Chapter 22 #2
It was around five when we finally made it to the Sleeping Bear area, where we pulled off the highway into Happy Rest Campgrounds
and paid the twenty-dollar fee for one night. The grounds were pretty, mostly tent camping with a few RV spots, and a nice
pavilion building in the middle with showers, a TV lounge, and a snack bar.
Seb had reserved us a spot alongside a small creek. It even had its own firepit.
“You did good,” Jazmine told him as we unloaded our stuff onto a wooden picnic table.
“I’ve spent a whole lotta time sleeping on the ground,” Seb said, hauling out one of the tents. “Guess that makes me a camping expert.”
“Was this the ‘camping’ you did last fall when you got back?” she asked. “Hate to break it to you, Jansen, but there’s a difference
between camping and being homeless.”
“Nothing you can say will put me in a bad mood today,” he informed her. “We’re on the road to Shambala, baby. By tomorrow,
we could be driving back with Mabel’s rings—that’s one step closer to riches beyond our wildest dreams.”
Benny pulled out the other tent and dropped it on the grass. “What if our wildest dreams are to live forever? Money can’t buy you that.”
Seb huffed out a laugh. “Good thing your dream is to buy a castle high in the mountains of Transylvania, which will get you
pretty close to that forever wish, if you can just convince Vlad to bite you.”
“Well, at least my dream isn’t to live in an RV,” Benny said.
“Not that again,” Jazmine complained. “I told you, tiny homes are great in theory, but you’re a walking dead man during storms.”
I picked up a bag of metal tent stakes and glanced at Seb, thinking about all the travel audiobooks he listened to in his
car. “Is that really your dream?”
The expression on his face was so open, just for a second, that I knew the answer was yes before he even said it. “Nice vintage
camper would do. See, I figure instead of a storm chaser, I’d be a gold chaser, wandering the country, seeing all the sights.
If things go south, you can always pick up and go to a new town.” He cocked his head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I shrugged. “You used to want to travel abroad. Kinda assumed you might still since you’re listening to all those travel audiobooks.
Flying to Cambodia to investigate temple ruins is a little different than driving a camper through Nebraska.”
“Well, sure. That’s the goal. But an RV seems doable in the short-term. Besides, travel of any kind is freedom, isn’t it?
And considering everything I’ve been through, any freedom sounds like paradise to me.”
Did it? I wasn’t so sure. But I gave him a sympathetic look, reached out, and squeezed his arm.
“What about you?” he asked, flicking a glance to my face.
I shrugged. “Guess I’m already living my dream at Harvard.” The geek in me had always wanted to go to a good university, and I’d sacrificed so much to be there. It was difficult to think of any other future but that one.
“Liar,” Jazmine said, tying her curls back with a wide scarf. “You always wanted to be a female Indiana Jones.”
“I believe the term is Indiana Jane,” Benny said.
I shook my head. “Nope. Bzzt. Wrong. I wanted to be Indie’s cool girlfriend, Marion Ravenwood. She owned a bar in Nepal and
could keep up with all the men.” We’d all seen Raiders of the Lost Ark a hundred times. Pretty much every treasure-hunting and pirate movie.
“Should’ve gone for an archaeology degree,” Seb said. “Then you could own the bar in Nepal and get the treasure.”
“You were supposed to get the archaeology degree,” I reminded him.
“That’s what audiobooks are for,” he said, tapping his temple. “All my education is free. Hell, I’ve even listened to a book
about climate change by one of your fancy professors—what do you think of that?”
None of my art history professors had written books about climate change, but I could tell when Seb was getting defensive,
and I wasn’t interested in fighting. So I just said, “I think it’s great.”
He gave me an odd look, then shut his mouth and started laying out one of the tents.
“Hey,” Jaz said. “Weren’t there four tents? I only see two. Did we forget a couple?”
Benny stuck his head inside the back of the Land Rover. “Holy shit, you’re right. There’s only two. Who loaded up the tents?”
“We did,” I said, as confused as they were. “I could’ve sworn we loaded all four.”
“Guess we didn’t,” Seb said, sounding a little annoyed. “It’s fine. We can just double up, girls in one tent, boys in the other.”
We could, and it was fine. But it was also odd because I really didn’t understand where the other tents went.
On top of that, I didn’t understand his plummeting mood. Which was funny, because now that we were “roomies,” I understood
him less and less. One minute he was whispering about no rules, and the next, he was erecting invisible walls around himself.
I tried not to let it bother me, to just allow myself to be in the moment and have a good time with my friends. We erected
both tents and got the rest of the campsite set up. Walked around the camping grounds and inspected the showering facilities—mostly
clean. When dusk fell, we got a big fire going and roasted hot dogs that Jazmine had nabbed from Patty’s food truck. And we
planned exactly where we’d drop in our paddleboards along the river so that we could travel down it to the old military ruins
in the morning.
After we realized we needed more ice for the cooler, Seb left the camp to drive the Land Rover to buy a bag at a nearby gas
station because they were out at the pavilion. While he was gone, I was goofing around with Jaz near the creek behind our
campsite and the ankle I hurt in the flooded cave earlier this month gave out on me, causing me to fall and get muddy. At
first, I thought I’d reinjured myself, but the ankle was okay; it was just my pride that was injured, looking like a klutz.
Which put me in sour mood.
It only worsened when Seb returned from the ice run. He seemed to be avoiding my eyes and even got up and moved to the other
side of the picnic table when I sat next to him. I didn’t understand, and it made me feel powerless and anxious. I couldn’t
handle how hot and cold he was.
When I could walk without ankle weakness again, I left the Wags making up silly ghost stories around the fire and hiked toward the campers’ pavilion to wash dried mud off my legs.
A couple of people were inside the lounge, watching TV, but the showers were empty. I grabbed a few paper towels from the
dispenser on the wall and took them into one of the shower stalls. There was a button inside that you had to push every thirty
seconds to keep the water on—I assumed to conserve water consumption. I balled up the towels and wet them and made a washrag
and stuck my legs under the spray of water to wipe away the mud.
When I finished, I washed my hands and headed back through the TV lounge, only to find Seb sitting in one of the seats near
the entrance to the showers, scrolling on his phone. He looked up at me with big eyes when I approached.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Where’s Punkin?”
“At camp.” He stood up and glanced back at one of the other two people in the lounge, a grim-looking teenager. “I left my
wallet in the Land Rover and saw you come in here. So I’m just making sure you didn’t get kidnapped by some Ted Bundy wannabe.”
“Chivalrous,” I told him, and walked outside the pavilion.
The door opened and closed behind me as I walked down the steps. Seb caught up with me. “What’s eating you?”
“Nothing. You didn’t need to rescue me from potential serial killers. I can take care of myself, you know. I’ve been doing
just fine for the last year.”
“Don’t doubt that,” he said, matching his stride to mine as we headed down the lit path through the trees that led past the
RV spots to the tent section of the camping grounds. “But it doesn’t explain why you’re being a jerk.”
“I’m not being a jerk.”
“Okay . . . ?”
I stopped in the path near a tree and turned on him. “Okay, fine. I’m being a jerk because you’re ignoring me and I don’t
understand why.”
“I’m not ignoring you. We’re talking right now. And we live together, hello? See each other every day.”
“Right,” I said tartly, struggling to control a storm of dark emotions. “Sure.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
I didn’t answer him, just turned my back and kept walking to a fork in the path marked by a bench. The left fork would take
me to our campsite. But Seb stopped me when I rounded the bench, coming around me to step into the middle of the path with
his arms out like a roadblock.
“Stop,” he said firmly. “I can’t read your thoughts, Paige. Or maybe I’m just dumb. Because I can’t understand where any of
this is coming from. Did you hit your head when you fell in the creek?”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Me? Me? One minute you’re kissing me like we’re the last two people on earth, and the next you’re cold as ice. Ever since you moved
in, you’ve been acting weird.”
“We’re fucking roommates, Paige.”
“Stop saying that!”
“Why? It’s what you wanted. You made these rules, not me. And I could say the same thing about you, by the way. You’ve been acting weird ever since Lulu caught us in the hammock, like being caught with me is the worst thing that could happen to your reputation.”
“That’s absolutely not true.”
“You move around me in the cottage like I’ve got a disease!”
“What am I supposed to do? Every time I look at you, you look away!”
“Oh, excuse me for trying to be a gentleman and not ogle my childhood friend.”
Maybe I wanted to be ogled . . . ? But the way he said this, it made me feel like I was the bad person. Like I was depraved, and he was virtuous.
“Is this all just a big game to you? Lead me on with all the flirting and kissing, then sit back and watch me squirm when
you pretend it didn’t happen? Is that what gets you off?”
“Oh, you’ve really lost it, now, Malone!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
If I could’ve been granted one wish in that moment, it would’ve been to push him away and head back to the camp. But I just
couldn’t reel in my emotions. Like a fish that had bitten a hook, they went wild, floundering and flapping around to get free.
My control slipped, and the worst possible thing happened.
I began crying.
All the fight left Seb at once. His eyes went wide, and inside them flickered a mix of concern and oh no a girl is crying uncomfortable.
His reaction sobered me up pretty fast. Feeling like a trapped rabbit, I desperately wanted to bolt away. Put some space between
us. Recover my lost dignity.
“Paige,” he said in a different voice, one that seemed to be struggling to stay in control as he tentatively reached out a hand to me.
I swatted it away and backed up. “Nothing’s changed. I’ve been such a fool to hope there was something real between us . .
.”
“Wait!”
“Leave me alone!”
Wild emotion contorted Seb’s face. “For fuck’s sake, Paige! I’m in love with you.”