Chapter 7
seven
. . .
The drive back to camp was much quicker than the drive that morning. I provided directions in between songs and Evan kept asking me about my ankle. It was fine…ish. There was a not-so-gentle throbbing that I was trying to ignore. Every time I insisted it was okay Evan furrowed his brows in concern.
We pulled into the camp parking area at ten of five.
When I hopped out of the truck pain shot through my leg up from my ankle.
Without thinking, I yelped slightly from the shock.
It turns out sitting on an injury for a half hour then jumping out the passenger seat of a lifted truck wasn’t the best course of action for a possibly, slightly twisted ankle.
“So it does hurt,” Evan materialized behind me holding both of our backpacks.
“No, no. I mean, yes, now it does, but it was fine on the hike. I just need a second to stretch it out, you can dump my bag and I'll bring it back to my cabin.” Evan didn’t move. “I’m going to go into the house and have Sue look at it,” I continued, “it’s really fine, maybe bruised.”
“It would make me feel a lot better if I came with you, considering it’s my fault partially.”
Sometimes the way Evan looked like a cartoon prince come to life, this was a perfect instance of that being the case.
“Fine, that’s…fine,” I put my head in my hands. His reaction was making the situation worse, but I couldn’t tell him. “Don’t blame yourself, it would’ve happened regardless.”
“But I asked you to take me there,” he said innocently.
“I’m pretty sure Sue did, to be fair.”
I began to hobble off towards the house, he stopped arguing but he quietly followed me inside, staying a few steps behind.
I limped into the kitchen, Sue was sitting at the table, dinner was in the oven.
“Heya kiddo! How was it?” she beamed. She noticed Evan standing behind me, his face contorted in concern, mine contorted in pain. She looked at both of us quizzically.
“Good, weather was perfect, water was cold—” I started.
“Why are you standing like you're a pirate who’s had his peg leg stolen?”
I caught myself leaning on the countertop and straightened myself up.
“I did something to my ankle on the way back.”
Instinctively, Sue pulled out two chairs, one for me to sit in and one to prop my foot up on. She gestured to them frantically, I sat down and tentatively lifted my leg up on the wooden seat. Another pulse of pain.
Sue crouched down beside me and inspected the ankle in question, slowly rotating and flexing my foot.
This woman had nothing even slightly resembling a medical degree, if it was an emergency she wouldn’t be able to do a thing.
It definitely wasn’t broken or strained, that much we both knew.
Sue stood back up and gave a sigh of relief and patted my back.
“Gonna be a nasty bruise tomorrow, but you’re all in one piece. ”
Evan also looked relieved.
Sue turned to the freezer and pulled out a bag of peas, tossing it to me.
I reverted back to being eight years old having smashed my elbow on the dock after ambitiously trying to do a flip off of it.
I was sitting at this same table, with a bag of frozen peas lovingly draped across my arm.
Of course at eight there were more tears involved, and a bowl of cookie dough ice cream.
I thought about asking if there was any in the freezer.
Sue turned to Evan who was leaning pensively in the doorway. “Were the falls all you hoped they would be?”
“Probably even better, somehow you guys managed to undersell them.” He felt around for his phone in his pocket before pulling it out and showing Sue the picture of him at the top.
She looked on like a mother viewing a child’s stick figure drawings, nodding and smiling at his excitement. “Dani here served as a solid tour guide, she even tripped on that root so I’d know where to not step,” he said with a hearty laugh.
“Dan, you take any pics?” Sue called over to me.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and slid it across the table “a few, probably identical to the ones I take every year.” Sue scrolled through them, doing the classic boomer move of zooming in and out and swiping the wrong way, accidentally looking at the pictures I took from the beach the day prior.
“Is that somewhere up here?” Evan asked, glancing over Sue’s shoulder at the phone. Sue if you keep swiping the wrong way I will kill you.
“That’s Dani’s hidden cove,” Sue laughed, Evan looked at me expectantly.
“It’s not officially that, it’s just a secret beach I found when I was younger and made Sue not tell anyone about,” I shook my head.
“And I kept my promise!” Sue interjected.
“Too bad it’s a secret,” Evan put on a faux disappointed voice and gave puppy eyes. They might work.
“Yup. Too bad.” I replied flatly. Sue gave a shove. Evan gave a wink. It sent a chill down my spine that I hoped wasn’t noticeable.
“We’ll see later in the week if he’s earned it,” I genuinely didn’t want to take Evan to the hidden beach, that was my last piece of guaranteed solitude.
Plus, that’s where I had hooked up with Nick any time he was at camp. Many, many times. There was already a strange haunted reverence to the place, I didn’t need that to get worse.
I got up and placed the peas back in the freezer, my hobbling already significantly better. “I’m going to shower real quick before dinner.” I tossed my bag over my shoulder.
Evan grabbed his bag as well and held the door, following me as I walked out. “I guess the ankle means you won’t be able to go for yet another run tonight.” He gestured at my pink and swollen leg.
“You underestimate me.”
He was watching me closely as we walked. Almost checking to see if my ankle would give out again. It was protective, perhaps overly so, but sweet. The walk to the cabins was short, but both of us seemed to slow our pace so we could savor it.
The sun hung lower in the sky and was peaking through the trees to create wavy shadows on the grass.
The lake was a deep rich blue, and perfectly sparkling and flat, with small ripples dancing across it whenever the breeze blew.
It was difficult not to romanticize the place, even without Evan next to me.
Camp had a magical element to it, some spark that was indescribable.
Perhaps it was lingering nostalgia, a time capsule of a less complicated version of myself.
“You wouldn’t mind if I shower at the same time as you, right?” Evan politely asked. I tensed up.
I actually mind, like a lot, the thought of us both being naked with nothing but a shitty wooden wall separating us is my personal hell.
“I promise I won’t make you turn on the water for me this time,” he continued, “and I’ll ignore you if you sing. I want to get all the sunscreen and bug spray and fish piss off me.”
“Yeah, yeah obviously that’s fine,” I wouldn’t think about him or his toned, naked body in the stall next to mine. “And I definitely won’t sing.”
“Hmm that’s a shame. I might have been actually looking forward to more of your covers.”
I scrolled through my phone to pull up a playlist to drown out my thoughts, then pressed play and turned up the volume as loud as possible.
The door opened and shut next in the stall next to mine, and the shower immediately turned on.
I did the same with mine, stepping in before the water had a chance to warm up to shock my nervous system a bit.
The tinny music was blasting from my phone, and the songs were switching one into another.
I almost forgot Evan was next to me as I scrubbed shampoo into my scalp.
Almost. Then he started singing along. Just a little, and slightly off beat, which to his credit was more the fault of the wall between us versus his capabilities.
Evan could sing. Surprisingly well. I already knew this, I saw him do Carpool Karaoke, some music sketch on The Tonight Show, and a duet during a surrealist jukebox musical episode of Thorndown.
I could have my romcom moment and join alongside him, or I could pretend the wall wasn’t thin enough to hear him.
I went for the latter.
Expressing interest by following him along in karaoke was try hard behavior. Fan behavior. So therefore, not my behavior.
As my eyes closed all I could envision was a toned torso, slightly sunburnt skin, messy light brown curls, and piercing blue eyes.
My wandering hand found itself between my legs before I stopped myself.
Abso-fucking-lutely not. It had been a long time since I touched myself to the thought of Evan McLeod and I was certainly not going to start now.
The song switched again, and right before it ended Evan’s shower shut off and the door hastily opened and shut.
I rinsed the conditioner out of my hair and impulsively switched the water to cold again. I stood under the frigid stream for a few seconds, gasping as my entire body contracted from the shock. I slammed the water off and stood in the shower stall for a few seconds to catch my breath.
It was only Monday.
There were roughly four and a half more days of this and I didn’t know if I could keep it up.
Maybe I was a crazy person, but what’s “normal” when you’re thrown into this sort of situation?
The warm towel hit my face as I pulled it off the hook. The smell of cotton and laundry detergent brought me back to earth. It smelled like my apartment, which even though this entire trip was built to escape it, felt like the preferred alternative to my present reality.
If only my ankle had actually broken. Then I’d have the perfect escape. Somehow though, Evan would probably volunteer to be the one to drive me to the hospital and he’d burst through the doors of the ER carrying me in his arms shouting for a doctor.
I snuck back to my cabin, hoping I’d go unnoticed.
Nope. Evan waved through his window. I hesitantly waved back.