The Rules of Regret

by Megan Squires

  “Looks-wise you’re alright,” he continued, twisting his shorts between his fists to squeeze the water out of them. He laid them across an empty space on the granite rock. The smiley faces continued to mock me like they were actually capable of teasing me with their oversized grins. “But you’re too stubborn. I don’t like that in a girl.”

  I stood there—speechless—for longer than I should have, but the shock that Torin had stripped down to his underwear like it was a totally normal thing froze me in my place. I literally had to shake my head to toss off the gaping expression draped across my face. Nothing about this was normal. It wasn’t often that I had guys stripping down to their skivvies for me.

  “Okay. So I’m decent looking and stubborn.”

  “Pretty much.”

  I balled up my swimsuit in my hands and flipped around to face the river. “Well, you happen to be really blunt.” Recalling the murkiness of the water, I slipped into it until I was up to my shoulders. With my back turned, I pulled my top over my head, and then tucked it between my legs to keep it from floating away as I fastened my bikini top.

  I stole a glance over my shoulder. Torin wasn’t even looking my direction. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. Wouldn’t every normal nineteen-year-old guy be tempted to check out a half-naked girl just twenty feet away? But then again, I’d already established that nothing about Torin was normal. He didn’t even have a normal name. (In all fairness, neither did I, but this diatribe was directed toward him, not me.)

  Maybe he wasn’t into girls. Maybe that was his deal. It actually made me feel a little better to think that. Honestly, whatever it was, it shouldn’t have had any effect on me one way or the other. Who Torin was—or wasn’t—interested in did not involve me in any way, shape or form. I tried to feed myself the lie, but it truly tasted awful.

  I pulled off my shorts and slipped my bottoms on, then resurfaced and walked toward Torin with more movement in my hips than I displayed during our hike earlier this afternoon. He was still completely unfazed, and I blushed at my failing attempt at mild seduction. I seriously sucked at this.

  “Are you gay, Torin?”

  “Excuse me?” He angled his face up toward mine, the sunlight streaking his blond hair.

  “Are you gay?” I chucked the remainder of my wet clothing at him, and he caught it against his stomach like a football. “Because I was just naked out there in the water and you didn’t even so much as glance my direction. I thought you wanted to see my colorful body art. Totally missed your chance, dude.”

  Torin placed my shirt and shorts on the rock and then strode over to me, stopping just inches from my face. His lips were pressed tightly together, pinching something back that I figured he wanted to say but knew he shouldn’t, and he propped both hands on his hips disapprovingly. “You gave me very clear instructions not to look. And like I said before, you’re off limits.”

  His breath swept across my cheek and I found myself averting my eyes, trying not to make contact with his. Unfortunately they were this unique green color with flecks of gold in them and were unlike any I’ve seen before, which sort of made me inherently unable to avoid them. “I make it a habit to not tempt myself with things that can get me in trouble,” he continued to explain. “A wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.”

  I ignored the last offbeat remark (I assumed it was another infamous quote), and said, “So you were tempted?” I had no idea where all of this boldness came from, or what I was doing exactly.

  Maybe this was flirting. It felt like it might be. But it had been so many years since I’d flirted with anyone that it just felt awkward and unnatural. And wrong, because even though Lance hadn’t always been faithful, that wasn’t like it gave me the green light to start interacting with other guys this way. I’d never believed in an eye for an eye, even when Lance’s had done too much wandering.

  “Just like I’m not attracted to stubbornness, I’m not especially attracted to brunettes.”

  “But I’m a redhead.”

  “No,” Torin said, his tone riddled with condescension. “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes,” I tried again, “I am.”

  “Darby, you’re definitely not a redhead.” He slunk his arms across his chest. He was still just in his smiley face boxers, and I forced my eyes to stay focused on his actual face and not the rest of him, no matter how much it felt like everything was pulling them down. I wasn’t sure if it was sweat or leftover trails of water that slithered down his chest to the ripples of his abdomen, but it was there and it made me sweat, too, but not at all in the sexy way he was sweating. My feet and armpits and hands were all coated with an embarrassing amount of perspiration. “I’ll give you auburn, but that’s it.”

  “I’m a redhead, and I’ve got the freckles to match,” I asserted, tugging my hiking boots onto my feet and tossing my tennis shoes aside. I tightened the laces around my ankles with angry effort, binding them like a corset onto my legs.

  “Since when?” Torin scanned me up and down, his eyes dragging over my body. “Maybe when you were twelve.” He leaned his upper half forward and squinted his eyes as he transferred his gaze to my face. “But I can hardly see any freckles and your hair is definitely more brown than red.” Dropping down to where his bag rested, Torin pulled out a pair of jeans from within it. It made me just as uncomfortable watching him dress as it did watching him undress, and I pinned my eyes to the ground while he zipped and buttoned his pants. They settled low onto his waist but the muscular curve of his hip peeked out the top, distracting me with its perfect definition and tone. “I’m not sure where you get your self-image,” he continued, “but it needs to be updated. Along with your maturity. Because the girl I’m looking at right now clearly isn’t the same one you see when you look in the mirror.”

  “You think there’s something wrong with my self-image?” My feet felt heavy and my ankles were tight, the bulk of the boots unnaturally disproportionate to the lack of weight of clothing on the rest of my body. I slung the backpack onto my shoulders again, grateful for what little odd balance it provided.

  In one swift gesture, Torin tossed his bag over his shoulder, too, and stepped back onto the trail, a cloud of dust billowing around his feet. “I think you’re lost and I think you’ve become someone else’s creation.” He took over the lead, commanding me to follow not with vocal instruction, but with his no-nonsense stride that confidently navigated the dirt path. He was definitely the lead dog.

  “You mean Lance’s creation.”

  “I mean whoever it is that makes you believe you aren’t capable of creating your own identity.”

  There was a time when a statement like that would have readied me for combat. When such an accusation would have ignited a defense to spew out through aggressive words and justifications. But I had nothing. I opened my mouth to contest his assertion, but I was firing blanks. I prayed for an original comeback, some thought that was my own, but the abyss that held my repertoire of retaliations was empty. Which could only mean one thing.

  He was absolutely right.

  After trailing him like a sad little puppy for the following ten minutes, I finally gained the courage to speak. “I’m not interested in reinventing myself.”

  “Whatever, Darby.” Torin’s feet fell in heavy steps. I was beginning to think they should have labeled this a survival marathon rather than overnighter because all we’d truly done was walk up and down the wilderness trails with absolutely no purpose in our actions. I was going to pay for this day in the form of ugly blisters developing on my tired feet. “Sometimes things are set in motion and it’s too late to stop them from continuing, from perpetuating. It’s called inertia.”

  “Inertia, huh?” I knew what inertia is. And I knew what he was insinuating. That this trip would change me. That I would somehow come out different on the other end. That the Darby that signed up as a counselor was not the same woman that would leave this mountaintop. My reinvention was well underway.
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br />   I got it. But what I didn’t get—nor remotely understood—were the other things that were set in motion, the ones that I seemed to have no control over: my fluttering heart, my flustered mind, and my wandering eyes. But I wasn’t about to admit to those, not about to admit to this separate ball that he had somehow set rolling.

  I had to find a way to stop it in its tracks.

  Unfortunately, I was beginning to think it had already gotten away from me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I’m cold,” I murmured, rolling onto my side. The blankets bunched up under my legs, tangling them like a fabric web.

  “C’mere.” Lance curled an arm across my chest and hooked me toward him, just like every other night. I never knew why he wouldn’t let me run the space heater. He mentioned once that his grandma’s caught on fire, and he was constantly touting how unsafe they were. But honestly, even the warmest evening on the peninsula still called for heat during the cold hours of night. Luckily, Lance’s body served as quite the sufficient blanket.

  He pulled himself playfully over me, pressing down so our hips met and our chests were merely inches apart. This was so like him. “I can think of another way to get warm,” he crooned in my ear. Middle of the night make-out session—totally Lance’s thing. While I was usually up for it, for some reason tonight I was more exhausted than usual, like my body had already spent its quota of energy for the day and I had nothing left. I was on empty.

  I pressed a hand to his arm. “Not tonight, Lance,” I said quietly. “I’m really tired.”

  “Alright.” He planted a chaste kiss on my forehead and I instantly knew what it meant.

  That this was all a dream.

  There was no way Lance would be that easily satisfied with my request. He’d push to the point of begging, and I’d end up surrendering because in reality, making out took less energy than trying to argue my point with Lance.

  “G’night,” he slurred against my cheek, his lips wet. I pulled back to slide toward my edge of the bed, but, knowing that this was a dream, I decided to steal one more kiss before this fabricated reality was yanked away with the rising sun. I hadn’t seen, nor talked to Lance in days, and though dreaming wasn’t the same, it temporarily filled that gap. The withdrawals had been too much; I needed another fix.

  I drug my fingers across his jaw and took his chin between my palms. He was completely asleep, breathing heavily against my mouth, warm air rushing steadily in and out. I was surprised by how solid he felt, how my fingertips sensed his skin just under them. Though the outline of his face and features flashed across my mind in hologram-like form, he physically felt real and tangible. I slid closer to him, hauling myself over his body to straddle him. Lance loved when I took charge, but rarely let things stay that way. He was a control freak in every area of his life. Our relationship being a very large area.

  But since this was my dream, I decided to play it out the way I wanted. That meant having the upper hand, so I did just that. Still sitting on his waist, I bent over and brought my mouth to his, stopping just before our lips met, hovering an inch over him. I pressed both palms to his chest and Lance brought his hands to my arms, stroking them up and down with slow, deliberate movement. The fine hairs on my skin rose as he swept gently toward my elbow.

  I liked this Lance of my dreams. He was so much more aware and responsive than the one that existed in reality. But I guessed that was to be expected—that my subconscious would create the perfect fit; the perfect version of my already near-perfect boyfriend.

  I lessened the space and surrendered my mouth to his. At first he acted surprised, which I guess was fitting since I had just denied his earlier advances. After a moment’s hesitation, his lips softened, the firm pressure receded, and they became putty against my own. Putty that I had the ability to mold and shape through pressure and guidance.

  I pulled his bottom lip into my mouth, surprised when I felt the effects of the act deep in my stomach. My breath and heart rate spiked, and I assumed Lance heard it because he reacted noticeably, pressing against me, deepening the connection.

  It was all so vivid, so real, yet at the same time, so dream-like because this wasn’t how Lance typically acted. This was how I’ve always wanted Lance to act. I’ve wanted him to take things slow, and to read my cues and respond. But that wasn’t Lance. It never had been, and after six years, I was fairly certain it never would be.

  Sliding off of him, I kept my mouth on his until the last moment when I pulled away to creep to my side of the mattress. A cold gust of air swept across my face and I reached to tug the covers closer, tucking myself under the fabric until just the tops of my ears were exposed.

  It was freezing tonight. Lance must have left the window open again; the frigid chill that skated over my skin felt just like the night breeze that rolled in off the misty ocean. He loved to fall asleep to the distant sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, but I found it almost impossible to sleep when my body temperature was equivalent to the actual temperature outside.

  Annoyed, I pushed the sleep that hung over my eyes and fogged my brain and shook my head, forcing the lingering effects away. The bed was firm. Hard, not like usual. I ran my hand across its surface and felt the bumps under my fingers. Rocks.

  Oh God.

  My heart propelled against my ribs, vibrating more than beating, because the pulse was so quick there was no way individual beats could even be detected. It was just a fluttering, racing mess.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Torin’s dirty blond hair peeked out above the nylon edge of the sleep sack; his chest rose and fell steadily. Trees climbed skyward around us, outlined by the white glow of the full moon that hung with the stars above.

  Shoving a hand through my hair, I tried to remember how I got here. We’d hiked for more hours than I could count, ultimately ending up back at our makeshift clothes-drying station. Luckily, nearly all of my belongings had a chance to dry. All except for my sleeping bag. Of course.

  Torin was right. The forest did get noticeably colder once the sun went down. And while he’d offered me his bag, I couldn’t take him up on it with a clear conscience. He’d made dinner—rainbow trout caught in the nearby stream—set up our campsite, and pretty much did everything while I trailed quietly behind him like a sheep following her shepherd. I told him we’d share, but only under the condition that he’d join me once I was fast asleep. Something felt wrong about lying down with another guy, even though Lance had done the same with a girl named Lindsay just a few months back. But I didn't want to be like that, so I determined that falling asleep on my own and then having Torin slip into the sleeping bag later made sense. It didn’t feel like cheating; it seemed innocently necessary.

  But nothing was innocent about the tingle that pulsated on my lips. I drug my finger across them, and they were still swollen and tender. I knew I had some pretty darn realistic dreams in the past, but usually the feelings they invoked disappeared the moment my eyes flickered open. They didn’t hang around, and even when I had tried to fall back asleep to continue the dream, I’d never been successful. Dreams didn’t last. They got sucked away into the void of night where illusions and fantasies existed.

  Torin shuffled and rotated over in one swoop, his face inches from mine. Though the sleeping bag was big—definitely made for two people—there was no denying the fact that we were zipped up in the same space, and even if I had wanted to gain some distance, I wouldn’t be able to.

  But what confused me the most was that I didn’t want to at all.

  “Darby?” Torin murmured. I trapped in my breath and clenched my eyes, wondering if his voice was a figment of my imagination. There were a lot of sounds in this forest: owls hooting from their perches overhead, squirrels rustling in the brush nearby. For all I knew, that could be a mountain lion crunching down the leaves under his paws just a few feet from us. Somehow, even that was less scary than the thought that Torin was aware of my presence in his sleeping bag. I wondered just how aware
he actually was.

  He shifted closer to me, the bag buckling between us. I pulled the fabric to my face, covering my mouth up to my eyes the way I did with my blanket when Sonja and I watched horror films. “Night, Darby,” he murmured again.

  “Night,” I croaked, still not resuming my normal breathing pattern. And when Torin’s lips met mine, I knew my breathing wouldn’t fall back into its usual rhythm any time soon.

  I wanted to pull back—I knew I should pull back—but I didn’t. And the fact that I didn’t made something in my gut twist with a guilty sickness that threatened to eject from my lips. I bit it back.

  Torin’s mouth was soft, warm, and familiar. Without a doubt, I knew I’d felt it before and that my dream from earlier wasn’t all an illusion. Half of it might have been, with the thought that those were Lance’s lips tangled with mine. But the other part—the very real, physical part—was in no way fabricated. It was acted out like a play, however unintentionally, and Torin was Lance’s understudy. I really wanted him to take center stage.

  I closed my eyes. I needed to stop. But I didn’t. Instead, I willed myself to sleep again, willed myself back into slumber. Because that was the only thing about this that would make it okay—if I was still sleeping, unconscious of the things my body was doing.

  But I wasn’t asleep. I was wide-awake and aware. Hyper aware, in fact, of all of my senses. Torin’s mouth continued to press into mine, and his palms lifted to cradle my jaw. He was so gentle and so cautious that the “mountain man” term I’d used earlier to describe him was a total misnomer.