Page 104 of Wildfire
“So when will you see each other again?” Sadia is next to start messing with my hair.
Little girls are like monkeys when it comes to hair.
“We go to the same college, so we’re going to see each other when we’re back at school.” It isn’t a lie. Russ and I haven’t fully talked about what happens when we’re both back at UCMH. We still haven’t talked about what we are, which is pathetic at this point considering we’ve spent sixteen hours a day together for ten weeks. We just know that we’re both going to be there and we’re both not ready to say good-bye to this. “Why don’t you go ask him to tell you a secret?”
The girls sprint toward Russ, grabbing him as he tries to ref the game. He crouches to their height and they lean in whispering the message. He looks right at me through the space between them, smiling, and even though I can’t see much of his face, I just know I’d be able to see his dimples if I was close enough.
God, I was never supposed to be this obsessed.
I watch him whisper a reply and they giggle before running back to me. Sadia reaches me first. “He said he’s excited to see you at college and to ask you for one.”
“Hmm.” I tap my lips and pretend to think. “My secret is I have a really big crush on Russ.”
I expect them both to squeal and laugh and get excited, the waythey do over basically everything. Freya’s hands go to her hips. “That isn’t a secret. Everyone knows that.”
“Yeah,” Sadia echoes. “You love him. Tell us a real secret.”
I didn’t expect to get called out by children today. “Okay, okay. My secret is I want to do this all again next year.”
They run back and I watch them almost crash into him. He smiles, looking over at me briefly, before saying something. The girls run back over to me, panting after all the back and forth. Freya sits down beside me. “He said ‘where you go, I go.’ These aren’t secrets, you two should just talk to each other.”
She has a point. “Brown Bears,” Jenna yells, appearing with her clipboard. “You’re up!”
How long would I be able to get away with refusing to let them go?
“Go grab your jackets and backpacks, girls,” Emilia says as she reappears from the main building. We watch them run toward the rest of the group; Emilia wraps an arm around me. “You okay?”
“What if I just keep them all?”
“I think their parents will have an issue with that,” she says softly. “Three of them asked me yesterday if you’ll be back next year. They really love you, Ror. They were scared to ask you in case you said no.”
“I love them all. Even Leon. Even though he’s an asshole.”
The counselors here were such a huge part of my childhood that hearing my kids like me and want me to come back has a huge impact. I needed to come back to heal part of me that was just a little bit too broken. I’m going back to LA feeling like a new person, and I truly don’t think I could have achieved that anywhere else.
“Poppy told me what you did.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. Poppy and I had a very serious conversation where I warned her if she told Emilia I paid for and arranged her Europe trip that I’d put spiders in her bed until we graduate. “Please tell Poppy she brought what comes next on herself.”
“You didn’t have to do that, Ror.” Gift giving is this awkward thing between Emilia and me that we dance around. Usually I go too far and she has to give me a lecture about me not needing to buy her love, and how calling something a love language doesn’t give me a free pass to do what I want. “But thank you so much.”
“You’ve been very understanding this summer while I’ve been… preoccupied.”
“Sorry, do we need to recap all of my relationships you’ve held my hand through? The late-night pickups? Not judging me when I got back together with Sawyer for, like, the third time?”
“We don’t have enough time to recap; you have to catch a flight to London tomorrow morning.”
She hits my arm playfully. “You deserve someone who looks at you like you’re the only thing on this entire planet. I would move a million days off if you got to be happy. You needed someone to prove to you that you’re worth it, and for what it’s worth, I’m glad it’s Russ. Even if he is a man.”
“Jesus Christ, Emilia. You know being sad makes me horny.”
“You are so fucking weird sometimes. Come on, my little lovebug. Time to say good-bye to Honey Acres for a year.”
THINGS ARE EERILY QUIET ASwe all sit around the fire next to the lake, full from eating the pizza Orla bought for us to say thank you for all our hard work. The chefs at camp are excellent, but there’s something about a veggie pizza from Dom’s Pizzeria in Meadow Springs that can’t be beaten.
After we waved off our campers, we got to work putting away the various equipment around the site for next summer. Emilia and I had to do double the work because Russ and Xander spent an hour having an emotional good-bye with Fish, Salmon, and Trout. I think it got to the point where even the dogs were over it before the guys were.
After Orla’s closing meeting earlier, we’re officially not employees anymore, and she finished by saying she didn’t want to find any beer bottles tomorrow morning. My eyebrow quirked and Jenna immediately rolled her eyes at me before mouthing “free pass.”
