
He laughs. “Fine. So what should we talk about?”
“How much I’m enjoying the peace and quiet?”
He laughs again. “Eden, we’re not going to make it a whole night together without talking. You do realize that, right?”
A whole night together. Obviously, I was prepared for the fact that we were going to be camping together tonight. If I’m honest, I’ve been thinking
about it all week, preparing myself to be chill. To be friendly since we were supposed to be friends and all.
I was thinking about spending the night together (camping) when we were rappelling down the side of a rock face and my butt
landed on his face.
I was thinking about spending the night together (camping) when I heard Daisy crying into her pillow two nights ago and she refused to answer the door after I knocked.
I was thinking about spending the night together (camping) when Aunt Elena told us she was getting engaged and Georgia basically
lost her mind and fled the house. Elena and Dave were holding hands and telling us all about the details of their planned
nuptials—they want to get married on the lake next summer—and Georgia stormed out the front door.
Everyone watched her leave, and Dave said, “Does anyone know what’s going on with her?”