Hey guys! So first off, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who entered the one-shot competition. I didn't expect to have so many entries, but they were all wonderful, and I really enjoyed reading them. So thank you very much!
And now without further ado... the results!
I feel like there should be a drumroll or something. Please imagine one in your head.
4th place: Business and Babies by Springgirl101
This one was hilarious. Pregnant Georgie was very funny, and I loved the unexpected ending.
3rd place: Friendship for Dummies One-Shot by BeautyAtWork2
I loved this one. It used a lot of the characters and all of them were spot on. And it was absolutely hilarious.
2nd place: Five by Defend
I knew even before I read it I was going to love this one, because it's written by one of my favourite writers (101 Ways, Team Len anyone?). And it definitely didn't disappoint. It was a little different to the other entries, and one of the cutest things ever.
Aaaaaand here we go, the one we've all been waiting for. The winner is...
Camping for Dummies by Starry_Serenade
This one was my absolute favourite. Every sentence was so funny, she wrote Georgie perfectly and I couldn't have asked for more. I thought you should all see how wonderful it was, so I've decided to post it here. And do me a favour, when you're done, go and tell Starry_Serenade how amazing her writing is. Thank you all for entering, and enjoy the winning one-shot!
*****
“Georgie, are you sure you know where we're going?”
Ava's voice rings out from behind me, and I take my eyes off the road for a split second to glance at my best friend in the backseat mirror. She's sitting next to Nathan, the two of them wearing twin skeptical expressions.
“Of course,” I reply calmly. “What, do you think I'd actually get us lost?”
The look on her face is enough of a response.
Sighing, I turn my attention back to the task at hand: that is, driving a million miles through California en route to Brandon and Macy's summer rental in Mammoth Lakes, a journey which happens to entail traveling down a bumpy dirt road. In a forest. At night. While my three traveling companions relax in their respective seats, completely oblivious to how harrowing this experience is for me.
I despise driving after dark—always have, always will. It's bad enough in the city, where there are streetlights to provide at least some relief for my vision. But out here? This is the wilderness, for crying out loud! The only light I have is from the headlights of our rental Jeep, which only serve to illuminate the space in front of the car for about two feet before dissolving into blackness. With that kind of meager light, I could run into a raccoon, or a tree, or drive off a cliff...
Focus, Georgie. Eyes on the road.
Though I mentally promise myself that I will keep my immensely scatterbrained mind in concentration, I can't help but steal a few glances at the boy dozing in the passenger seat beside me. His face is relaxed in sleep, his brown eyes closed and his dark hair falling into his face.
My boyfriend, Connor.
Even now, having been together for an entire two years, I can't get over the way that sounds. Connor. My boyfriend. A couple of years ago, the idea of being with someone as amazing as him was nothing but an unreachable dream. Yet here he is, right beside me, sleeping with his head lolled against the window.
“Georgie, are you absolutely certain that we're going in the right direction?” Nathan asks, breaking my reverie. I look back again, and he's studying a fold-out map by the light of his phone. “Judging by this, the drive should only take six hours. We've been on the road for seven and-a-half.”
I grit my teeth, attempting to keep my eyes from widening at his statement. I thought we were going the right way; after all, I've been following the instructions we printed back at the airport. Even I possess enough intelligence to do something as trivial as follow directions.
I think.
“Nathan, it's fine,” I assure, gripping the steering wheel tighter as I go around a bend. “We'll get there, I promise.”
It's not fine! frets my traitorous mind. Face it, Georgie. You, with your terrible sense of direction, have succeeded in getting yourself—along with your three best friends—lost in a forest somewhere in the middle of California. Congratulations, genius.
“Shut up,” I mutter scathingly, eliciting bemused glances from my two backseat passengers.
I squint at the dark road in front of me, searching for any assurance that I'm driving in the right direction. But all I can see are the shadowy outlines of trees, reaching their gnarled branches out as if waiting to pluck up innocent animals.
Or innocent, directionally-challenged teenage girls.
But hopefully the former.
Not for the first time, I wonder why, exactly, I agreed to this. I mean, I thought it was pretty cool when Brandon and Macy told us that they were renting a cabin in Mammoth Lakes to spend the summer with their daughter, Emily. But not cool enough to want to leave home and haul my butt across several state lines just to visit.
My mother disagreed.
“Come on, sweetie, you just graduated high school!” she said, back when I first rejected the idea. “This will be one of the last times you'll be able to have fun before the adult world swallows you whole.”
Which was just so convincing (not to mention reassuring).
Nonetheless, with the help of Julie and the cooperation of Ava and Nathan's parents, my mom ignored my pleas, and quickly set about planning a post-graduation camping trip—in Brandon's backyard. It'd be the full experience: tents, campfires, etcetera—but all within easy reach of kitchen appliances and indoor plumbing. Because what better way to spend your first summer after high school than sleeping outside, on the ground, in the dirty, bug-infested wilderness?
Oh, I can think of plenty.
For some reason, though, Ava, Nathan, and Connor agreed readily, so I, too, was weaseled into accepting. We took a flight from Indiana to an airport in Los Angeles (because apparently, there were no airports anywhere closer to Mammoth) and are now being forced to drive 315 miles to our destination.
Joy.
“Georgie?” Ava chirps, eyeing me through the mirror.
“Yes, Ava?”
“I think we're lost.”
I frown. “We aren't lost.”
“Yeah,” she mutters, “and your hair doesn't look like a yak's butt right now. Just face it, Georgie: you've gotten us lost.”
I don't know which insult is worse: the one to my hair (which, by the way, is presently no worse than a lion's mane), or my driving skills. But both send a wave of petulance washing over me, and I slam my hands down against the steering wheel.
And happen to connect my fist with the horn.
An earsplitting honk erupts through the peaceful forest, most likely waking every animal within five miles. With my luck, there will soon be a herd of angry bears on our tail. The sound also succeeds in waking Connor, who jumps in his seat like he's been electrocuted.
“I'm awake, I'm awake!” he shouts, banging his head against the window as he rockets up and throws his hands above his head. I watch as he blinks himself back into reality, his eyes slowly clearing until they focus on my face.
“Oh,” he murmurs, his voice clouded with lethargy. “We there yet?”
From the back, Ava snickers. “Not exactly. Your girlfriend has managed to get us hopelessly lost.”
“Hopelessly is a bit of an exaggeration,” I retort. “And anyway, we're not lost. We're just...temporarily misguided.”
Nathan lets out a snort. “Yes, Georgie. 'Temporarily misguided' explains why we've been driving for an hour an a half longer than expected.”
“Well, it's your fault for letting me drive!” I cry, referring to our exchange about two hours ago, when Nathan had tired of piloting our lovely all-terrain vehicle. With both Connor and Ava asleep, he had been forced to hand the wheel over to me.
He really should have known better.
“We were thirty minutes away! I thought that even you wouldn't be able to screw something up in such little time!”
I have a rude (and somewhat inappropriate) response on my tongue, but Connor's voice cuts me off before I can speak.
“Guys, calm down, okay?” He runs his hands through his hair, a trademark gesture that I've come to love. “Look, let's—let's just pull over. We can look at the map, figure out where we went wrong. It'll be fine.” He stresses the last syllable, simultaneously reaching over to squeeze my arm. I try return the reassurance with a smile, but my facial muscles are too tense to do much more than grimace.
“Right, pull over,” I manage to squeak. I prepare to lift my foot off the gas pedal, taking a deep breath. After all, seeing as we're in the dark, this will be a challenge. The last thing I'd want is to end up sending us off the edge of a—
My thought is cut off abruptly by the sound of Ava squealing, “Georgie, look out!”
Startled, I look up at the road—which, admittedly, I should have been doing all along—and find myself faced with the thing that every driver fears when navigating forest lanes in the dark.
A deer in the middle of the road.
▪■▪■▪■▪■▪■▪
I let out a shriek that would rival nails on a chalkboard, my eyes seeming to meet with the deer's for a split second before I spin the wheel to the right, sending the car swerving off the road.
“Georgie!” someone shouts. I can't respond, can only scream as the car goes jolting through the mounds of dirt and grass and logs—and who knows what else—that make up the forest floor. Trees whiz by before me, some of them illuminated by the headlights, but miraculously we don't hit any of them.
It's a bumpy ride, and for once in my life, I am extremely thankful for seat belts. And airbags. Because when the car comes to a sudden, jarring stop, those giant, marshmallow-like cushions are the only thing between my face and the dashboard.
Though I can't say that having my face buried in vinyl is exactly something to be described as comfortable.
“Is everyone okay?” Connor asks after a moment, his voice muffled by the thick material. He sounds pretty shaky, but that's to be expected. And anyway, it's better than me. I'm having a hard time just forming coherent thoughts; speaking probably isn't an option right now.
Ava makes an affirmative squeaking noise, and Nathan demands, “What just happened?”
I glance at Connor, who stares back at me with an expectant expression. Of course, he could easily tell Nathan what just transpired, but apparently, I'm going to be forced to to own up to it myself.
A feat that is only possible after a good thirty seconds of meaningless stuttering.
“I—um—I saw a deer,” I utter thickly. “It was right in the middle of the road, so I swerved to keep from hitting it, and—”
“And we went careening off the road,” Nathan finishes. A groan escapes his lips, and in the mirror, I see him run a hand through his blond hair. I say nothing; the answer is pretty obvious.
“Well,” Connor says after a moment, “I guess we should go out and...check? See if we can get this thing back on the road?”
I swallow and nod, while Nathan and Ava murmur their agreement. We get out of the car slowly, using our phones to light the ground at our feet. There could be any number of things for accident-prone people such as myself to trip on: roots; rocks; poisonous, man-eating snakes—the possibilities are numerous, and all of them grim.
I hear Connor cursing before I see the damage; and by the words he's using, it's bad. I hurry around the side of the car, Nathan and Ava at my heels, and am promptly fighting the urge to let out a few heinous expletives myself.
Unbeknownst to me, the incline that we just drove down ends in a very wide, muddy ditch. And in the dark, I steered the car right into it. (Well, okay, I wasn't exactly steering...).
Without our combined weight tethering it to solid ground, the truck is quickly sinking, its white paint job becoming marred by a spattering of mud.
I'm pretty sure the rental company won't be too happy about that.
But in my defense, no one in their right mind would paint an all-terrain vehicle white.
As I'm standing there, mentally criticizing the sanity of the car-makers, the front of the truck has nearly completely sunken into the mud. Connor shouts something to Nathan, and a moment later, the two of them are braced on either side of the truck, pulling at it with all their might. But the truck is heavy (I mean, one of its tires is like, half my height), and if anything, they probably quicken the sinking process.
Eventually, after what feels like hours, the Jeep stops moving. There's no warning, no nothing; it simply freezes. I would shout for joy...but considering that nearly the entire cab is submerged in the muddy depths, I'm not sure that's an appropriate reaction.
In the near darkness, Nathan's troubled eyes focus on mine. “Georgie, what time is it? Can you call your brother and ask him to pick us up?”
I check my smart-phone, which reveals to me that it is 10:47 PM. Probably not too late to be calling Brandon...but something stops me. Next to the time, outlined in a red glow, is a symbol that makes my heart plummet to my feet.
No bars.
My friends must read the despair on my face, because all three immediately pull out their own phones to check. And judging by the horrified expressions written across their features, they're in the same plight as me. The damned wilderness has no signal.
Just another reason to love the great outdoors.
It's Ava who asks the million dollar question: “So, what we do now?”
I myself am starved of an answer, but Connor responds almost immediately.
“Well, we have all our camping gear, right?” he questions. “We have food, water, and supplies. And I mean, we did come out here to camp...”
“Nuh-uh,” I say immediately, catching on to his idea. “We came to sleep in tents in Brandon's backyard. We are in no way ready for real live camping.”
Connor's expression becomes amused. “Real live as opposed to what, Georgie?”
I grumble an incoherent answer (something along the lines of “I don't know, dead”) before falling to silence.
“Wait a second,” Ava says slowly, “you want us to sleep outside? Like, now?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
She doesn't, and neither do Nathan or I. So moments later, the four of us are hauling all of our gear out of the bed of the truck—which, thankfully, is not submersed—and tossing it onto the ground. But there's a lot, and after a few bags have successfully hit the earth, Connor stops.
“Here, why don't Georgie and I take these bags and try to find us somewhere to set up?” he suggests. “You two can keep unloading, and we'll come back as soon as we spot something.”
Ava narrows her eyes. “Is this just a ploy to buy you two some alone time? Because if it is, I swear, I'll—”
“It's not, Ava. Scout's honor.”
“You sure it's a good idea to split up?” Nathan questions, frowning worriedly. Connor waves a dismissive hand.
“Yeah, totally. We're capable.” Then he casts a sidelong glance at me, his brow furrowing as he smirks. “Or at least: one of us is.”
~
“I hate nature,” I tell Connor, probably for the hundredth time since we set out two minutes ago.
He just rolls his eyes and says, “It could be worse. It could be snowing.”
I snort. Snow in California? In the middle of summer, no less? Yeah, right. Even now, despite the lack of sun, it must be at least eighty degrees. I can feel the sweat dripping down my neck and onto my tank-top.
Still, the idea of making this trek in a world of slippery white dust is infinitely worse. And it's not like this is too bad anyway, right? I mean, sure: it's dark, my sneakers are caked in dirt, and my exposed legs are easy prey for any hungry ticks or mosquitoes. But I'm alive, I have Connor, and as of yet, I haven't taken the inevitable spill that is bound to happen sometime in my future.
Wait—spoke too soon.
Because all of a sudden, the ground beneath my feet disappears, and I go pitching forward into a dark abyss of nothingness. My flashlight springs from my hands as I hit the ground, tumbling head over heels down a slope before coming to a rest in a patch of itchy grass. The heavy backpack on my shoulders is digging painfully into my spine. With a grunt, I shrug it off.
“Georgie! Georgie, are you all right?” A bobbing sphere of light comes hurrying toward me, with Connor's worried face illuminated behind it.
Groaning, I sit up, feeling around for my flashlight and clicking it on. My head does feel a little bit bruised, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. I've had worse falls, and not all of them have had landings as soft as this squishy, clothes-staining dirt.
“I'm fine,” I assure, getting to my feet with some assistance from a nearby tree.
Connor takes my hand, his eyes still anxious. “Are you sure you're okay? That was some fall. What happened?”
I open my mouth to respond, then wonder: what did happen? One moment, I was walking, the next, I was plummeting down a mountain at warp speed.
No matter that it was barely a hill, and I was moving no faster than a kid on their tricycle.
But Connor is still waiting for an answer, so I cough and point my flashlight up the incline. “I tripped,” I say bluntly. “On...that.”
Connor squints. “On what?”
“That! Don't you see it? Right there.” I wave my light for emphasis.
“No, Georgie, I'm afraid I don't see it.”
“Well, then, you're blind. I don't know how anyone could miss that speck of dirt. It was a monstrous little thing, really.”
With a shake of his head, Connor laughs and catches my waist, drawing me closer to him. “You, Georgie Howard, are hopeless,” he whispers into my ear. Then he kisses me, his lips meeting mine in an explosion of fireworks so bright that it's a wonder they don't set the forest on fire. When I pull away, breathless, my head is spinning.
Is that what hopeless people get? If so, I don't think I mind being hopeless.
You'd think that by now, two years after we started dating, I'd have gotten used to kissing Connor. But there's still something undeniably magical about the way it feels when our lips touch—and I'm fairly certain it won't go away anytime soon.
Just as I'm rising onto tiptoe for a second kiss, an unmistakable voice cuts into the silence. Ava. She's standing beside Nathan, both of them watching us with amused expressions. I blush furiously, but Connor seems to be stifling a laugh.
“Sorry to interrupt your little make-out session,” Ava says, not sounding sorry at all, “but can you two suck face some other time? We've got a camp to make.”
▪■▪■▪■▪■▪■▪
After a good eternity of schlepping an overplus of baggage through dirt, rocks, and grass, Connor spots a small clearing that looks surprisingly tame and orderly. By the time our journey is over, my unfit body is crying out in pain, my limbs ready to collapse beneath me and send me face-first into the soil. But, as I don't want to sleep right on the ground, and no amount of pleading can convince Connor to just carry me, I have to do the dirty work.
I have to help set up camp.
Prior to leaving home, as I was caught up in a whirlwind of packing and planning, Brandon told Mom to purchase a book for me: The Absolute Idiot's Guide to Wilderness Exploration.
Ha ha, very funny. (And seriously, what's with that name? Would it have been so difficult to call it something shorter, like “Camping for Dummies”?).
I, outraged at the insinuation that I'm of less than average intelligence, neglected to bring the book. Now, though, as Connor and I are standing here, attempting to set up a tent, I wish I'd packed that guide first thing.
It probably would have helped since, at the moment, our tent looks more like a collapsed parachute than something a person can actually sleep in.
“Any luck?” Ava questions. She and Nathan have spent the last ten minutes setting up lanterns and flashlights, as the idea of starting a fire does not appeal to any of us. The little clearing we found is lit up by a bunch of glowing yellow bulbs, bright enough to see, but too dim to do anything productive.
Such as, for example, looking for the instructions that are mysteriously missing from the tent box.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure there were any instructions to begin with. My mom purchased the contraption at a garage sale held by one of our shady neighbors, a man with caterpillar eyebrows who promised that the tent was state of the art.
Though, whatever state would call this crap art obviously has some issues.
“Nothing,” Connor reports, shaking his head. He has a metal pole in one hand and a fistful of canvas in the other, but neither of us have been able to make heads nor tails of where all these parts go.
“I'm not sure this is even a tent,” I add.
Connor releases the objects in his hands with a sigh, his features crumpling. I can tell that he hates not being able to figure this out—he can't stand feeling helpless. With a small smile of reassurance, I reach over and thread my fingers through his. Surprised, he looks up, and when he catches my eye, his face relaxes immediately. His eyes brighten, and he pulls me infinitesimally closer.
“Well,” Nathan states, taking no notice of us, “I guess that means we get to sleep under the stars, huh?”
My eyes widen, and I drop Connor's hand. “What do you mean 'under the stars'?” I demand. “As in, without a tent?”
My blond friend nods easily. “Mhm. Is there a problem?”
A problem? Oh, I can think of plenty of problems: worms in my underwear, bugs nesting in my hair, rattlesnakes strangling me as I sleep...
But everyone is staring at me, so I only nod and squeak, “No, not at all!”
And so, ten minutes later, after a makeshift dinner of Pringles and beef jerky, I find myself wriggling into a puffy sleeping bag seemingly intent on smothering me. Connor, Ava, and Nathan have managed fine—so why am I lying here with my legs cocooned in thick polyester?
“Georgie?” Connor says after a while, once I've been at it for a good forty seconds.
“Yes?”
“You know there's a zipper, right?”
I look down, and sure enough, a little metal bead is dangling from the edge of the fabric, glinting in the moonlight. Feeling my face heat up, I unzip the sleeping bag and climb inside without further incident.
We're all lined up in a row: Nathan, Ava, me, then Connor. The trees form a curtain above us, their boughs seeming to lean in and offer us shelter. Between the maze of branches, the moon is visible, surrounded by stars. It's much clearer than anything you'd ever see in a city, the image so crisp that I feel like I can reach out and take one of the tiny lights between my fingertips.
“Beautiful,” I murmur, soaking in the glow of the heavenly lights. We turned off all the lanterns and flashlights to save their batteries, so the stars and moon are the only things illuminating the clearing.
“Not as beautiful as you,” comes Connor's voice, right next to me. The words are cheesy as hell, but they still succeed in coaxing a grin onto my face. Somehow, Connor manages to shift so that his arms around me, my head against his shoulder and his hand tangled in my hair. I can feel his heartbeat, a steady, ubiquitous rhythm, and the tickling of his breath on my forehead.
We're in the middle of a forest in California, stuffed into suffocating sleeping bags despite the uncanny evening heat, but the moment is perfect nonetheless.
Beside me, I can hear the even breathing of Nathan and Ava: they've fallen asleep already, their foreheads pressed together and their hands entwined. I was so glad when they officially announced their relationship; like Connor and I, they're perfect for each other.
But unlike me, they seem to have had no trouble slipping into slumber. I wish I could be so lucky—no amount of restless shifting seems to bring the promise of sleep any closer to me. And, though I'm sure the uncomfortably hard ground plays a part in my insomnia, I can detect something else on my mind.
“Connor?” I whisper.
“Mm?” comes his sleepy response.
“I'm an idiot, aren't I?”
Silence for a moment. Then, “No, Georgie, of course you're not, you're—“
I cut him off, turning up my face so I can see his eyes. “I'm an idiot,” I affirm. “A complete, total, utter idiot. I got us lost in a state none of us have ever been to. I drove off the road because of a deer—a stupid deer. And, to top it off, I sent our car into a giant mud hole. Now, we can't call Brandon because there's no cell service, we're probably in the middle of nowhere and no one's ever gonna find us so we'll just wander around until we rot or get eaten by a bear or starve and it's really just hopeless no matter how you look at it, so I guess what I'm really trying to say is”—I pause, taking a deep breath—“is that I'm sorry. I wouldn't blame you if you broke up with me right now. This is all my fault, and I—”
I don't get to finish my apology, because Connor's lips are suddenly smashed against mine. Immediately, I'm taken back in time to Winter Formal two years ago, when he interrupted me in similar fashion.
I can't say that I mind it.
“You're not an idiot,” he says seriously, after we've pulled away. “Sure, you screwed up, but so do all of us. I promise you, we'll figure this out. And I'm not going to break up with you over something as silly as this, Georgie. You're the most important person in my life. And I love you.”
I melt into him, an overwhelming feeling of relief washing over me. “I love you, too,” I breathe.
And with that weight off my mind, sleep comes easily. Tiredness lowers my eyelids as I drift away to dreamland, releasing myself to slumber whilst wrapped in Connor's arms.
▪■▪■▪■▪■▪■▪
When I open my eyes the next morning, the first thing that registers is a feeling of wetness on my face, and a coarse scratching on my cheek. Bird poop? my mind thinks immediately. Snake venom? A crazy wilderness madman relieving himself on innocent campers?
The ideas grow in absurdity with every passing second, causing me to rocket to my feet. Unfortunately, the sun immediately assaults my unsuspecting eyes, streaming into my retina and filling my vision with haze. I lash out blindly at my soggy attacker, shrieking wildly, until a pair of hands grab my wrists and a familiar voice cheeps, “Auntie?”
When my sight finally clears, it's filled with the image of my brother, Brandon, with his two-year-old daughter Emily clinging to his back. She peers at me through her big chocolatey eyes, her curly brown hair a frenzy around her sweet face.
It's Brandon who's holding my arms together, and when he sees that I've recognized him, he releases me. Immediately, confusion floods my mind. Did someone get cell service? Is my big brother psychic? Or is it possible that this whole ordeal has been a dream weaved by my overactive imagination?
“Are you okay now, sis?” he asks carefully, as if expecting me to explode on him at any second.
“F-fine, yeah,” I manage. It's then that I notice the rest of the group, already awake and watching me with obvious amusement. Nathan has an arm slung around a giggling Ava, and Connor is standing beside Brandon, smirking. And beside Connor, big-eyed and loose-tongued, is Brandon and Macy's dog, Blue (named after the friendly azure protagonist of Emily's favorite show). Evidently, I've found the culprit to the slobbery drool still coating my face.
Blue gives me a guilty doggy smile.
But though that mystery has been solved, I still have no idea where my brother fits into it. I raise an eyebrow at the guy in question, who is trying to keep a straight face despite the child winding her arms around his neck.
“Um, Brandon? Not that I'm not totally happy to see you, but...why are you here?”
My brother's features rearrange themselves into a grin, and he says, “I should be the one asking you that, George. After all: you're in my backyard.”
I blink past the use of my cruel nickname and do a double take.
“Your backyard?” I demand. “But we're in the middle of nowhere!”
“Ah, but that is where you're wrong, little sister. The cabin is just over there, a few meters through the trees.”
“And we're in your backyard.”
“The whole forest is our backyard,” Brandon corrects, sweeping his arms around and making his daughter giggle. “This area specifically, though”—he smirks—“this is Blue's bathroom.”
As if in testament to that statement, the dog in question chooses that moment to relieve himself.
All over my sleeping bag.
~
About thirty minutes later, over steaming cups of Macy's homemade hot chocolate, Brandon pores over the maps. He determines that somehow, in a fit of idiocy, I managed to drive us down the completely incorrect route intended to get us to the cabin. But, by some stroke of luck, that path also led in the right direction—it just took an extremely long, roundabout way to do so.
“So,” my brother concludes, sipping from his mug, “you messed up big time, George. But at least you're here.”
Macy comes up behind Brandon's chair, her brown hair shimmering as she flashes her husband an affectionate smile. “But, Georgie?” she adds. “I think on the way back, you should let someone else drive.”
The rest of the table erupts into laughter, and I feel my face turn tomato red. Apparently, even around my friends and family, I can't shake my obscene blushing habit.
“It's okay, babe,” Connor declares, taking my hand. “I still love you.”
A thousand fallen leaves kick up in my stomach at that simple admission, swirling wildly against my ribcage. My boyfriend—my best friend—gives me a look that turns my knees to jelly (thank God I'm sitting down), conveying all of his affection into a single glance.
“Love you, too,” I reply.
Just then, Emily toddles over, a smile on her round little face. “Smelly, Auntie,” she says, wrinkling her nose. Her tiny fist reaches into my long hair and extracts a stray twig. It does, in fact, smell, and when she deposits it on the table in front of me, I realize why: the entire two inch length of the branchlet in encased in—oh God, please no—a dark brown substance that reeks unmistakably of dog poop.
A giant groan escapes my lips.
“Oh, gross,” Ava says from beside me, already searching my hair for more excrement. I sit, unamused, as my friends meticulously retrieve a seemingly endless supply of poop-encrusted twigs and pebbles from my blonde locks, laughing all the while.
And at this point, I know one thing for sure: camping should come with an instruction booklet.