Saving Sandy

Chapter 17 - Revealing Her Secret to a Trusted Friend

Note: According to what I read in the biography, there was no camping trip, but that Spitsbergen dinner actually happened. Also, the Christmas party that I will be mentioning in this chapter never happened as well, as far as I know. They were just things I wrote in.

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A small fir tree sat in the space between Eve's and Amelia's beds. Eve was sitting there wrapping a popcorn garland around the four-foot tree as I walked through the door with all my stuff from the campout. With everything that was going on, I forgot that it was the Christmas season. Even the entrance corridor to the dorm building was decorated with fir, holly, red bows and gold and silver orbs.

"You're back!" Eve exclaimed gleefully and stood up. "And on such a fortunate day! It's ten days until Christmas, which is always when my family would put up a tree and decorate it in our family room."

I smiled as I dumped my stuff on the floor near the wardrobe dresser. "That's a wonderful tradition."

Eve noticed that my smile was forced. She came up to me, concern in her blue eyes. "Oh my, are you alright? Did you not have a grand time on your trip?"

She was so pretty dressed in a white blouse and brown pants, and with her wavy blonde hair down. "Yes, it was a lot of fun... most of it."

I took off my large coat and threw it over my camping bag. Eve took my arm, pulled me to her bed and we sat down. "Would you like to tell me about it? I'm aching to know. Was it Marjory that made it unpleasant?"

I shrugged a shoulder. "I admit that it would have been better without her, but I still had fun. Rodger and Ian were a hoot, especially Ian. They were like two little boys out on a camping trip with their dad. They all loved the s'mores."

"Oh my, you have to let me try it, and we can make them in the fireplace down in the common room."

I smirked. "I would like that, and... well, yeah, we had s'mores, and I told a scary story, and we had two visits from a female coyote looking for food for her pups."

Eve's eyes widened. "Oh no, a coyote? Was anyone harmed?"

"No, the guys shooed her away. She was actually rather beautiful and majestic."

"Wild animals always are. So, what else happened? You went sledding?"

"The next morning we did, but I didn't do it."

Her brows pushed together. "What? I thought snow play was the thing you were looking forward to the most."

"It was, but... something happened that dampened my mood, and I don't mean the fact that I was on my period the whole of the trip."

"Period?"

They didn't use that word for that time of the month in the 20s. "It was that time of the month."

She nodded, her look sympathetic. "Oh, that's right. How inconvenient. So that wasn't the problem?"

"No, since I could deal with that. I couldn't deal with making a horrible mistake."

"What do you mean?"

Eve wanted something to happen between Sandy and me, so there was no doubt with how she would react to this. "Well... I went out to do my business after getting up this morning, and after doing that, I found Sandy gathering wood for a fire. I helped him out, but I wondered away, taking in the breathtaking scenery of the snowy outdoors. My heart nearly jumped out of me when Sandy pulled my arm, causing me to drop all my sticks, and we both landed in the snow. Apparently, I was too close to the edge of a rather steep hill, and he didn't want me to fall. I admit I wasn't paying attention."