“Thanks.” There’s a clatter of the screen door behind me and she’s gone. Must have something else she needed to do.
“Looks like you got hit pretty hard,” Mabel says, patting the cot with one hand. “Come sit down and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
I sit, feeling a little clearer. I’ll probably have some bruises from the fall, but I don’t think I’ve got anything worse than a scratch on the rest of my body.
“What happened?” she asks, wetting a cotton pad with something that stings and gently cleaning the blood from my face.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I stepped out of my cabin and then I was on the ground. I think someone ran into me by accident.”
She sighs, but she’s smiling. “Probably one of the boys. We keep telling them to slow down or somebody will get hurt. Maybe this will make them take it seriously.”
“Maybe…Maybe not.” I think about the boy with the blue eyes. He did seem really concerned.
Mabel finishes cleaning the blood from my face and touches my nose softly. I wince, but it’s not the worst pain that I’ve ever felt. “Hmm,” she says, “bear with me.”
She runs her fingers along the bridge, pressing at intervals and watching my reaction. “I don’t think it’s broken. You’ll have some swelling and bruising, but you should be fine in a couple of days. I can give you a bandage if you like.”
Of course this would happen. On the first day of camp I end up being the girl with the giant bandage on her nose. I could be in Paris right now.
Stop. I halt the thoughts before they can go further. There’s no point in wishing for what might have been. Absolutely no point. “If you think I need it,” I say, but I don’t manage to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“I think you’ll be okay with just icing it for a couple of days.”
It’s a gift she’s offering, like a little drop of sunshine. “Really?”
Mabel nods. “If it were broken, I’d insist on the bandage. But ice it today and tonight and come back and see me tomorrow. We’ll make sure it’s not anything more serious.”
“Okay.”
She crosses to one of the shelves and pulls another camp shirt off the shelf. “Here. Change into this and I’ll wash that one for you. I’ll give it back to you when you visit tomorrow.”
I step behind a screen in the corner and pull off my shirt and slip into the new one. “Thanks.”
“It’s no trouble, dear. Is the one who knocked you down all right?”
Shaking my head, I hand her the shirt. “I don’t know. If I see him again, I’ll ask.”
She smiles. “Tell him to come see me regardless. Can’t be too careful.”
“I will.”
Mabel crosses the cabin to the refrigerator and opens the top door to the freezer and hands me a small ice pack. “As much as possible. But don’t freeze your nose off.”
As I step out of the cabin back into the sun, I see him. The boy in question. He’s a little ways down the path, waiting, and he looks nervous. Now that I’m more clear, I’m frustrated. Even when you’re running, how hard is it to not run into someone? You have to be really not paying attention.
I don’t really want to talk to him—no matter how attractive he is—but I know that it’s going to happen at some point. Might as well get it over with now. I press the ice pack to my nose. It stings.
He spies me coming down the path and straightens up, looking me up and down like he expects to find a cast on my arms or something.
“She wants to see you,” I say. “To make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. I’m more worried about you. Are you all right?” He winces. “Is it broken.”
I could tell him yes and make him feel worse, but he already looks miserable. “No, it’s not broken. Just icing for a couple of days.”
The relief on his face is plain. “I’m glad.” Then he holds out my notebook and pen. I had forgotten I had them—must have dropped them when he knocked me over. Sitting on top of it is a red Starburst.
I take the notebook, and the candy. “Where were you going?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you knocked me over, where were you going?” What I’m trying to ask him: what was so important that you were so absorbed in running that you weren’t looking in front of you?
His cheeks blush, and in spite of myself, I notice that it’s cute. He’s cute. More than that. He might be the most attractive guy I’ve ever spoken to in real life, and I wish that I wasn’t mad at him.
“Yeah…” he clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to knock you down like that. I was mainly just trying to get you out of the way.”
I shake my head, which presses my nose too hard into the ice and I suck in a breath. “What are you talking about?”
He runs his hand through his hair and it leaves it just disheveled enough that I wonder what it would be like to put my own fingers through it. “A few of us were throwing a baseball around near that cabin, and you came out right as one of us missed the throw. It was going to hit you, and I didn’t want that, so I ran at you.
“My plan was just to move you out of the way, but I was too fast. I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Oh. Oh. Well, my eyes had been closed. I would have no idea if a baseball was hurtling towards me. And it’s entirely possible that that would have caused more damage than a bloody nose. “Well thank you for that.”
I unwrap the candy he put on my notebook, a tiny acceptance of his peace offering. We stand across from each other, awkward silence hanging between us. “It could have been a lot worse,” I say.
“I’m glad it wasn’t.”
“Me too.”
He slips his hands into his pockets and looks at me, and again I’m struck by how blue his eyes are. How striking the color is against his dark hair. “What’s your name?”
“Persephone,” I tell him. “My friends call me Seph.”
One corner of his mouth pulls up into a smile. “Well, hello, Seph,” he says, boldly declaring himself my friend. “My name is Eric.”
I don’t know what possesses me to smile, but I do.
4
Eric
Present
Seph is here. It’s the three words that have been rattling around in my brain for the last day. All the way through settling into my cabin and through last night’s orientation. I could see her across the room, her presence something I couldn’t ignore.
All through the evening when I could barely sleep, thinking about the fact that she’s here. And I woke up thinking about it too. My eyes popped open before the sun with those words on my mind.
It all seems so perfect. I wasn’t supposed to be here, and yet I am. And now that she’s here too, it’s like fate is giving us a do-over. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.
It’s entirely possible that there’s too much between us now for the stars to align in a way that gives us a second a chance. But we have the summer, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to take this chance. No matter how much I’ve pushed away the reality of this, I’ve wanted it.