Love, Lust, and Other Mistakes (10 page)

Troian
shrugs as she pulls the two-person pop-up tent out of its canvas storage bag. “It slipped my mind.”

“It
slipped
your mind?” I practically growl. “You didn’t think this was a detail I’d like to know? That you invited the one student I was completely
pining
over for an entire semester?”

Troian rolls
her eyes. “Elle. She’s here, so just deal with it. Nikole and I are your only way back to civilization,” she reminds me, “and there’s no way we’re cutting this vacation short just because you’re throwing a fit.”

My eyes narrow in anger and I throw my
tent poles down in frustration. “I can’t deal with this right now,” I mutter.  I turn on my heels and stomp off in the direction of the lake.

“Everythin
g okay over there?” Nikole asks, raising her voice slightly.

Troian shrugs sheepishly and returns
her concentration to the damnable tent that, for some reason, didn’t come with assembly instructions.  She really was starting to hate this camping thing.

Hunter leans against her vehicle and tugs
on her ponytail.  “You guys didn’t tell me
she
was going to be here,” she sighs.             

Nikole lifts
apologetic eyes to the other girl.  “I’m sorry,” she says with genuine remorse. “This is all Troian’s doing.  She didn’t tell Elle either if it makes you feel any better.”

Hunter worries her bottom lip and looks
in the direction of the lake. “She...she didn’t seem exactly
happy
to see me.”

Nikole places
a comforting hand on Hunter’s forearm. “How about I help you with your tent?” she offers.

Hunter pulls
her gaze away from the woods and wordlessly nodded.
 

             
                                                                                    +++++

“You gonna pout all weekend down
here or what?”

I don’t bother to turn away from my view of the lake. “Maybe,” I grumble
sourly.  I pick a stone from the water’s edge and run my fingers over its smooth features.

Troian si
ts down heavily next to me, and joins my gaze out over the lake.  There’s hardly any wind and the water’s surface is as smooth as glass.  A bird I don’t recognize swoops down low before gliding to a stop, forming small ripples on the surface.  

“I’m sorry.”

I grunt unintelligibly at her apology. I throw the rock into the lake and watch the impact upset the lake’s stillness.  

Troian di
gs her hands into the sand and pulls out handfulls, only to let the grains slip through her fingers.  “I should have told you we’d invited Hunter.”

“Yes. You should have,”
I say stiffly.

Troian sighs and her shoulders slump
. “Is this going to ruin the weekend? Did I ruin everything?”

I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath. “No, Troi,” I finally sigh
. “You didn’t ruin anything.
I’m
sorry. I shouldn’t be acting like this.”

She knocks her shoulder into mine
. “So does that mean you’ll come back to the campsite?” she asks hopefully. “I can’t figure out how to put up my tent.”

I tilt my head up and laugh.
 A real laugh.  It feels good, like I haven’t really laughed in a long, long time.  “You’re ridiculous,” I say, shaking my head.

Troian stands up and brushes
the sand off her backside. “Don’t pretend you don’t like it,” she states matter-of-factly. “You know you love me.”  

I twist my
lips into a wry smile and allow her to help me off the sandy ground.

             
                                                                                    +++++
When we make our way back to the campsite, Nikole and Hunter have just finished putting up Hunter’s tent and are starting to build a small fire in the designated fire pit.  

“This shouldn’t be so
hard,” Nikole openly complains as another piece of newspaper fails to ignite the larger logs. “If cave people could start fires, why can’t I?”

Hunter i
s crouched next to her, her face scrunched in concentration. “Weren’t you in Girl Scouts or something?”

Nikole snorts and stands
to her full height.  She brushes her hair out of her eyes.  “Whatever for?”

Hunter fiddles
with the fire, equally helpless when it comes to these kinds of things. “I don’t know. You just seem...the type.”

“Is that your subtle way of
calling me gay?” Nikole retorts.  She smiles at the blonde to make sure she knows she’s kidding.

Elle can’t help but laugh at the exchange,
calling attention to Troian’s and my return. “Out of the way,” I order.  “Let a real Northerner show you how it’s done.”

Both Nikole and Hunter ta
ke a few steps back, affording me the room I need.  I grab some fresh newspaper, crouch down, and crumple the paper up into loose balls before carefully arranging the firestarters to blanket the bottom of the fire pit.  Then, starting with the smallest of the wood we brought with us, I build a Lincoln-Log-esque cabin.

“Who’s got a lighter?” I ask, still staring intensely at my wooden creation.

The lighter comes from Hunter, which I reach for without looking.  Only when our fingers bumped together, do I look up.  Hunter visibly tenses.

“Thanks,
Hunter,” I say with a soft smile.  

She smiles tersely and nods once.

I return my attention to the campfire.  I light the paper in a few places, stand up, and take a step back to watch the burning newspaper finally ignite some of the smaller pieces of wood.  When the logs begin to snap and pop loudly, I’m satisfied.

“There,” I breathe
. I wiped my slightly sooty hands on the back of my jeans.  “That should do it.”

“
God, Elle,” Nikole teases. “You’re such a lumberjack.”

“Shut it,” I laugh
back. “You’ll be thanking this lumberjack when you’re not freezing your ass off tonight.”

“
So...” Troian announces. “Now what?”

The four
of us look around the hapless campsite.  

“We should finish putting up our tents,”
I suggest.

“
Booorrrrinnnngggg,” Troian whines.

“I still haven’t seen this awesome lake Nikole was
telling me about,” Hunter chimes in.

Troian wrinkles
her nose. “The lake is muddy.”

“You are such a brat,
Troi,” I laugh.

“Starting to regret finding us a campground with no i
nternet?” Nikole wisely observes.

Troian kicks at a pine
cone, sending it flying into the forest.

“
Well, I still have to set up my tent,” I announce. “I don’t want to start doing other things and then suddenly it’s too dark for me to see.”

“Alway
s so responsible,” Troian teases.

I shrug, not bothered by the taunting
. “I’ll be able to have fun once I’m not worrying about where I’m sleeping tonight.”

“How about I take
Hunter down to the lake and you two finish setting up the tents and meet us down there?” Nikole suggests.

Troian opens her mouth to protest.

“Just do it, babe,” Nikole cuts in.

Hunter and Nikole mak
e their way back down to the lake, leaving Troian and me to tackle the remaining two tents.  She stomps over to where her abandoned tent pieces lay.  “Stupid tent,” she grumbles. “Stupid woods.”

“If you hate camping
so much, why are we here?” I ask.

Troian bit
es her lip as she tries to figure out which pole goes into which nylon sleeve.  “Because Nikole loves camping. And you love camping.”

“
You’re so selfless,” I chuckle.  Deftly, I raise my tent and finish sticking the metal stakes into the ground to keep the pop-up house from wandering away.  “Here,” I offer, taking a collapsible pole from her. “Let me help you with that.”

We work in relative silence. Eventually, the silence becomes oppressive. “So, uh,” I
start, a little nervously, “why
did
you invite Hunter?”

Troian mak
es another frustrated noise and drops the tent canvas, satisfied with allowing me to finish the job.  “She’s getting over a break-up,” she notes. “I thought some friend-time would be nice.”

My jaw goes slack.
 “She and Sarah...” I trail off.

Troian quirks
an eyebrow. “They broke up,” she states. “You didn’t know?”

I drop my
eyes down to the tent and pretend to be interested in the pop-up’s zipper. “No, uh...I kind of lost track.”

“You mean to tell me you
weren’t
stalking her online?”

My gaze snaps back up to my friend’s face. “No!” I adamantly insist.

“Uh huh,” she says, unconvinced.

“No, I mean it,”
I say, shaking her head. “After I started working at my new school, I really cut off my ties at Carthage.” I frown, remembering. “I wanted a fresh start.  I wanted to give Beth and me a real try.”

Troian’s taunting face slips
into a small frown. “But it didn’t work.”

I close my eyes. “No,” I whisper
, suddenly overcome with emotion. “It didn’t.

“Shit,” Troian swears. “I did it again.”

I reopen my eyes. “Did what?”

“
Talked about your ex,” she clarifies. “That’s not part of the Cheer-Up-Elle plan at all.”

I gi
ve her a fleeting smile. “So what’s Part One of this plan?”
              “Camping, duh.”

             
I chuckle at her response. “And what’s Part Two?”

Troian’s face split
s into a mischievous smile that makes me suddenly nervous. “You’ll have to wait to find out.”

             
                                                                                    +++++
The sound of crackling campfire fills my ears and the warmth flicks against my features.  I look away from the hypnotic flames when I felt my contacts start to dry out.  Campfires have always had that affect on her.  I could stare at them in silence for hours until the final flames extinguished and the red, hot embers fade to black.

Above
our campfire, the sky has turned a deep purple, and I can’t remember the last time I saw so many stars.  As much as I love living in the city, I miss the familiar sight of the few constellations she recognized.

“Are there an
y more hot dogs?” Troian asks.

Nikole laughs from her seat beside her girlfriend. “When
you said you were taking a break from your diet, babe, you really meant it, huh?”

“It’s less calories if you cook them on a stick over a fir
e,” Troian stubbornly pouts.

Nikole dotingly fishes
another hot dog from the cooler, and puts it on a metal prong.  Even though Troian said she was cooking her dinner on a stick, there was no way she’d actually use a
real
stick.

That was ju
st unsanitary.

I smile, watching my
two friends and their comfortable and familiar antics.  I hazard a glance at the other girl sitting around the campfire.  Hunter seems far away, in her own world, gazing at the fire.  She’s been unusually quiet the entire day, in fact, and I can’t help but think that I’m the reason for her apparent discomfort.

Disgusted with my
self, but not knowing how to make it right, I pull out my cell phone.  Still no signal.  Even though I’m not quite the technology addict that Troian is, I still feel wildly disconnected from the world without my smart phone connecting and tethering me.

“Hey, Hunter,” Troian calls
over the crackling fire. “You want one?”

Hunter’s grey-blue eyes shift, and she blinks
once.  “What was that?” she asks distractedly.

“Do you want
another hot dog?” Troian offers. “I’m getting really good at this.”  She pulls the hot dog out of the hot flames, only to see it had been blackened.  “Okay.  Maybe not.”

Hunter laughs, and it makes me look up from my phone.
Hearing the genuine mirth in her voice makes my chest inexplicably heavy.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” she says
politely.  “But I wouldn’t turn down a marshmallow if you’ve got some of those.”

“Oh!” Troian quickly scrambles
to her feet. “I nearly forgot! We packed stuff for s’mores!”