19. Nineteen
Nineteen
Brennon
I’ll never forget the dazed look in my father’s eyes when he slammed the door in my face that Parent’s Day eleven years ago. It was probably the first nail in the coffin of my love for him. A love that would die a slow death over the next five years.
Ever since, this day has always felt surreal to me.
Watching all these parents smile and hug their kids.
Acting so pleased to see them. I guess, maybe for some, it wasn’t acting, but then again, I had to wonder how much you could love your kid when you spent an ungodly sum of money every year just to get rid of them for two whole months.
I’d never thought of it that way when I was young because I loved it here, but after everything with Nick, and Toni, the trial, and later, with Xav and Cole, too, it had started to dawn on me just how convenient it was for Blue to drop me off here and pop Mum some pills on the way home, and then proceed to do whatever the fuck he wanted for the next eight weeks.
Not that he didn’t do that the rest of year.
The past couple of summers, I’ve always been able to escape it.
Largely by hiding in the office or one of the other buildings.
Because the day fell at midsummer, the visiting parents usually wanted to be outside.
This was their one day to experience Agonde the way their kids did, so it was all beach this, and canoeing that.
Not today, though. The rain started falling first thing this morning.
After another night spent tossing and turning, I’d sat on the stoop outside my cabin and watched it fall in sheets.
July had been so hot that the dry dirt wouldn’t even accept it.
Instead, it just ran off everywhere. Now, at midday, there were huge puddles and rivers of water running through all the paths.
From under the slanted roof of the dining hall, I couldn’t help but laugh at the unprepared mums and dads, their nice clothes soaked through as soon as they left their expensive cars.
They rushed from the vehicles to whatever shelter was closest. Plenty of them found their way to the dining hall, and though I tried to ignore it, through the windows at my back I could hear just how full the space was with parents, cabin leaders, and kids, all milling around with nowhere to go, and no idea what to do.
Meanwhile, under Abbi and Cole’s direction, cabin leaders and program staff were running laps between here and the Library, gathering all the board games, decks of cards, and storybooks that were usually kept there.
Our two section directors–our de facto leaders really–since Jack was such a piece of shit all the time, shouted from the microphone, organising kids and parents at different game stations.
More often than not, people need someone else to tell them what to do, and God knew, Cole Michaels loved to give orders.
He also excelled at it. That much was clear if you ever watched him play hockey, or right now, as I watched grown-ass adults stand up and happily re-arrange themselves around the room at the direction of a man half their age.
I should have probably been inside helping him, but I couldn’t bear the stifling heat of all those people breathing the same air.
Or the sticky, sweaty feeling of being trapped in a wooden box with people I couldn’t give two shits about.
So, instead, I tuned it out, and continued to watch the rain fall over the deck and Centre Circle beyond it. Alone.
When the double doors to my left creaked open and Cole stepped out, I said nothing at first. I obviously wasn’t the only one who found the whole thing overwhelming.
At first, he didn’t notice me out here. He just exhaled a long breath and, like me, watched the rain fall.
He was still wearing his official Camp Agonde shirt and khaki shorts.
I’d swapped mine for a cut off top tank the second the last parent had checked in at the office late this morning.
It was too humid for that thick cotton, and Cole’s cheeks were flushed from the combined weight of the shirt and the dank air he’d just spent the last hour trapped in.
I was willing to bet that under that t-shirt, the guy was fucking sweating.
As if on cue, he stripped the navy shirt off.
Then, in just the white tank top he wore underneath, he stepped from under the roof overhang and into the downpour.
The clouds were waiting for his direction, apparently.
Thunder clapped in the distance, and with a whoosh, the rain poured even harder, falling in thick streams. Cole was soaked through within seconds.
The amount of rain we’d had already should have cleared the humidity from the air, but instead, it made it heavier, more oppressive.
The weight of it seemed to affect Cole, too.
He clung to the railing. His forearms clenching and flexing under the force of his grip, holding him where he stood as his head dropped all the way back so that his face was fully exposed to the sky. Then, he opened his mouth.
It was impossible to tell if any sound came out–whether a silent scream or a long overdue exhale–over the sound of the rain and thunder.
But I watched, transfixed. When he lifted his face once again and released his hold on the wood, it was only to squeeze his brown eyes closed and crush his hands into fists before tucking whatever had him screaming into the storm back behind that sports-bro expression he wore so well.
Then, he turned around. Through the sheets of rain, our eyes locked, and that hard mask, that alpha male bullshit he put on all the time, it crumbled.
Behind it was a face I remembered. One that belonged to the chubby kid he used to be.
The kid I liked so much better than the adult he’d become.
Once upon a time, I’d have known exactly what he was thinking.
Now, I was clueless. Though I doubted he was going to walk back inside looking like a half-drowned version of himself.
Besides, the way his wet clothes clung to his chest and hockey-player quads was semi-indecent.
Maybe that occurred to him, too, as he broke our eye contact to glance at himself, then back to the crowd of kids and parents inside.
His shoulders rose and settled with a resigned sigh.
He started to turn away. On impulse, I shouted, “Coley, I-” and stopped, unsure, myself, what I had planned to say.
My cheeks burned, as he looked back to me, brows lifted in surprise, but with wide, pleading eyes.
My tongue tangled inside my mouth as I tried to say something, anything, but the right words wouldn’t come.
It didn’t take long for my former friend to give up on me with a shake of his head before retreating down the steps.
For a few seconds, I just watched his back.
He flung his wet staff shirt over his shoulder and followed the camp road heading in the direction of the boy’s section, probably to his own cabin, for a change of clothes.
It was lonelier out here now than it had before Cole stepped foot outside.
I didn’t want to be on this deck anymore. I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
It would have been easier to turn around, enter the hall through the same doors Cole had exited, and ignore whatever was troubling him.
After all, I was still dry. But that option turned me off.
The small talk with parents and sticky breath still as unappealing as it had been when I first stepped outside.
No, I did the thing my feet felt compelled to do, without thinking too much about why.
Even with the humidity, the chill from the rain was instant.
Maybe all those muscles kept Cole warmer for longer, because within seconds, I was shivering.
Under the ink of my tattoos, the skin along my arms was prickled with goosebumps.
It was coming down so hard that as I jogged to catch up to Cole, the rain cut into my skin bit by bit, like a million tiny pinpricks.
He was halfway past the Creative Cluster, which was also full of people when I caught up to him.
“Cole! Wait!”
“What are you doing?”
Since I wasn’t sure myself, I ignored the question.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
He flicked his hands over his wet torso.
“To change. Obviously.”
I shook my head, mostly because my normally pin-straight hair kept clinging to my face and I had to keep swiping it away.
“No, I meant before.” He stared at me, puzzled, “I meant, um, why did you leave?” The question felt awkward on my lips.
He turned to walk away again, but I sprung forward, and yanked his Agonde t-shirt from his shoulder.
“Give that back,” he demanded.
“No.”
“Give it back.”
“No,” I swung the thing around like a flag over my head. It wasn’t like it could get any wetter. “I’ll give it back when you tell me why you left the dining hall.”
Cole never could resist a challenge. Not that he didn’t try.
He lunged forward in an attempt to claw the thing back.
He’s the athlete, while I was still out of breath from a two-minute jog, so if I hadn’t anticipated his move, he’d have succeeded for sure.
But this wasn’t the first game of keep-away I’d ever played with Cole Michaels, so I side-stepped and swung the shirt again.
“Come on, Cole, spill.”
“No.”
“Coleyyyy,” I taunted, using the whining voice Toni always used with him when we were kids.
“Fine,” he snarled, “Fine. You wanna know so damn bad?!”
We stopped our little dance, and I waited.
“I needed a break, okay?! A break from all those smiling, happy parents.”