Sun Kissed (Camp Boyfriend)

by Joanne Rock

  Chapter Six

  Trinity

  “Ouch!” I sucked at the spot of red welling on the tip of my thumb and dropped my hammer, my arm aching.

  Seth’s gorgeous face snapped in my direction, his forehead creased in concern, his eyes searching mine. It was one of many times in the past hour I’d caught him looking my way. But I tried not to read too much into it. He’d said it all when we’d shared that unforgettable kiss. He thought what we felt wasn’t real— that I was still looking at him as the guy he used to be and not the person he was today. But I knew better. He was still the same person. He was just reeling from his mom’s return when he probably hadn’t gotten over Lauren completely. Life had just thrown too much at him, and he wasn’t ready to believe in something that felt as good as our kiss.

  No. I still had real feelings for Seth even though I’d tried hard to put him behind me. I understood that Lauren had hurt him. But there was a new kind of wound in his eyes that went beyond a bad breakup. My guess was that he had to work things out with his mom, but I couldn’t imagine how he’d react to a suggestion like that.

  For a second, I wondered what would come up if I did a reading on him. Would he pull the Judgment card, telling him he needed to forgive? The Star card, which might predict hope and healing for him soon?

  But since I was trying to ignore my third eye this summer in an attempt to see the world in a more black-and-white way, I had only my own instincts to guide me. Right now, they told me I needed to focus on my art portfolio piece. While nailing the foundation forms together was as “realistic” as it got, I hardly thought that would impress admissions evaluators when I submitted pictures of my work. I needed something special, something amazing, something with pizzazz. I grinned at the thought and looked over at Emily as she cheered on the workers with an impromptu version of YMCA, a tool belt slipping low over her jean cutoffs. She whipped off her construction hat and hollered, “Time” when she finished the final chorus.

  My friends stood and stretched, some groaning at the unfamiliar work. We were used to paddling canoes, spiking volleyballs, navigating ropes obstacle courses, not real labor. Yet I knew they’d done it for Seth, our old friend. Only I couldn’t see him as just a friend anymore. Especially after I’d felt his heart beat with mine, our breaths synchronizing until we seemed to exist in that still forest as one.

  Emily pointed her hammer at me. “Mr. Woodrow says you have parental permission to stay until lunch. Bruce or I will stop in to check on you throughout the morning, but otherwise you’re on your own. Seth has a cell phone to call if anything happens.”

  I caught Seth’s sharp glance as the group left, wondering if he wanted anything to happen…like our kiss. But his confused and wary expression said he’d expected to be alone and not stuck with me. My shoulders drooped as I waved to my departing friends then picked up my hammer again. I was supposed to be creating art; yet, with my mind so full of Seth and doubts about how to merge my aesthetic with the project without infringing on his “functional” vision, I seriously was blocked.

  I sat, brooding and contemplating. Silent. Willing ideas to come to my mind. No surprise that forcing creativity never worked.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The deep voice right behind me made me drop the hammer and whirl around. I practically bumped into Seth; he was that close. I swayed for a moment until his firm grip on my elbow steadied me. If only it could do the same to my ricocheting heart. How to think straight when he was near enough for me to kiss his lopsided smile, smooth back the waves that had fallen across his forehead, stroke his square jaw that now had the faintest stubble.

  “I’ve been sketching ideas for a sculpture, but everything I come up with looks like it came out of a children’s book.” I follow his gaze to discover one of my overall clasps had unlatched and hurriedly buttoned up. With only a thin tank beneath it, I didn’t want Seth to think I was trying to hook up with him again. Anything but. Until he dealt with whatever issues were holding him back, the path to us being together was impossible. I didn’t need a tarot reading to know that much.

  “May I see?” Seth’s amber eyes reflected the strengthening morning sunshine that splashed down around us.

  “Huh?” Amazing that I’d never noticed the flecks of brown that added dimension and depth—

  “Your drawings?” Seth’s question snapped me right back to reality. And wasn’t that exactly where I needed to be?

  My face warmed as I pulled my pad from my bag and handed it to him.

  “I know you’ll think these are all stupid. Lots of supernatural creatures. Some I even made up. Plus. there are places I drew that I wish were real but aren’t, except in my head…” I noticed him stuck on one page, his eyes widening as his fingers clenched around it. What picture caught his attention? I’d won a few contests and even sold a couple of my paintings at local artisan craft shows in my hometown. But somehow Seth’s opinion meant more than anything and I mentally ran through what was in there until a thought made my heart stop and my blood freeze.

  “This is me,” he said at last, his voice full of wonder. He looked me straight in the eye, his unwavering stare making me shift on my feet.

  Oh. My. God.

  I’d forgotten about my drawing of Seth. I’d had to do a portrait at school this year and, since sketching him made me feel close and I’d memorized his features a million times, I’d picked him as my subject. I’d poured everything I had into that picture before later turning it into an oil painting in class. My art teacher had told me it was one of my best because it evoked genuine emotion. I didn’t need him to tell me which one. Love.

  “Yes. I had to do a portrait for class.” I swallowed over the fear that’d rolled itself up in a ball and lodged itself in my throat. Was it any wonder he thought I lived with my head in the clouds when I did dumb stuff like hand him my sketch book while spacing that I’d left a pic of him in there?

  “And you choose me,” he said, although it sounded more like a question, the “why” of it silent.

  “I—” What else was there to say that wouldn’t make me look like the silly, infatuated girl he believed me to be?

  “I look different.” Seth shook his head as his gaze roamed over the page again, his expression pensive.

  “It’s the way I see you,” I blurted. And it was true. Art was about expressing what was inside, not what you saw on the outside. That’s why I had such a hard time with realistic stuff. I tended to add my own visual flourishes the way some people dance to music no one else can hear.

  He lowered the book, and our eyes met. Electricity coursed through me, the moment feeling more intimate than our kiss.

  His finger trailed down my cheek, and I shivered in awareness. “I’m not hurting like that anymore.”

  “No?” I marveled that he’d picked up the pain I’d tucked into the corners of the eyes I’d drawn, the slight tension in his jaw, the bit of furrow on his brow. Seth was confident, strong. and comfortable in his own skin. But he’d always seemed wounded, staring out at a world that had both loved and rejected him.

  His lids lowered and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Life sucks sometimes. But that’s true for everyone. Right?”

  When he started to withdraw his hand, I pressed it against my cheek and held it there.

  “That doesn’t make what you’ve gone through any less terrible, Seth. I want to help.”

  He jerked his hand away as if burned and stepped backward, his expression guarded.

  “An astrology chart isn’t going to fix anything.” His words were as flat and gray as slate.

  And I seriously questioned what it would take to make him see me for the person I’d become, not the girl he’d met years ago. Sure I’d had a summer where I’d only worn purple and never took off a really cool moon and stars bracelet. How was that different from Jackie wearing a Steelers tee every other day when she was ten?

  “Really?” I tried not to let his comment get to me since I knew he didn’t mean
to hurt my feelings— he was just saying how he felt. But it still stung. “You think that’s the only way I can be there for you?”

  Something shifted in his eyes. And while maybe I wasn’t as psychic as my mom, I knew enough about human nature to read “regret” in his gaze.

  “You’re right.” He jammed a hand in the pocket of dusty cargo shorts. “Sorry. Maybe I am still freaked out by the whole kiss thing. I don’t want you to think that I— that we—”

  He’d backed himself into a corner, and if it didn’t hurt so damn bad that he didn’t care about me, I might have laughed at his trapped expression. As it was, I felt closer to tears, but I swallowed them down for Seth’s sake. He needed a friend and I was determined to be it, if only to honor the feelings I’d had for him for so long. If this was all I got to share with Seth, I’d take it.

  “Trust me; you’re doing a hell of a job making me not crush on you.” That much, at least, was true. I cared about Seth a whole lot more than just a “crush” implied. “Mission accomplished. So can you stop trying to shove me away with both hands and just tell me why you’re in this weird, dark place? It’s been a year since you and Lauren broke up.”

  “Lauren’s moved on and so have I. Story over.”

  He wandered closer to the falls, and I trailed behind him, unable, despite my own warnings, to leave it alone.

  “Fine. If you want to tell yourself that, go right ahead. But as your friend, I’m not buying it.”

  Seth’s head whipped around as I joined him on a rock by the water. The mist coated my legs as I drew closer. I sat down beside him.

  “Believe what you want. I just don’t want to keep thinking about what’s in the past.” Seth picked up a stick and began whittling it with a carving knife, the shavings curling and dropping into the swirling water below.

  “Me too. I need to focus on the here and now. Figure out what I can do for the art project to make the gazebo special.” I changed the topic since discussion of Lauren was going nowhere. Besides, I had the feeling he was more upset about things back home.

  Maybe it felt easier for him to resent his ex than to deal with his mom. That made sense to me. Whatever he felt about her had to be seriously complicated.

  After a long silence where I pretended to be deep in thought, Seth finally cleared his throat.

  His hair slid across his strong cheekbones as his head drooped, his hands flying as he carved. “Fixing relationships doesn’t work. Especially not after people have let you down.”

  Unable to resist, I touched his forearm and felt it tense. “It can happen, though.”

  He shook his head and kept scraping the wood. “Maybe in a fantasy world. But that’s not reality. Not mine anyway.”

  This again? Frustrated, I tried one last time to make him understand I wasn’t some flake who still believed in Never-Never Land.

  “Reality is shaped by what we imagine. If you’d let other people in, give them a chance, maybe you’d find out it’s okay to dream. To hope. And not be so closed off.”

  When he shook his head, I rose to my feet, trying to maintain some dignity. It was clear. No matter what I said, he’d always see me as the tarot-card reading, unicorn-chasing artsy girl who spent her days skipping around la-la land. I’d thought he’d just been trying to push me away after the kiss we’d shared; but now I realized that even our friendship might be too far gone to save.

  “I shape reality with my two hands, Trinity.” He held up the stick he’d been whittling. There were no fanciful characters there. Just notches that revealed the future shape of a very practical object.

  A fork.

  I tried not to sigh. I might have ended up crying.

  “I’d rather live in a world full of magic and possibility,” I continued, unable to stop even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. Enough was enough. “Because you can’t be happy unless you let yourself envision what you can’t see. Trust in what you can’t know.”

  Seth jammed the fork in his pocket and stood. “I’ll leave the dreaming and embellishing to you.”

  I told myself to walk away and not look back. Really, I did. But as I eyed the concrete drying, picturing the gazebo he wanted, I couldn’t leave just yet. He wanted a simple construction— straight beams, plain benches, and three stairs with rails leading up to it. Then my gaze swung to the old cupola.

  I pointed. “There might be parts that need fixing, but that doesn’t mean it’s broken and should be tossed out.”

  He gave me a sudden, sharp look, and for a moment I wondered if I’d gotten through to him. His eyes delved into mine, as if he wasn’t just seeing me, but inside of me, understanding things I wasn’t sure I was ready for him to know. At last, the intense light of his eyes dimmed. A setting sun.

  “We can learn from our past,” I continued in the tense silence. “Grow from it, let it shape our present for the good, not make it worse.”

  Suddenly I had a vision of the gazebo and the way it should look, the creative spark I’d been looking for. I could see natural pine posts with a modern roof. Willow twig details for the railings just like in the original. But the flag stone floor could be a giant canvas full of paintings by the campers. The timber beams and rafters could be a place for wood carvings— everything from the rough whittling like Seth did to a few fairies watching over the place in the four corners.

  We could blend the sturdy and the fanciful. The old and new. The place would show Seth that your past, when you face it rather than run from it, can be a beautiful thing.

  I didn’t care if the gazebo wasn’t right for the rest of the world or even for my portfolio. The way I pictured it would be perfect for a salvaged gazebo at Camp Juniper Point where campers appreciated an escape from the everyday. I wouldn’t make this artwork about me. It would be about camp.

  The art would both reflect us and inspire us. I just hoped I could make Seth see that.

  Chapter Seven

  Seth

  “Earth to Seth?” Julian waved his hand in front of my eyes a few days later while we sat with some of the guys from Wander Inn during a work break from framing out the roof on the gazebo. We were hanging out next to Rockbrooke Falls to cool off from the heat. “Dude, you’ve been staring at that rock forever. You gonna paint it or use it for meditation?”

  I ran a hand over the piece of flagstone balanced on my knees. All the guys had one. They’d lugged them out here today so I could participate in Phase One of Trinity’s art project for the gazebo. Everyone at camp was supposed to paint a design on a stone for the floor. Then, the pieces would be fit together and set in mortar overtop of the concrete slab we’d already laid in earlier in the week.

  My grandparents were crazy about what they called the “Appalachian Quilt” design of the floor, each colorful piece contributed by everyone. I was still coping with the fact that we were going to cover up a perfectly laid concrete floor with a bunch of uneven, freeform rocks.

  “I’m waiting for inspiration,” I lied, uneasy that the gazebo project had been wrenched out of my hands and turned into an extended art project. I breathed easier when things were expected. Controlled.

  Trinity was determined to prove her “learn from the past” point to me with her salvage efforts, even though she’d ignored me for the last few days. Was she pissed at me for telling her the obvious— that she was naïve and needed to face reality? She’d only get hurt if she had to learn that lesson the hard way like me.

  Or had she finally realized that she and I were never going to happen, even though that kiss we’d shared had replayed though my mind plenty of times?

  I shoved the piece of flagstone off my lap while the sound of nearby cicadas rose to a high whine in my ears.

  “Maybe you’re intimidated by our artistic brilliance.” Julian turned his stone toward me so I could see it better. Green and gold paint caught the sunshine, his careful translation of a familiar phrase making me smile in spite of myself.

  “That’s the same exact lettering as your tattoo.�
�� I remembered seeing it a few times since he’d had it inked the year before. “It’s the tattoo artist’s brilliance, I think.”

  “More like Tolkien’s,” he admitted, touching up an accent mark over the words in Elvish- a Tengwar dialect, if I remembered correctly. “And I’m taking full credit because I designed the tat myself.”

  “Yeah?” I never knew that. It was definitely a cool rendition. I read the words aloud, “’Not all those who wander are lost.’”

  “Much respect for your Elvish skills, dude.” Julian held his fist out. Automatically, I gave it a bump. “Too bad you are wandering and majorly lost.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly that I had to laugh.

  “I’m practically in college, and you’ve still got another year of high school. I’d say I’ve got a clear-cut path.” Maybe if I said it enough times, I’d believe it.

  I still kicked butt in school. It was just my personal life that sucked.

  “High school with Hannah.” Julian sounded damned pleased with himself. “It’s not nearly as bad as you might think, trust me.”

  I was still scratching my head over my friend being with former camp mean girl Hannah, of all people. But he seemed happy. And the few times that Hannah had come out to the gazebo she’d seemed…cool. I’d even seen her with her hair messed up, which never happened back in the Diva days. It was obvious from the way she listened to Julian that she was crazy about him. That alone won her points in my book.

  Julian went back to painting roots on a complicated tree that he’d added to his flagstone design, but I couldn’t focus enough to finish mine. “What makes you say I’m lost?” I guess I wondered what gave it away.

  I scratched a bug bite on my shoulder and then stuck my tennis shoe in the rushing water of the falls to help cool off, soaking the canvas. Damn, that felt good.

  “The gazebo.” Julian never looked up from his work. I watched his careful brushstrokes, vaguely wondering what life must be like as Julian. He was born different. Smart. Mature when it mattered, but a total kid about nerdy stuff, which was cool. He’d worn his gamer tendencies with pride ever since we were eight years old, showing up at camp with swords, capes, and making tinfoil helmets when he felt like it.