June 21
Ryan
"How about here?" Ana asks, spreading her arms out wide and twirling. The stuffed backpack causes her to lose her balance and nearly spin out of control. She giggles and her cheeks look a little pink. I can't tell if she's embarrassed or just warm.
I look around, inspecting the meadow she's picked for our impromptu summer solstice camping trip. Her Midsummer's Eve party, as she's been calling it since she talked me into this trip yesterday. Casper frolics around her feet, his white fur quickly becoming brown in the dirt and mud. Ana smiles up at the sun shining down on us from high in the sky. For a moment, I just watch her bathe her face in sunlight, her smile shining as radiantly as the sun. She looks back at me expectantly.
"This is fine," I say quickly, walking past her to unpack the tent.
She sighs happily behind me. "Isn't this weather so great?" she asks.
"It's a bit warm," I say. It's actually borderline unbearably hot. I wish we could have stayed in the shade.
Ana laughs at me. "In Arizona, this is nothing. We could go for weeks in summer without the temperature dropping this low. Why don't you just take off that flannel shirt?"
I instantly tense up and go on the defensive. Strategy number 1: deflect by deception.
"I'm not wearing anything under it," I lie.
"Wait a minute." Ana comes around to stand inside my field of view. "Are you telling me that you're a famous Hollywood celebrity and you DIDN'T take your shirt off in front of people?"
That certainly didn't work. Strategy number 2: deflect with distraction.
"Not Hollywood. Reality TV is not acting. Besides, my family lives in the Pacific Palisades, not Hollywood."
"Nuance," she says, brushing aside my attempt to skirt her question. "I'd bet money that if I had my cell phone right now, I could find a picture of you shirtless in five seconds flat."
This is not going at all how I'd like. Strategy number 3: go on the offensive.
"If I were teasing you for refusing to take your shirt off, would you like that?" I snap.
Ana's smirk disappears as her eyes widen, her eyebrows shoot up, and she takes a step back. She is silent for a moment, looking shocked and a little bit offended.
That may have been more "losing my temper" than "strategic avoidance." Despite my irritation at her behavior, I start to regret my choice of words.
"OK, point taken. Sorry." Her joking tone and jovial mood are gone. "Come on, Casper," she says, dumping her backpack on the ground. "Let's go find some sticks."
While Ana gathers firewood, I set up the tent and continue to stew over the sour turn to our conversation. She was right; before the attack, I'd never been shy about going shirtless. Back then my physique was impressive. I maintained myself well and it showed. I still do, but now it's different. Now half of me looks like Frankenstein's monster dipped in boiling acid. My face was lucky enough to sustain primarily just burns, not deep lacerations and hard shrapnel impacts. The same can't be said about the rest of my body.
But she did have a point about relief from the oppressive heat. Slowly, I unbutton the flannel shirt. A light breeze ruffles the short-sleeved cotton tee I wear underneath the flannel. As long as I don't pull my arms through the sleeves, I'm not exposing any additional burned flesh aside from a small patch on my neck.
When Ana returns with an armload of sticks, she doesn't say anything about the change to my wardrobe or the fact that I blatantly lied to her. She carefully avoids any mention of the incident as the afternoon drags on. But it hangs over us like a dark cloud as we go fishing, hiking, and trudge back to the campsite to make dinner. Finally, Ana breaks as we're finishing dinner.
"Look, Ryan, I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I know why you choose to wear what you do. I should have been more respectful of that."
I grit my teeth. I know I should apologize as well. But it's not something I'm used to doing. I look up at her.
"I'm sorry too if I made you uncomfortable with what I said."
She nods solemnly. "You did make a valid point, but I'd really prefer that you refrain from making such comments in the future."
Instead of feeling gracious for offering an apology, I feel chastised. I frown.
"No more discussions of removing articles of clothing?" she asks, sticking out her right hand to shake and smiling good-naturedly.
I look down at her extended hand and hesitate a moment. If I put out my right hand and she touches it, she'll know something's really wrong with it. I'm sure she's already surmised this since I never take the glove off, but she doesn't know the extent and I'd rather keep it that way. I offer my left hand to her. She looks confused for a moment before rolling with it and awkwardly placing her hand in mine and giving it a quick shake. The encounter more closely resembles a couple holding hands than sealing an agreement. I let go as quickly as possible.
She looks like she has something else she wants to say, but I'm not about to ask. When she eventually speaks, it's to ask if the sun really won't set all night, though we both know she's already well aware of the answer to that question.
"Nope. Just does a full loop around the sky. It'll probably go behind those trees," I say, pointing to the north, "while it's over eastern Europe.
"That's crazy. And it won't actually set for the rest of the week?"
"Not until the morning of the 30th," I reply, scratching Casper's head.
"Sucks to be a night owl," she says after an uncomfortable silence.
"I'm going to bear-proof the camp," I say to escape this awkward exchange.
She looks up with a hint of terror on her face at the mention of bears. She's only come across a bear once and it didn't bother us, but she muttered something about Leonardo DiCaprio and a "revenant" that I didn't bother to question her about.
"It's fine," I assure her. She picks up her rifle and cradles it to her chest. I shake my head.
~~~
Hours later, I'm lying in my sleeping bag in the tent. The sun is behind the trees, as I predicted, but the shade can hardly compete with the darkness that comes with the true night. The light filtering into the tent dimly illuminates Ana's sleeping face. Casper is a blurred white lump beside her, nestled against Ana. I find myself envying the dog.
Sleeping in the same tent may have been a mistake. She looks like a Latin goddess with her curly dark hair blanketing the pillow and a peaceful expression on her face. I stare up at the ceiling of the tent, miles away from sleep.
Unbidden, the memory of her saying "No more discussions of removing articles of clothing," floats through my mind and a small voice in my head insinuates that I perhaps should not have agreed with that arrangement.
Frustrated at the wayward direction my thoughts are taking, I roll over to face away from Ana. I try to focus on Saph, the great killer of all hopes and dreams. I picture her sneer and try to imagine Ana with that expression. For some reason, I find it impossible to picture Ana's face looking at me with such disgust. Instead, I hold Saph's face in my mind as I remind myself not to fall for the ethereal young woman four feet behind me. Don't fall for her, don't let her in, don't let her see my scars... don't let her know how I'm starting to feel about her.
One thing's for certain: I am never sleeping next to her again. I don't think I'll be able to get a wink of sleep tonight if my current insomnia is any indication.
June 22
Sunlight begins to spill over the tops of the trees just before 3 am the next morning. I haven't slept a wink. I hardly see a point in continuing to try. I begin to crawl quietly out of the sleeping bag, but the action moves me closer to Ana, who unexpectedly rolls toward me. I freeze, waiting for confirmation that she's still sound asleep. I hover over her sleeping form as the minutes tick by unnoticed. Her face is turned toward me and one of her hands is a few inches from touching mine. If she opened her eyes right now, she'd be looking right at me. It would be terrifying but immensely thrilling.
I realize I'm crouched over her like the prince about to kiss Sleeping Beauty and break the spell. For just a moment, the desire to kiss her is overwhelming. I'm terrifyingly close to giving in to the desire when Casper shifts in his sleep, drawing my attention away from Ana for a moment. Before the siren song can pull me in again, I move toward the tent door. Just before exiting into the warm pseudo-dawn, I look back at Ana's captivating form.
"Why can't I get you out of my head?"
I don't know why I said the words aloud, but it felt good to be able to confess this to her without her hearing a word of it. I spend the remaining hours until a reasonable time to be awake mulling over two things. If the dog hadn't broken the spell, would I have kissed Ana? And more importantly, how would Ana react to a kiss? I can imagine a wild array of terrible outcomes. But still, my ridiculous brain has enough hope to dream that maybe Ana wouldn't mind. Maybe she'd even...
"You've been awake for hours, haven't you?"
I startle from my deep contemplation, embarrassed as though Ana's heard my thoughts. The woman in question is crawling out of the tent looking disheveled and tired. Somehow it's outrageously attractive and I look away quickly.What has gotten into me?
"I snored, didn't I?" she states more than asks, looking concerned.
"No," I say quickly. It comes across as phony even to my ears. Ana looks unconvinced, then embarrassed. I rush to come up with a convincing reason. "It was the sun. Too bright."
"Even behind the trees?"
"It never got dark enough."
"Huh," she says. Her gaze shifts to the sky. "What time is it?" she asks. "I can never tell with the crazy daylight hours here."
I glance down at my watch. "It's a little after seven," I say with a tinge of disbelief in my voice.
I've been sitting out here thinking about kissing her for four hours?
Ana laughs. "At least I'm not the only one who can't keep track of the time."
She quickly sets to making breakfast and chatters away to me happily, unbothered by my brief responses. It's as though she's completely forgotten about the awkwardness of yesterday. Moreover, she must not have any idea of the recent direction my thoughts have taken. It's a small comfort. I suppose one of the added benefits of losing half my face is that I'm a little harder to read now.If she knew how I've started to feel... I shudder at the thought. What a nightmare that would be.