Sun Kissed (Camp Boyfriend)

by Joanne Rock

  “Will you stop?” Siobhan hissed at me as we headed for the big rafts pulled up on the banks of the Nantahala River.

  We’d already listened to a presentation about the rapids and knew what to expect on today’s run that was only for the middle and senior campers. The buses had dropped us off in Nantahala Gorge and would meet up with us downriver for the second part of our adventure—foraging for food and making some lean-tos to supplement the tents we’d brought.

  For now, though, we would get suited up and hit the water.

  “Stop what?” Distracted, I chewed my lip as I watched Seth horse around with some of his friends, working on sword moves with Julian using a pair of sticks. The two of them battled like fencing masters until Bam-Bam told them to suit up for the trip. It had been raining the last two days, canceling a lot of camp activities, so we were all glad to be out of the cabins.

  “Biting your lip. There’s not going to be anything left of it,” Alex explained, coming up on my other side, while we strapped on our life vests and tested the rescue whistles. “What if Seth gets back together with you today? You won’t have anything to kiss him with.”

  I knew she was trying to cheer me out of my gloomy mood, but it was tough to stay upbeat when Seth purposely kept an acre or two of space between us at all times. I felt like we were junior campers again and this was my week to have the cooties.

  “I think Seth is making it very clear that it’s over between us and I blew it.” This summer had gone from best to worst in one horrible moment.

  “I don’t think so.” Alex snapped her gum and reached over to tighten the straps on my life vest after I’d only made a halfhearted attempt. “And his friends don’t seem to think so either.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  She wiggled her eyebrows like she had a big secret and wasn’t telling me.

  “Just what I said,” she teased, telling me nothing at all and then hurrying off toward the rafts.

  “Wait,” I called, darting around Hannah and Brittany, who were tying their T-shirts into knots at their waists.

  “Still chasing boys?” Hannah asked me, glancing my way as I ran past. “You’ll have to run a lot faster,” she shouted at my back.

  Not that I paid any attention to her. I wanted to make sure my friends weren’t scheming to get Seth and me together. It would only make Seth resent me more.

  “Hurry!” Trinity called to Alex up near the first two rafts.

  As I caught up to my cabin mates, I realized what they were doing. The Wander Inn boys had divided between the first two rafts since the guides had told us to split up the girls and boys. The Munchies’ Manor girls then filled in the remaining seats. Except for one.

  In the same boat as Seth.

  Right next to Seth.

  I stared at that one open slot with a mixture of longing and horror. Of course I wanted to sit next to him. But not if he didn’t want to be near me. My eyes flashed to his—the first time I’d met his gaze in a week—but he was already on his feet, demanding one of the other guys, Danny, switch spots with him.

  Hurt all over again, I glared at Trinity and Siobhan, the other Munchies’ Manor girls in the same boat as me. The raft full of my other friends was already being dragged out into the water by Bam-Bam and Julian, probably at Julian’s urging, to ensure Seth couldn’t coerce one of those guys to swap seats with him. Alex’s earlier comment about the guys not thinking we were over made me wonder if they were all in on a plan to get Seth and me back together. Even Danny had refused to give up his spot.

  “Ready for Patton’s Run, rafters?” Susannah’s eyes danced with excitement. She was the token counselor in our boat and she waved her oar in the air. “Don’t forget the river is high today from all the rain. So be safe, and let’s go!”

  “Sorry,” Trinity mumbled from her place behind me.

  Seth shoved us off, sat back down, and slid as far from me as the small space allowed. I turned so he wouldn’t see how much that gesture hurt.

  “It’s okay.” I lied, hating the confirmation I now had that Seth didn’t want to be anywhere near me. Still.

  But in the next half hour, I tried hard to put it out of mind. The day was beautiful and I loved camp. I would regret it if I let the breakup ruin my whole summer, right? We started off slow, enjoying hints of the clearing sky through the trees in the deep gorge. On the first section of the river, the water was high but easy enough to paddle through.

  In fact, we sped past the other boat full of Munchies girls and Wander Inn boys, splashing them on the way. Alex shot me a hopeful glance as I went past, but I shook my head to let her know—

  No luck with Seth.

  “Get ready, campers,” Susannah shouted a minute later. “Looks like our first set of rapids.”

  Ahead of us, the river churned white down one of the falls. I’d been over Patton’s Run before, but this didn’t look anything like what I remembered. High water had transformed it.

  “We’d better get to the side,” Seth called from the back.

  I shot a glance at Susannah to see if she agreed. Seth might only be fifteen, but he’d spent every summer of his life here. His grandparents owned the camp. Personally, I’d trust his opinion before my counselor’s.

  Susannah’s white-lipped nod was enough for me to start rowing hard toward the west side of the gorge. Cold water splashed my face and behind my glasses, blinding me for a second. I had a helmet but no goggles. When I opened my eyes again, we were headed straight toward the rocky bank.

  Danny had to come to my side of the boat to help me row. All the while, Seth was shouting, but with the sudden rush of water, it was impossible to hear anything but Trinity screaming and the gurgle of the rapids.

  “Other side! Other side!”

  Seth’s words finally penetrated my brain, but maybe that was just because I suddenly saw what was dead ahead of us. A small fallen tree in the water.

  An obstacle to avoid at all costs.

  Digging my oars in with every ounce of my strength, I tried to steer the raft away from the tree. Too late.

  The front edge got sucked into a swirling eddy beneath the trunk, yanking the raft—and me—down. Hard.

  I slipped. Dropped my oar and slid straight toward the powerful suction action of the water underneath the tree.

  “Hold on!” Strong arms wrapped around my waist, keeping me from disappearing into the churning rapids.

  One leg was already out of the boat, my skin shredding against tree bark until the raft—miraculously—shifted out from under the tree. The river spat out our raft as if it were a watermelon seed on the Fourth of July.

  I fell into the center of the raft, Seth’s hands still gripping me. I guess we fell together. He had saved me.

  My friends didn’t even look at us, their faces tense as they concentrated on steering the boat out of trouble to the other side of the rapids. But even now I felt the craft steady somewhat.

  “Are you okay?” Seth pushed my hair out of my face and I wondered why he was so blurry.

  “My glasses.” I blinked away the water, wondering if he only asked because he was a good person or if, somehow, he cared just a little.

  Seth glanced around the boat, sitting up. Letting go of me.

  Immediately, I regretted asking about the dumb glasses. I had liked feeling his hands on me again. Even if he’d only touched me to save my life. I realized I was shaking.

  “Her glasses went in the water,” Trinity said as the boat hit the bank on the opposite side. Her breath hitched and a small sob escaped. “I saw them but I didn’t dare let go of a paddle—”

  “You did the right thing,” Susannah reassured her, voice soothing while the boys jumped out to drag the raft to safe ground. “We’re all okay, but I need to call Bam-Bam and the others to warn them—”

  “Ohmigod, here they come,” Siobhan said as we all turned around to watch.

  I couldn’t see clearly, but I knew well enough to watch the big y
ellow blob of a raft as it turned down rapids that were way too high.

  “They’re on the safe side of the river,” Seth said with a certainty that helped me relax a little. “Plus they have Julian up front. They’ll be fine.”

  In the background, I heard Susannah on her cell phone with Rob, the Warriors’ counselor. He would make sure the others didn’t come down the falls. It sounded like they were also going to call back to the rafting outfitters to let them know a tree was down in the water.

  “I was so scared for you, Lauren.” Siobhan’s arm went around my shoulders while the others ran over to Bam-Bam’s raft to help them pull it up onto the shore near ours.

  “Me too.” Although I probably hadn’t been as scared as I might have been if I’d had more time to process what was happening. “It all happened so fast.”

  “She should sit down,” Seth called over, prompting Siobhan to lead me to a flat rock nearby.

  The next few minutes passed in confusing snatches of conversation while the campers from our boat filled in the others on what had happened. Alex hugged me and Jackie clapped Danny on the back and told him he’d done well getting the boat out of there.

  “Seth is a hero,” Trinity announced.

  He was waving it off—was saving my life really not a big deal?—when Susannah chimed in.

  “He’s definitely a hero.” She wrapped her arm through Seth’s and gave it a squeeze. “And we’re going to have a party to celebrate.”

  My ears perked up even though I still shivered. A murmur of excitement went through the crowd.

  “Party?” I exchanged surprised looks with my friends. Maybe there’d be a bright side to this disaster of a day after all.

  Bam-Bam stepped up on a rock to speak to us, the sound of the rushing water less deafening but still noisy.

  “Since you were robbed of your rafting trip, and we had one hell of a scare to boot—” Bam-Bam patted Susannah on the shoulder “—your counselors have made an executive decision to make camp right here in the Nantahala Gorge.”

  Cheers went up all around. Even from me. My eyes went to Seth where he stood next to Julian and Garrett. He was smiling. And, amazingly, he didn’t stop grinning when our eyes locked.

  New hope awoke inside of me. I didn’t expect him to be my boyfriend again after the way I’d hurt him. But if we could still save our friendship … that really would be worth celebrating.

  Beside me, Alex squeezed my arm. “Hottie camper dude checking you out, Laur.”

  “I can hardly believe my eyes,” I whispered back. “I was afraid it was because I didn’t have my glasses on.”

  After giving us a few more instructions about crossing the footbridge downstream with the rafts, Bam-Bam outlined a plan to meet up with the Divas and Warriors on the other side of the river. There was camping all along the gorge, and it was close enough to civilization that the counselors were ordering pizzas for us. No foraging tonight. I had a feeling the party was as much for Susannah as it was for Seth’s heroics. She must have been terrified at the thought of something happening to the kids she’d been supervising. Bam-Bam spent most of the trek to the bridge talking to her.

  An hour later, we were still putting up the tents from our buses while some of the guys still wanted to build lean-tos as planned. Of course, people like Seth and Julian could probably create a weatherproof shelter out of toothpicks and newspaper. They just had that ability. But me? I was so glad to have a tent. Even more glad when Alex and Jackie insisted they wanted to put mine up for me after the tough day I’d had.

  Although, maybe they just didn’t want my help since I couldn’t see all that well without my glasses and had twice put the tent stakes in the wrong loops.

  “Seriously, girlfriend.” Alex put one hand on her bony hip as the tent collapsed for the second time, and shook a finger in my face. “Why don’t you let the experts handle the tent building while you go… you know… show your hero some love?”

  I glanced over my shoulder to where Seth and Julian were twining together pine branches for roofs on their lean-tos. I could tell whose shelter was whose because Julian had used his walking stick as a support for one wall and his cape as a door. Who knew his role-playing stuff would come in handy in the wild?

  “Earth to Lauren?” Alex waved her fingers in front of my nose. “Get over there and talk to him before we dare you to do it.”

  Jackie smothered a giggle, but I definitely wasn’t ready to laugh about what had happened between me and Seth. I didn’t think I ever would be. Those emotions ran deep. Then again, this was summer camp. And Truth or Dare had been a longtime Munchies Manor ritual. Maybe I could at least explain that to Seth and ask for forgiveness now that he wasn’t as upset with me.

  Nodding, I marched toward the boys before I lost my nerve.

  Seth looked up, his hands stalling on the knot he’d been tying in the twine around a bunch of pine boughs.

  “Hey.” Yes, call me the Queen of Conversation.

  “Hey,” he echoed, watching me closely while the Diva girls belted out some pop tune at the top of their lungs.

  For once though, no one else seemed to mind. Everyone was in a good mood as the sun started to set. I saw Piper and Trinity dancing in their bare feet to the bad singing and I had to smile.

  “Can I … um.” I glanced at Julian then back to Seth. “Talk to you for a second?”

  Seth frowned. “I’m kind of in the middle of—”

  “I’ll finish the roof, man.” Julian took the boughs away from Seth, leaving my former boyfriend with no excuse not to talk to me.

  At that moment, I was more scared than when I’d started to fall out of that raft. Back in the old days, I would have joked about lending him some Bat rope to finish the lean-tos faster. But not now. Not with my knees shaking.

  “Okay.” Seth nodded at his friend. “Thanks.”

  Dizzying relief washed through me. This was my chance, especially with the counselors distracted while they set up our makeshift camp. Please God, don’t let me mess it up.

  We walked toward the river, a direction that we seemed to agree on naturally even though we’d never camped here before.

  “First, I wanted to thank you.” I licked my lips because my mouth was so dry. My brain buzzed with some kind of static signal and I felt like I was speaking to Seth from far away. I tried to ignore all the nerves and speak from the heart, but it was tough to have him so close and not be able to touch him. “You saved me today and I’m really…” Touched. Surprised. Grateful. “It was great of you to do that.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, just walked beside me in silence. I stopped and glanced over at him, trying to figure out his mood. Maybe he’d remembered to be angry with me.

  “There’s the first star.” He pointed up at the sky. “Or is that Venus?”

  Was he trying to keep conversation from anything personal? But if he was trying to distract me, it was tough to mind. At least I got to stand beside him at dusk and watch the stars come out.

  For a moment, it felt like old times.

  “That’s Vega,” I reminded him, knowing we’d talked about this once before. “Remember, it’s—”

  “—right overhead.” He looked at me instead. “I remember you telling me that one time.”

  I looked him in the eye as we stood several yards from the river. It was calmer here even though the water was high. I pointed to a fallen log nearby and he joined me on it, taking a seat that was close, but not too close.

  A “just friends” kind of close.

  My chest ached.

  “Seth, I also want to apologize for what happened with the kiss. I should have told you about the dare and I’m sorry.”

  He stared out at the water. Silent.

  Hurt.

  I could sense his pain as clearly as my own.

  “But I want you to know that the only reason my friends dared me to do it was because they knew how much I liked you.” It didn’t matter anymore if I was embarrassed.
Braces, glasses, frizzy hair, rashes … none of it mattered now. It was all superficial dumb stuff. What was important was that Seth knew I cared and that I was sorry.

  He still didn’t say anything. But I hadn’t expected him to open his arms and forgive me.

  “I liked you last year too, and I didn’t do anything about it.”

  That got his attention. He looked at me finally, his elbows on his knees.

  “So this year, I think my friends were determined to push me into talking to you more. Into making something happen with a boy that I had this… huge crush on.” My cheeks flamed like someone had thrown gasoline on a bonfire. Hot.

  I resisted the urge to fan myself. Or hide my face in the neck of my T-shirt.

  “Lauren, you don’t have to say that just to—”

  “Don’t make this more embarrassing than it already is.” Now I did tug at the neck of my T-shirt like a five year old. But I did not pull it up to my nose. “I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t true. Seth, we were friends for a long time before this stuff happened between us.”

  “Lauren, I had a crush on you too. And it killed me to think you were just fooling around.” He pushed back the waves that had flopped in front of his eyes.

  Frustration straightened my spine. “I wasn’t fooling around. I wanted to kiss you. Thought about it all last summer. Hoped maybe we’d get together this year. But then my friends dared me to kiss you and everything got messed up.” I touched his cheek and met his eye. “I meant everything and I think you did too. Remember how happy we were the day we won Capture the Flag? When you tied the bandana around my wrist …”

  I reached into my back pocket and pulled it out—the orange bandana we’d won from Hannah’s team.

  “You kept it?” He grinned. That slow Seth smile that you had to work for. That he didn’t show to just anyone.

  It made me feel awfully special to have put it there again, if only for a moment.

  “Of course I kept it.” I wound it around my wrist again, as I had a hundred times since that night when Seth had done it for me. “Because of my friends and that dare, some of my dreams came true this summer.” My voice caught and I had to clear my throat past the lump. “Even if it was only for a little while.”