Nine
“I think our sessions have been going quite well, don’t you?” Michelle asks, walking slowly beside me on the hiking trail.
“If you think so, then they must be,” I shrug, ducking under a stray branch.
“We’re only a few weeks away from our halfway point of the summer.” She watches me closely, trying to see how I feel about that. “At that point, we do something a bit different each year in hopes to face our guests with a challenge and the tools to overcome it.”
“What is it?” I groan, leaning my head back. There’s not a cloud in the early morning blue sky.
“We send everyone back to their homes for the weekend.”
I stop in my tracks and Michelle immediately stops and turns to face me. Her hands are shoved in the pockets of her dark jeans as she stands there, looking perfectly calm as if I’m not about to throw a temper tantrum.
“Is something wrong, Gemma?”
“There is if you think I’m going to go home and allow my step-monster to lie to you in order to lock me up somewhere as far away from her as possible.”
“Now Gemma,” she says, taking a small step towards me. “We have talked about her and I promise you, anything she says isn’t going to be taken into account. We’re going to be talking to your father after the visit and he’s going to help you face an important issue while you’re with him.”
“What issue?” I ask cautiously.
“I want you to go back to the place you least want to go.”
~~~
“Someone’s hungry,” Ember mutters across from the table. Tilting my head up, I shoot her a dirty look. “What?” she says defensively. “I’m just saying that I’ve honestly never seen you actually eat before.”
“Leave her alone, Ember,” Melody says quietly, giving me a sympathetic look.
“I’m being serious! Have you-“ Ember stops midsentence to yelp from Melody kicking her under the wooden table of the Mess Hall.
“I kind of agree,” Scarlett shrugs, and I suddenly regret saving her ass. “Why don’t you ever eat? You’re not anorexic, are you?”
I feel fear start to creep its way up my spine as all three girls stare at me, waiting for some kind of response. I roll my eyes, playing it off as if they’re being ridiculous.
“Of course not.” I take a piece of French bread and dip it in my untouched pasta sauce. They all watch me closely as I plop it in my mouth and make a big deal of eating it.
“You call that dinner?” Ember gives me a look after I’ve swallowed.
“I’m not that hungry, I think I’m sick,” I explain, playing it off as if I don’t feel well. Which, in all honesty, I guess I don’t. All I can think about is going back to that place and reliving the scene for real, rather than in my dreams. How is recreating my worst nightmare going to help me?
“Are you still going to go see Danny?” Melody asks.
I had completely forgotten about seeing him tonight. When Ember asked me to go and spy on Doreen after dinner, I had told them about my plans, though I’m more interested in this spy business. Apparently, rumours are going around that Doreen has something going on behind closed doors with Michael, and Ember wants to get to the bottom of it. Gross.
“I don’t know,” I reply truthfully. As much as I want to see Danny, I’m too consumed by fear and anxiety about the upcoming trip back home to even try to have fun.
“You should,” Ember says, chewing on a piece of bread. “I could walk you there.”
A light bulb goes off in my head and I nod at Ember. This is perfect. With us two alone, I can casually ask what happened with her and Rhyson and why he doesn’t trust her. Speaking of which, I haven’t talked to Rhyson since last night. Sure, I’ve seen him, and right now, I can feel his eyes on the back of my head, but I guess he finally realized that when I’m ready to talk to him, I will.
“I just have to go back to the cabin to get my bathing suit,” I tell her, pushing my food around my plate.
“We’ll come too,” Melody smiles, turning to Scarlett. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go swimming?”
“Yeah,” she shrugs, chewing on a carrot stick. Immediately, my plan feels like it’s failing. With Melody and Scarlett there, asking Ember something so personal seems like a bad idea. “I just have to meet with Michelle first so she can see my wounds.” She makes air quotations around the last word, clearly not thinking she was in that bad of shape. Though her black eye is still fading, she still has small cuts and bruises all over her. Even though I feel bad, I feel like this isn’t the first time that this has happened. Or the last.
~~~
“Hurry up!” Ember calls as I rush towards the cabin. She’s already changed, waiting for me. Since it was my turn to clean up our table after dinner, I’m slightly late.
“I’ll be quick, I swear!” I yell back, running into the cabin. After I’m done changing, I put my clothes back in my suitcase when I notice something a bit off. My sleeping bad, which was perfectly made when I left this morning, is slightly rumpled.
Normally, something so small and insignificant wouldn’t faze me. However, in a camp full of bad kids, I’m worried about there being a triggered firecracker in my bed or a snake. After all, I’ve pissed off the camps class A bitch, Rachel.
Slowly, I creep towards my bed and gently grab the top of the covers. Leaning my head back as far as I can, I quickly throw the top part of the sleeping bag up and jump back, ready for some kind of animal to jump out at me. Though I was expecting it, nothing happens. Then I notice the note.
A small, piece of torn paper is tucked half under my pillow, sticking out just enough so I can see it. I reach for it, pulling the small, crumpled paper into my hands. On the small piece of paper is something that angers and upsets me at the same time.
Do you see her dead blue eyes every time you close your own?
“I hear there’s a heat wave coming,” grumbles Ember, walking slowly beside me down the trail. She’s wearing her bathing suit under a tank top in shorts, mirroring my outfit exactly. “I hate hot weather.” She wipes sweat from her forehead, turning to me with a smile. “But I’m glad that if I have to suffer through it, I get to with you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I laugh, playfully shoving her. I decided not to bring to creepy note up with her right now. Honestly, it’s probably just a stupid prank pulled by Rachel. Anyone could have seen my drawings and known Mellissa had blue eyes.
“Seriously though,” she continues, covering her eyebrows with her hand so she can see through the bright sun glaring down at us. “Even though I really like Melody and Scar, I feel like you’re someone who I can really trust. I’m glad you came here, excluding the circumstances.”
“Thanks.” I grin at her, hating how I have to ruin this moment before we get to the beach. “The same goes for you.”
For a few minutes we’re silent, listening to the sound of our footsteps, the birds or kids yelling in the distance. I’m trying to get the courage to ask her before we reach our destination, but somehow, it’s a lot harder than I thought.
“So what’s-“
“I was meaning to ask-“ she says at the same time. We both laugh at the fact we started talking at the same time.
“You go first,” I urge, anxious to have another few moments to not have to ask my question.
“Well, I was meaning to ask,” she says slowly. “What’s up with you and Rhyson?”
This catches me slightly off guard. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“You go first.”
I lean my head back, trying to look anywhere but at Ember. “Nothing really. I mean I guess you can say that we’re friends.”
“That’s all?” She raises her eyebrows at me and I shove her again.
“Yes, that’s all.” My words feel like lies. “Now it’s your turn.”
“I don’t know where to start,” she murmurs, pulling her black aviators off her hair and over her eyes. “I guess we were never really friends.”
“You weren’t?”
“When he first came to Safe Haven,” she says, sounding distant as she remembers. “I knew there was something different about him. At the time, I didn’t know if it was good or bad or not, but I still wanted to find out. There was never a title for our relationship. If anything, we were the benefits without having the friend part attached.” This part makes me jealous, even though we shouldn’t be.
“What happened?” I ask, growing more curious by each word.
“After we got sent back home, we never expected to see each other again. Which, for a while, we didn’t. Then something happened…” She trails off.
“What?”
She meets my eyes for the first time since she started explaining. “Remember how I told you how I used to do a lot of drugs and sometimes didn’t remember what happened?” I nod, trying not to let any piece of panic consume me. “Well, this one incident, it was really bad. It turns out, Rhyson just so happened to see it take place.”
“Let me guess,” I reply, my voice barely a whisper. “He couldn’t stand to be around someone who let it get so bad?”
Ember nods as the beach comes into view. “I never thought he would judge me like he did. Especially considering how bad some of his incidents are.”
“Gemma!”
Ember and I look towards the water, our conversation over. Danny is grinning as he waves his arms, trying to get my attention.
“I guess I’ll leave you to your date,” Ember winks, jabbing me in the side with her elbow. I open my mouth to deny it being a date, but she’s already gone and Danny is waving me over.
“Hey,” I smile, giving him a small wave.
“You came.” He looks genuinely surprised as if I wouldn’t show up without telling him first. I have a feeling that this has happened before; probably more than once.
“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” I put my sunglasses up on my hair as he struggles to find a response. “What are we doing?”
“I thought you might want to get away for a little bit,” he smiles, heading towards the right side of the beach. I had briefly noticed the canoes and kayaks there days ago, but have never seen anyone really use them. “There’s something I want to show you.”
He leads me towards a green canoe and starts dragging it towards the water. I help him until it’s barely in a foot of water, just off the sand of the beach.
“We have to wear lifejackets until we’re out of sight from the counselors,” he says unenthusiastically. He picks up one of the two orange life vests and tosses it to me.
“That’s weird,” I mutter, strapping mine on. “I thought that they would be more concerned about us killing each other rather than drowning.”
“No serial killers this year,” he smirks, gesturing for me to climb in. I gently step in, hoping for dear life that it doesn’t tip.
“This isn’t your first year?” I sigh, annoyed with being the last person to know everything around here.
“Actually,” he laughs. “It is.”
He pushes us off and climbs in, slightly rocking to canoe. He hands me a paddle, which I’ve never held before, and teaches me how to canoe. At first it’s complicated, but when we’re a little bit farther out into deeper water, I start to get the hang of it.
“This isn’t so bad,” I smile, turning around to look at Danny. He grins back, but I’m not paying attention. Instead, I’m looking beyond him, to where I see Rhyson standing on the beach, watching us paddle off. “Great.”
Danny turns around to follow my gaze. “Even though I don’t trust him, I think you should cut him slack.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Oh really. Why?” Carefully, I turn around in my seat until I’m facing him. The canoe threatens to tip.
“Because he’s trying really hard to get an amazing girl to like him.”
I feel my cheeks turn pink and look away. “I think you’re talking about the wrong girl.”
“Nope.” He reaches across the small space and grabs my chin. He tilts my head until I’m looking at him again, allowing him to see the fact that I’m blushing. “I’m talking about you, Gemma.”
“Danny,” I mumble, starting to look away. Before I can, he’s leaning towards me over the space of the canoe. Slowly, I close my eyes, letting everything slip away. I ignore the fact that even though we’re drifting fairly far out, Rhyson can probably see us and that I’m going to new grounds with Danny.
“I like you Gemma,” he whispers, our lips so close. “I like you a lot.”
There’s the small second when I anticipate the kiss, feeling butterflies start flying around in my stomach. However, instead of Danny’s lips, the next thing I feel is water soaking me through my clothes.