“I would say you’re quiet, but you never say much,” Jude said as we stood overlooking the glacier.
“Tell me more about you.”
He laughed. “Excellent diversion tactics, but I will oblige you. I like science and engineering.”
“Want to do you want to do in college?”
“Assuming these things are permanent—” he held up his wrists “—probably electronics or communication. So, what about you? Are you staying in Iceland? Is it going to be your forever home?”
“I don’t know. It’s beautiful here, and the people are nice. But I like the sun and warm weather.”
“So, I’m guessing not. What year are you in school?”
“Senior.” I kicked a pebble away.
“Yeah, me too.”
Hearing a whistle, we made our way back to the group. My desire to kiss him waned with the reminder of our shared problems. I wondered if he hallucinated and realized he probably wouldn’t want to kiss a deranged lunatic like me anyway.
“So, the hardest part will be the first step over the edge. After that it’ll be a piece of cake,” Jude commented as we reached the descent. “Want to go down together?”
Thinking I was primed for another embarrassing performance, I agreed. We checked our gear and sat on the ledge, my heart pounding in my chest. A helicopter, spaceship, teleporter, anything would have been preferable to lowering myself over the side. Jude rolled onto his chest and slid out of sight. I turned over onto my stomach, took a deep breath, and thought that dying might even be preferable to the next step I had to take.
“I’ve got your line. You’re only going two feet,” Allen said to me.
“I’m going to beat you down,” came Jude’s voice from below.
There was no way back but down. Fine, I thought, my stomach clenching into knots, and I counted one, two, three and pushed off and away from the cliff. Jutting out and then back to the cliff, my spikes pierced the ice a few feet above Jude.
“I knew you could do it.” His smile stretched across his face.
Why was I attracted to him? Because he talked to me? Because he was good looking? I thought to rebuke myself for the thoughts, but they were a distraction. Was it just because I knew I couldn’t act on the attraction? Was it that we’d never see each other again? I’d never had a boyfriend. Hadn’t even been on a date. Every time I liked someone I thought about my track record with moves and medication and talked myself out of acting on the feelings. So, what did I fear? Not ever being truly happy, fulfilled? Never loving or being loved?
“You did it.” Jude offered his hand as I neared the bottom.
Ignoring his palm in front of me, I unhooked from the ropes and jumped to the ice below. “And I didn’t die.” We walked away from the edge to make space for the other campers. “So, you’ve done this stuff before?”
“Not ice climbing, but I go to a rock climbing gym about once a week.”
“My upper body strength is severely lacking.” I rotated my arms, stretching out my shoulders.
We milled around the ice, waiting for the others to descend. Finding swirls and patterns in the ice, I took out my camera and switched out the lens.
“Whoa. You’re brave having that thing here. No wonder you were worried about falling. You sleep with it under your pillow?”
“I couldn’t resist bringing it.”
“May I?” He held his hand out.
“Sure.” I gave him the camera.
Taking it, he pointed it at me. I covered the lens with my palm. “Hey, that’s my storage.”
“Fine.” He passed the device back to me.
I aimed it at him, and he laughed. “The trip and person you never want to remember. That guy that accused you of being competitive, introverted, and lacking in the fears category.”
“I didn’t puke or faint, so there’s that.” I clicked the shutter as he smiled at me.
We played around with the camera, snapping pictures of everyone as we hiked back.
“Yeah, you’re going to be voted most annoying.” George grumbled. “I think I liked you better when you weren’t talking.”
Jude made a funny expression, mimicking George, and I busted out laughing. “We’re supposed to be having fun, right?” I stifled my giggle.
At the camp, we stowed the ice gear and made our way to our respective tents.
“So, you and Jude?” Asa commented as I set my pack on the cot.
“What?” Frida jumped up.
“No, not me and Jude. He’s nice. That’s all.”
“Looked like it to me,” Inga put in.
“Good thing I have my spies.” Frida plopped down on my bed.
“We can’t be friends? You’re friends with him too,” I told her.
“We were the three musketeers until they split us up.” Frida frowned.
“Don’t pout. I still love you.” I squeezed Frida’s shoulders.
We played cards until my four o’clock session with Dr. Antos.
“Am I supposed to be figuring out what my biggest fear is?” I asked him as soon as I sat down.
“Well knowing your fears helps you address them. Adolescents your age, with the transition of leaving high school looming, have many fears naturally. A person with mental health issues would have additional worries. What needs to be explored is if you have any deep-seated fears that are causing your hallucinations.”
“Like abandonment or something like that?”
“Yes. I want to finish going through your hallucinations, and then we’ll talk more about fears.”
“Okay.” I took a huge breath and started my story up where we’d left off the previous day.
“I’m told you and Jude are becoming quite close,” Dr. Antos said as he walked me to the tent door at the end of our session.
“He’s nice. He helped me on the ice wall.” I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant.
“I’m glad you’ve bonded with someone. These camps can get long if you don’t find a friend.”
“He’s really smart. Frida is nice too.”
“Yes, he’s quite perceptive.” Dr. Antos chuckled. “And Frida is quite a handful. I imagine you’re a good influence on her.”
I headed towards the mess tent, wondering if Dr. Antos would ask Jude about me and whether Frida influenced me more than I did her. I wouldn’t have gotten close to Jude if it weren’t for her. Being with him stirred feelings I couldn’t act on and roused my relationship issues. I didn’t get close to people, not really. I’d set up a boundary years back, thinking that any day the meds would stop working and we’d be moving again. I always had Mom and Tyler, and I’d made them enough.
Seeing Jude load a rare piece of meat onto his plate, Alena’s choice of rare steak flitted through my memory. I didn’t like thinking of eating animals, and I forced my attention to the vegetable option. Mom discouraged me from being a vegetarian, and I had acquiesced. Everywhere else we’d lived, abstaining from meat would have made me stick out. In Iceland, it seemed to be popular with the girls at school, and as I had a strict anti-trend policy, so stuck to my preferred white meats and fish for protein.
“No steak for you?” Frida pointed at my plate of chicken breast, potatoes, and broccoli as I sat down beside her. “Not that much of a red meat person?”
“Not really.” I crinkled my nose.
“I’m not taking it as far as him?” She pointed to the pool of blood atop Jude’s meat. “But I love me a good cow.”
Watching Jude eat his meal, I couldn’t help but compare him to Alena. It made me wonder what Jude’s hallucinations were like. What did other people with schizophrenia see?
“Earth to Camille,” Frida interrupted my train of thought. “You eating? Don’t you have gear to organize?” She bumped her shoulder to mine.
“Yeah.” I refocused on my chicken.
Having finished our meal, Jude and I made our way to the gear tent. “Did Dr. Antos ask you about me?” he asked as we approached the table with the rappell
ing equipment.
“Yeah. He said he’d heard we were friends.”
“That’s what he said to me too. He say anything else about me?”
“Just that you were perceptive.”
“I’m still trying to figure out that dude.” Jude stuffed a rope in his pack. “Do you trust him?”
“He has me rehashing my hallucinations like they’re supposed to unravel why I have them. I don’t really care what they were. I’m just glad they stopped so I can get on with my life.”
“Yeah, me too. You ever think about lying?”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I recorded all of them in this document, and I gave it to him.”
“Well, that’s not anal at all.” He rolled his eyes.
“It’s complicated.” Remembering how I’d almost believed in the visions, thought Alena and Hunter needed me to complete some prophetic awakening of a magical sword, I shuddered.
“So, you up for this gig tomorrow?” He held up the ropes in front of us.
“I was so humiliated today. Thanks for helping me.”
“Hey, were you even paying attention? Half the kids were just as freaked out as you.”
“I couldn’t look down the cliff.”
“We should go first again so you won’t have to think about it for long.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“This sucks.” Frida’s face appeared between us. “There’s nobody cool in my group.”
“Maybe next week we’ll be together again,” I suggested.
“Word on the street is you froze on the wall.” Frida hooked her arm around me. “What’s up with that? We got to keep our reputation up. You got to be strong.”
“She’s good. She’s got it,” Jude told her.
“Well, I want to see your pics from today.” She hopped up on the table beside me.
We finished prepping the equipment for the next day and helped Frida with her chores. She and I tramped to the bathing station together and readied for sleep. Once we were in our packs for the night, she bonked me on the head.
“Photos. Now.”
Reaching under my bed, I pulled the camera out and handed it to her.
“It’s sort of like a documentary. I always watch television at night. This reminds me of being home.”
I spun to face her. “Do you miss home?”
“Sort of. Not my asshole dad, but I miss my mom. What about you?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought of it. I’m kind of a loner, so...”
“You think?” She held the camera out to me. “Sort of figured that one out. How about friends?”
“I have one good friend, Eva. You’d like her. She’s sort of like you, outgoing, pretty, active.”
“You think I’m pretty?”
“Of course.” I snapped a picture of her.
“Whoa!” She shielded her eyes from the flash. “That’s nice of you to say.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“How about a love interest? Anyone special?”
“No, I kind of have the reputation of being a little different, so guys avoid me like the plague. The boys that are interested are really crazy.”
She laughed. “So, how’d you become friends with Eva?”
“She was really depressed over some guy who dumped her when I first moved to Reykjavik.” I shrugged my shoulders. “And I was depressed about moving.”
“You had friends before?”
“Not really. But I liked being closer to my grandparents. How about you?”
“I got friends, but they’re all party people. Hard to tell if they’re real friends. Half of them ditched me just because I was coming here.”
“That stinks.”
“Hey, you’re from Reykjavik, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we can hang out after, you know. Where are you?”
We talked a little about what it might look like for us to get together after the camp. She lived on the north side of the city, but the bus system could suffice for transportation.
The next morning, I’d wished Frida and I hadn’t stayed up so late chatting. It felt good to bond with someone, but I reminded myself who I was getting close to. Did I really want to get involved with a friend with so many issues? Man, you’re a hypocrite, I told myself as I hiked to the mess tent.
“You’re late.” Beth Ann stood with her hand to her hip.
“Sorry, I overslept.”
“Yeah, Inga told me you were up late talking to Frida. I don’t get what you see in that drug addict.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “Really? And you’re here for…?” I put my hand to my hip.
“My step-dad abused me.”
Her admission stole some of my thunder, but I wouldn’t be deterred. “Don’t judge.”
“Got my eggs?” Jude approached from behind me.
“Yes.” I placed three in his hand.
“I tell ya, I’m missing my sushi about now.”
“You Americans and your sushi. You eat it for breakfast?” Beth Ann asked.
“Well, not usually, but I’m not sure my body thinks it’s breakfast time even after a week and a half. It’s dark, and we’re eight hours off, so yeah, that’d be a late-night snack for me.” He lifted a cooler to the tabletop. Opening it, he held up a piece of pink meat. “Salmon, sweet. Hey, any bagels come in today? Maybe some cream cheese?”
“Your wish is their demand, I guess.” John opened the breadbox.
“And here’s your cream cheese.” Ruth opened the other cooler.
“I’m thinking we don’t need the eggs today, then.” I closed the container we’d been counting the eggs from.
In my eyes, we’d won the food prep lottery. All we had to do was cut the bagels and fruit and set out the rest. Beth Anne and I set to work on the pineapples, Ruth and Jude cut the bagels, and Jude sliced the lox. I was paying more attention to the conversation than the blade, and the knife came down on my finger as I sliced through a pineapple spear.
“Oh man.” I dropped the knife and grabbed a towel, the cut searing. My heart began to throb in my ears.
“Blood.” Beth Ann jumped away. “You don’t have anything contagious, do you?”
Her hazy form swayed in front of me. “No.” Hating that I got light headed, I scanned the tent, trying to figure out the direction of the sink.
“Hey.” Jude’s arm wrapped around me. “This way.” He directed me to the wash station.
I held it under the water and then up to my eyes. “This isn’t good.” My knees buckled under me.
Jude caught me. “Here, give it to me.” With one hand, he grabbed a paper towel from the roll and wrapped it around my finger. “It’ll stop soon.”
“What an idiot. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“It was an accident,” Jude said, his fingers holding my cut digit.
“I’m okay.” I squirmed out of his embrace.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m just not good with blood.”
“Should I get the nurse?” Beth Anne approached.
“She’ll be okay, give it thirty seconds.” Jude pressed the towel to my finger and flashed me a smile.
I looked at the ceiling and trained my eyes across the room, to focus on anything but his handsome face and warm hand holding mine.
“Okay.” He removed the bandage. “See, it’s not that bad.”
“Whoa.” I held my finger up. “It’s just a tiny cut. It looked so much worse.”
“They usually do when they’re bleeding. Here.” He held a bandage out to me.
Fitting the bandage on my finger, I made my way back to the fruit.
“Well, Mr. Jude to the rescue again,” Beth Anne whispered.
I ignored her and finished chopping the pineapple.
“Hey, you dropped your bracelets.” John bent to the ground and held them out to Jude.
“Oh, wow, guess I did.” Jude placed them bac
k on his wrists. “My arms must have gotten slippery when I washed up.”
Studying him, I tried to decipher whether he’d had any side effects from the bracelets being off. He hadn’t seemed different when he’d helped with my cut. Perhaps his symptoms were different from mine or intermittent. I wondered if mine might come and go. It didn’t matter though. It wasn’t something I would risk. I didn’t want to be flat on my back with a migraine again.
Telling myself it wasn’t any of my business, I fought asking him whether he was okay without the bracelets. But, the question preoccupied me through study time.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as we packed our gear for the hike and rappelling outing.
My face warmed, and I hoped it hadn’t turned red. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re biting your lip.”
“Later,” I whispered, cutting my eyes to John beside us.
He nodded, and we finished our work.
On the trail, we took lead behind the guide, hoping to be the first ones up and down the rock. “So, do I get to know now?” His hot breath warmed my ear.
Seeing the others at least five feet behind, I whispered, “I was worried when your bracelets fell off. Were you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, I didn’t even notice. Your cut’s okay, right?”
“It was way smaller than I thought at first.”
“Guess you got a bleeder.”
The sky lightened as we walked, and the group grew more talkative. By the time we got to the climbing spot, there’d been several tunes sung in rounds. It came to a screeching halt with John starting the hundred-pints-of-beer-on-the-wall song.
“You ready?” Allen asked as he hooked me in.
“Ready to get this over with,” I told him, hoisting myself up to the first hold. Having watched Jude scale the face like a monkey, I memorized his path. I hated being forty feet off the ground with nothing but ropes and my muscles holding me up, but I didn’t freeze up as I had the day before.
“Look at you, rock star.” Jude extended his hand to me as I made it to the top.
Kingdom of Darkness (Kingdom Journals Book 2) Page 8
