I stood there speechless, wondering what it was he had really wanted to say. He dove into the lake with no reservations, and then surfaced a moment later. Translucent drops of water clung to his chest and shoulders. Cedars rimmed the lake on all sides and the setting sun shone beyond that. I wished I could have taken a picture for Caroline. We weren’t that far from the town, but it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere.
“ Does it feel good?” I asked, creeping closer to the edge. There was no way I was going to jump in like he did. I wasn’t certain, but it seemed like I shouldn’t ingest any of the water. There was no telling what type of bacteria lurked in it and being immunocompromised meant snorting gross lake water was probably not the best plan.
“ Perfect,” he answered, treading lightly and waiting for me.
I waded in up to my waist, and then when I couldn’t touch anymore, I swam toward him. He was right. It was so warm outside that the water was refreshing, just shy of freezing. Yes, my teeth were chattering, but it still felt good.
“ It’s not that cold,” he laughed.
“ I’m smaller than you. You probably have like ten layers of fat warming you up,” I joked, knowing full well there was not even a single layer of fat on him.
“ Want to go to the middle and back?”
I looked beyond his shoulder. The lake was huge and I hadn’t swam in years, but I didn’t want to admit defeat.
“ Okay, but no going under. That’s cheating,” I stated.
“ Seems reasonable. Ready?”
My teeth were still chattering and I could feel my lips turning blue (one more side effect of being so pale), but I nodded. But before he could countdown, I started swimming as fast as I could. I kicked my feet in time with my arms, leaving him in the wake of my splashes.
“ Hey! Cheater!” he called, starting to swim after me. I don’t condone cheating, but we both knew he was going to win. I just needed a little advantage. Not to mention, seeing him flustered was priceless.
I grabbed some disgusting lake slime and chunked it behind me to add obstacles to his path like those bananas in Mario Cart. When I peered back, the slime sat atop his brown hair and sludge was dripping down his face. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“ Sorry!” I offered innocently, but he tossed it off with a determined look in his eyes. Uh oh .
I kept swimming, never looking behind me for fear that he’d be on my tail. The center of the lake was still quite far, so I hunkered down and tried to concentrate on breathing in and out. It’s embarrassing how little I had worked out prior to that moment. I couldn’t do anything before my transplant, and then after, I’d worked with a physical therapist, building a bit of my strength back. It obviously wasn’t enough. My arms felt like lead weights and my stamina was quickly dwindling.
My lungs gulped in heavy breaths and I tried to push past the pain, but my body was deciding it had had enough. I paused and tried to catch my breath while I treaded water. That’s when I looked up and saw Beck in the center of the lake, looking relaxed and happy. Damn, I hadn’t even made it half way. I tried to swim closer to him, but quickly decided against it. Dying on the first day of an epic road trip would really put a damper on my plans for living.
“ Are you okay, Abby?” Beck yelled when he realized I wasn’t swimming any closer.
My breathing was still uneven, so I just gave him a feeble thumbs up. He didn’t buy it. He dipped under the water and I assumed he was bee lining for me. I tried to recover quickly. He’d think I was a wimp if I was this tired before even making it to the halfway point. Maybe I could say that I was attacked by a group of lake monsters and had to fight them off. I’d faced Loch Ness and lived to tell the tale.
A second later, his brown hair popped out of the water a few feet away from me.
“ Not a swimmer?” he asked, inching closer. If his plan had been to kill me on this camping trip, he should have done it then. I didn’t feel like swimming back to shore and treading water was becoming harder by the second.
“ Guess not,” I mustered shallowly.
His brows furrowed and, without my permission, he swam up to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. I would have been angry, but the moment he lifted some of my weight off of my arms, I wanted to cling to him for eternity.
“ To hell with feminism, please just carry me back to shore.” I wrapped an arm around his broad shoulders, feeling his muscles move and flex under my touch.
A rumble of laughter moved through him in response to my request. “Could you wrap your arms around my neck as if I was giving you a piggy-back ride? That’s probably the easiest way.”
I shifted behind him and then instinctively wrapped my legs around his waist as well. It hit me like a meteor: I was barely clothed with my legs wrapped around a really, really hot guy. My boobs were pressed against his toned back. I looked up to the sky and mouthed ‘thank you’ to whoever might have been watching.
“— legs,” he said.
Oh, God. “What?” I mumbled, realizing I’d missed whatever he had just said.
“ Unwrap your legs,” he repeated. My face turned ten shades past crimson. I had been clinging to him like a baby monkey. “You can kick with your legs or just lay there,” he added, “but I can’t really move my hips with you gripping them that tightly.”
“ Yeah, okay. It wasn’t that tight,” I grumbled, letting my legs fall back.
He laughed and started to swim us back to shore. “I probably lost circulation down there .”
I smiled at the thought. “Oh please, the water is cold. I’m sure there wasn’t much circulating going on anyway...”
He grinned back at me and shook his head. The water reflected back at me from his hazel eyes. My heart pounded against my chest so hard that I’m sure he felt it as well. His pace picked up while I tried to ignore the shifting of his back muscles against my chest. Let me tell you, it was not an easy task.
The second we got back to shore, I grabbed my pajamas, my cell phone, and the black urn, and bolted from the campsite. I told Beck I was going to change and use the restroom before it got too late. In reality, I just needed a moment to collect myself. Clinging to him like that had felt amazing, and there was no denying how turned on I was. But I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to feel like that considering he hadn’t made a move on me or anything.
As I walked through the woods, I realized that I was just like my Aunt Dana’s shih tzu that always humped my leg when I went to her house. Poor dog. I knew what it felt like to derive your pleasure from an unassuming patron.
When I found the restroom, I changed into my sleeping shorts and a tank top, but even that still seemed like too many layers. My fear that the temperature wouldn’t drop at sundown was realized. It was somehow even hotter, and the air was stale and static. I pulled my hair into a messy bun and then threw my stuff back into my backpack.
There was one last thing I needed to do before I headed back to the campsite. I walked further into the woods, untaped the black urn, and then texted Caroline.
Abby : Short version: We’re camping. Went swimming. I was a pathetic wuss and Beck had to carry me back to shore. Bonus: I felt his body and it was probably the best moment of my life.
Yes, you can relax. I checked like ten times to ensure that I had Caroline’s name at the top of the text screen and not Beck’s. I’ve seen enough sitcoms to know that I couldn’t fall for that mistake.
After the text had sent, I put my phone down and twisted the lid off of the urn. I took a deep breath in preparation for the next moment, but nothing happened. The contents of the urn didn’t budge. There was no wind, remember? Just static air. I looked down into the basin and waited for something profound, but instead I just stood in the forest, in my pajamas, holding an urn, and looking like a weirdo. I sighed and tipped the urn over a little bit, letting the top of the ashes spill out onto the ground. It was the definition o
f anti-climactic. The light gray ashes just fell to a pile on top of the dirt. There was a reason people called it scattering ashes and not dumping ashes. No one wants to dump ashes.
I tried really hard to have a spiritual or thoughtful moment, but I ended up just thinking that it was getting darker and that I didn’t want to be eaten by a bear. My phone buzzed next to me on the ground. Caroline’s face appeared and any hope of having a magical moment was lost.
I snatched the phone and clicked ‘answer’.
“ Hey. You just ruined what was supposed to be one of the most moving moments of my life,” I proclaimed.
“ Were you about to have sex with Beck?”
I snorted. “No. I was scattering the first bit of ashes.”
“ Ohhhh. Yeah, sorry about that. Do you want me to sing a song or something? Maybe say a prayer?”
I twisted the urn’s lid back into place. “You don’t know a prayer, Caro.”
“ I could make one up, Abs. Have a little faith .”
“ Oh my God. I see what you just did and it is so not funny.” I still laughed because it actually was funny. “How’s your bum liver?”
She sighed and I knew it was a bad prognosis. “They haven’t let me go home yet.”
“ You’re still in the hospital!?”
“ Yeah, the doctors don’t feel like I should go home anytime soon.”
I chewed on my bottom lip and tried to think of something to cheer her up. Instead, I said, “It’s not too late. I could come home. I really don’t want to be away from you while you’re stuck in there.”
“ You are the most stubborn person I know and I’m hanging up before you say anything else.”
“ Call me if you need me. Any time, okay?” I added quickly, knowing her threat about hanging up was real.
“ Yes. Bye, Abs.”
The moment I hung up and started heading back to the camp site, my phone rang again. Beck.
“ You know, we’ll be together for two weeks straight. We don’t also have to be on the phone while I’m in the bathroom,” I spoke, internally thrilled at the thought that he just couldn’t get enough of me. Oh, who was I kidding.
“ Where are you ?”
His tone was anything but playful.
“ What are you talking about?” I asked, thinking it was strange how dark the forest had become. When I’d left the restroom, twilight was still in effect, but now darkness was descending all too quickly. Suddenly, I started to panic. I hadn’t brought a flashlight; the only light was coming from my phone’s screen.
“ You’ve been gone forever. I went to check the bathrooms and you weren’t there.”
Oh, crap.
“ I’m sorry. I had to call my friend and then I guess I lost track of time.”
I heard him take a deep, calming breath.
“ Okay. No big deal, it’s just that you probably shouldn’t wander around by yourself at night.”
I wanted to clarify that technically when I began wandering, night hadn’t fallen yet, but he was right so I just kept my mouth shut.
“ Do you know how to find your way back to the restroom?”
I thought I did so I said, “Yes.”
“ Okay. I’ll meet you there. Don’t hang up until you see me.” I couldn’t tell if he was overreacting or not. It probably was scary when he went to restrooms and I wasn’t there.
I kept walking, angling the phone toward the ground so the soft glow would illuminate my path. If my wandering hadn’t been too erratic, I was pretty sure the restrooms were just a few yards in front of me. Unfortunately, I had no way to be sure.
“ I’m sorry, Beck,” I murmured softly, feeling foolish all of a sudden.
“ Hey, it’s no problem.”
Just then I saw a flashlight glow in the distance and a cell phone illuminating the cutest brown-haired boy in all of the woods. Unless, of course, Orlando Bloom was also camping there.
“ I think I see a big dork next to the bathrooms,” I joked, feeling an immense relief now that I knew I wouldn’t be lost in the woods forever.
He chuckled and I saw his face pop up to look for me. It didn’t take him long.
“ What a coincidence, I see a lost gypsy girl walking toward me,” he squinted through the darkness, “…in polka dot pajamas. And she has an urn in hand, so it’s hard to tell if she’s going for a good-girl or a gothic-type look?”
I burst out laughing as I stepped closer. He was too much.
“ You’re too much.”
“ Thanks,” he smiled.
I was only a few feet away from him then.
“ It wasn’t a compliment.”
He pressed end on the call as I stepped right in front of him.
“ You promised me s’mores,” I said with a smile.
He grinned and we started to walk back toward camp.
“ Yeah. I thought I was going to have to eat them all while you got dragged away by mountain lions.”
I hip-checked him, except our difference in height made it so that I ended up just hitting my butt on his upper thigh. So smooth.
“ You were going to eat them even though I went missing?” I asked, feigning shock.
He shook his head and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, bringing me into his side. “Oh, Abby. Of course I would have. What was I meant to do? Just leave the s’mores at our campsite? That’s ludicrous.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
By the time we crammed ourselves into the tent, I was full of s’mores and thoroughly sweltering. Roasting by the fire hadn’t been the best idea in ninety-degree weather, but it was definitely worth it for melted chocolate. The last thing I wanted to do was crawl inside my sleeping bag, so I just lazily fell on top of it— making a big THUMP sound. My limbs relaxed out around me, and in the next moment, Beck mimicked my pose on top of his sleeping bag as well.
“ This is the life,” I said, glimpsing the dark shadows of the night through the tent.
“ Abby Mae, I think you might be right about that.”
I rolled over onto my side and watched him laying there. “How old are you?”
He looked at me with such earnest concentration that I had to consider if I’d asked something else. Then he responded, “Between 30 or 40.”
I laughed. “What?”
He shrugged. “I don’t sleep much. The average person sleeps one third of their lifetime, so I figure I’ve lived about twice as long as everyone else my age.”
“ So you’re twenty?”
“ Twenty-one. You?”
“ Hmm…I guess ten or eleven,” I answered, playing his game.
His eyebrows shot up. “Jeez, you must be quite the snoozer.”
I sighed. “I was in and out of the hospital my whole life until a few months ago, so I slept a lot,” I admitted, instantly thinking of the scar beneath my tank top.
“ Oh, wow,” he answered, still facing the roof of the tent and letting my declaration take hold. I knew it would change things between us, but he would have found out eventually.
“ I don’t think it works the same for you,” he declared, rolling over to face me. His t-shirt stretched over his chest and in the lantern light he looked like a dream.
“ Why not?”
“ I don’t think having a life-threatening illness would take away years of your age. I think you might be wiser than the rest of us.”
Maybe he was right. I knew what it was like to go to sleep at night worrying that everything would be the “last” thing in my life: the last time I ate dinner, the last time I hugged my parents, the last time I opened my eyes, the last time I heard someone say my name. But then I thought of all the things I had yet to experience. I didn’t know what it felt like to be normal. What it felt like to go on a date or attend high school and go to prom. This was my first time traveling anywhere without my parents
.
“ Penny for your thoughts,” he asked, pulling me out of my reverie. I’d been staring up at the full moon through the roof of the tent.
“ Beck, could we kiss? I know that this is the first night of a road trip and I have no clue if you’d even want to, but I had congenital heart disease up until two months ago. I had a heart transplant and that’s why I have this big ugly scar on my chest.” I pointed to where the top of the scar peeked out of my tank top. “I promised my friend, Caroline, that I would be brave, but it’s hard when you’re clearly much more experienced than I am. Right? I mean you’re really ho—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Beck leaned forward and closed the gap between us, sealing his lips to mine. It was the most romantic thing I’d ever experienced. He wrapped his hand gently around my neck so that his palm was pressed against my skin, bringing us even closer. Every bit of sense was focused on the feel of his lips on mine. I was in heaven. Until I did the unthinkable— I attempted to french kiss him. What sort of person tries to french kiss someone when they have no clue what they’re doing? I ended up just awkwardly sticking my tongue down his throat and he pulled away laughing.
Yes. Beck ended our first kiss by cracking up.
“ Did you just attempt to use tongue on your first kiss?” he asked, sporting his dimpled grin. I hated that he was laughing at me. Had that kiss not affected him at all? I leaned forward and covered his smile with my hand, but it only made him smile wider. I could feel his warm breath on my palm.
“ I thought that’s where it was heading,” I groaned, wishing a bear would maul our tent in that exact moment. “You can’t make fun of me!”
His features suddenly turned serious and he reached up to peel my hand away from his face.
When his lips were finally free, he replied, “Abby, I don’t see how I could possibly make fun of you for practically sucking my face off.”
I narrowed my eyes and stuck out my tongue at him. His teasing was funny, but it still didn’t change the fact that my ego was lying in a puddle on the ground.
His grin settled into a thoughtful smile. “I’m sorry that you were so sick until a few months ago, but I’m really glad you’re healthier now and on this road trip with me,” he declared so softly that it nearly broke my heart.