Turning Tides in Bluebell Cove

Chapter 1

It was mid-April, three weeks from the end of the semester, when Ethan and some of his buddies convinced Sophie to go camping.

Finally, after months of impenetrable gray, the clouds in Oregon had cleared.

The constant winter spit had ceased, and the sun shone upon East Oregon State University, releasing buds from their branches and grass from the dark soil.

Sophie had spent the previous few months neck-deep in textbooks or hiding away in laboratories conducting experiments, and agreed that a trip into the mountains would be good for them.

She wanted to breathe mountain air. But she reminded Ethan and also his friends, point-blank, that they had to be careful.

Now that winter was over and the rains had ceased, the possibility of forest fire grew higher by the day.

“We cannot—and I mean cannot—have a bonfire,” she’d told them.

Although one of the friends reminded her that there technically wasn’t a “burn ban” just then, and another rolled her eyes when Sophie brought it up, they’d eventually agreed.

But in the car en route to the campsite, Ethan sang a different tune.

“You don’t need to worry so much,” he said.

They were driving in Ethan’s Audi sedan, which his grandparents had gifted him for his twenty-fourth birthday last year.

It calmed Sophie to know it had gas and electric capabilities, though she knew Ethan frequently forgot to charge it and usually used the gas.

Maybe, if they got married, she’d remember to charge it.

“We’ll be safe, Sophie, baby. It’ll be good for you to get out of your head for a little bit. To commune with nature. And remember, there’s no burn ban. These people, they’re professionals. They’d warn us if something were to happen.”

“I don’t know. Like I said…”

“Let’s stop being so serious all the time, Soph,” Ethan said, glancing her way. “When was the last time we had a good time?”

Although it stung, Ethan’s smile a second later told Sophie he was joking, at least sort of.

“Come on,” he said, squeezing her hand. Sophie tried to laugh.

She filled her lungs with air and gazed at the surging mountains on the horizon.

After growing up in Washington, DC, it was funny to live in a place like Oregon—a place of mountains and waters so grand and glistening that it made her feel as if she were in a fairy tale or a painting.

Ethan, who was also from out East, often said the same.

The campground was a four-hour drive from campus, up in the mountains but not so deep that it was overly cold.

The site was surrounded by enormous Douglas firs that surged into the sky.

Ethan hurried over to his friends—Freddy, Cedric, Lizzie, and Jen—to crack open their first beers and celebrate.

Sophie watched him, with a confused smile on her lips.

During the drive, they’d promised each other to set up their tent first so they wouldn’t have to wait till Ethan got too tipsy to help.

Groaning, she tugged the tent out and began to set it up herself.

She stabbed stakes into the ground, listening to Ethan laughing.

She loved that sound, she reminded herself.

It was part of the reason she’d been drawn to him, a laugh so open and alive that she’d wanted to live inside of it.

This wasn’t Sophie and Ethan’s first camping trip.

Last summer, they’d come out here by themselves.

They’d set up the tent right away and made pasta over a little camp stove, then held each other and looked at the stars.

In the morning, they’d hiked more than fifteen miles, exhausting themselves so much that they collapsed back in the tent and slept.

At midnight, they’d woken up again, laughing and gasping, then cracked open beers, told more stories, and eaten snacks.

To Sophie, these stories were incredible.

These were the origin stories of their love.

Of course, Sophie had known that camping with Ethan’s friends—especially his friends from out East—would be different.

She didn’t know them well, as Sophie was so often busy with work and school.

Ethan and his friends had so many inside jokes that Sophie felt left out and often didn’t join even if she could have.

In a way, this camping trip was meant to bridge the divide between Sophie and his friends.

After setting up the tent, Sophie went over and took a beer from Freddy’s cooler.

Everyone else was more than halfway through their first beer and talking louder and louder.

Sophie struggled to hear how calm and beautiful the mountainous air was.

Lizzie mentioned fetching her portable speaker so they could play their own music, and Cedric said it sounded like a great idea.

Already, Sophie sensed that this wasn’t going to be her kind of camping trip.

Soon, they were gathered in a circle, seated on blankets and sipping beer.

The speaker blared songs they’d heard a thousand times, if not more.

Sophie wondered why they needed to be heard again, especially out here.

Wasn’t it more interesting to engage with the natural world around them?

The conversation ping-ponged, again leaving Sophie feeling left out and silly for being there.

Eventually, Jen turned to her and asked how school was going this semester.

She offered a kind smile, as though sensing that Sophie felt left out.

“Sophie works herself to the bone,” Ethan answered for her. “But she’s going to save the planet one day. Mark my words.” He finished the rest of his beer and crushed the can between his hands. Sophie winced at the awful sound.

“Environmental science or something?” Jen asked.

“Yeah,” Sophie affirmed. “My mom’s an environmental journalist, and I grew up around all that. Like, she fought to change laws back in DC. She made real changes. I’m in awe of her.”

“That’s cool,” Jen said. “My mom was a CEO at a fashion company before she retired to Tahiti, so I guess your mom is a better person than mine.”

“But yours has better clothes, I suppose,” Freddy teased.

Sophie’s cheeks burned. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt exposed and stupid in front of these twentysomethings Ethan had grown up with, who’d, for some reason, decided to come out to East Oregon State for school.

She guessed they weren’t the brightest bunch, although she didn’t want to say so.

Sophie had learned that Ethan’s other siblings had gone to places like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Freddy’s brother was at Columbia, and Lizzie had previously gone to NYU before getting kicked out and coming here.

Sophie hated to think it, but she considered them misfits.

Wealthy misfits who’d always land on their feet because of their parents.

Wealthy misfits who would be given countless opportunities as soon as they secured their undergraduate and graduate degrees at any university that would take them.

Maybe they’d work in finance one day. Maybe they’d manage enormous corporations, own yachts, and pollute the earth.

By contrast, Sophie had to work hard for her position in grad school.

Her dream had been to attend East Oregon State because it had an excellent environmental sciences program.

She was exactly where she was meant to be—at university, if not now, on this camping trip with these people.

Jen turned away from her, already bored by her answers.

Sophie had never been particularly good at socializing. Sometimes she wondered if it was because she was an only child.

Calming herself, she reasoned that they would only be out here for three nights and three days. What could go wrong in three nights and three days? She reached for another beer and told herself what Ethan had been telling her for months. Relax, Sophie. Everything’s going to be all right.

Not long before nightfall, Freddy suggested they build a bonfire.

“I don’t know,” Sophie interjected immediately. “Remember what I told you? I mean, back at campus?”

Throughout her academic career, she’d studied how humans were overwhelmingly responsible for forest fires. She’d studied how even people who thought they were in control of ordinary bonfires lost that control so easily, as fire often took on a life of its own.

“It’ll be fine, Sophie,” Ethan told her, hopping up and heading to Freddy’s SUV, where they’d apparently stacked firewood for this very occasion.

They’d planned this. Sophie ached with worry and wrung out her hands.

She knew that Ethan had kept this from her on purpose.

He’d heard her worries. He’d known she’d freak out.

Sophie sipped her beer and watched as Freddy and Ethan made a little tent with the firewood, then struck match after match until Lizzie had to come up and show them how it was done.

“You’re such city boys.” She shook her head, explaining that she’d gone to Girl Scout camp and could, therefore, do everything.

“I’m a survivalist,” she declared, just as the fire struck and flames began to creep up the logs.

For a little while, the fire was relatively tame.

Sophie monitored it as best as she could, unable to participate in the conversation any longer, as fear made her brain blurry.

Each time Freddy or Ethan or Cedric put another log on the fire, it grew a little higher, and Sophie’s panic deepened.

She stopped drinking beer, knowing that somebody would have to be more sober if something happened.

And then, when Ethan went to collect three more logs, Sophie lost it.

“Ethan, stop,” she said.

Ethan paused next to the bonfire, his nostrils flared. “I beg your pardon?”

Sophie got to her feet and reached for the logs. “The fire’s big enough. And it’s almost eleven. I mean, we don’t need to put anything else on? We don’t need to make it bigger and bigger until…”