“Jesus, Rory.”
“And it works, but only for a short time because he’s annoyed; but at least he calls and sees me. Nothing ever happens. I’m not punished, he doesn’t try to understand. My mom justifies it because of course I’m like this, it’s his fault. Then his anger wears off and he goes back to pretending that I don’t exist and every time, I’m like this is going to be the time where he proves he cares—but I just end up hurting my own feelings.” I know I’m rambling. I know I’m oversharing, but every time I think about stopping he reaches up and squeezes the hand I have resting in his hair, urging me to continue.
“I repeat the cycle. He has a girlfriend named Norah and she has a daughter, who’s our age, called Isobel. Norah posts about Dad like they’re the happiest of families. But I’ll never be part of it and it makes me sad and it makes me do things like drink excessive amounts of tequila and ask you to skinny dip with me.”
“That feels like a million years ago.”
“That’s why I loved this place so much growing up. It was a couple of months where I felt wanted and valued. I didn’t have to worry about what was going on at home. I knew coming back here was the only thing that would break the cycle. So that’s my trauma dump. How fun. We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”
“A walking advertisement for daddy issues.”
“Do you hate them? I don’t hate my parents, even though they’re definitely the root of all my problems.” He doesn’t say anything, so neither do I. I might have pushed him too far, so I keep twirling the ends of his hair around my fingers and pressing my fingers gently into his scalp. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to share anything you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to go too far.”
“You haven’t. I told my dad I hated him yesterday, but I was hurt. I’m not sure I do though. I think I hate the way he makes me feel. If he stopped doing the things he knows he shouldn’t and started acting like the person he was when I was a kid, then I could have him in my life.”
“What about your mom?”
He hums, long and low. “I love my mom. I’ve just always been mad at her for enabling my dad. After talking to her yesterday, I think she’s realized she doesn’t know everything. So yeah, that’s my trauma dump.”
Knowing the type of difficult relationships he’s dealing with makes me understand him so much better and I’m giddy that he’s trusted me with something clearly so raw. “Thank you for sharing with me.”
“Thank you for comparing yourself to an airport.”
I try to stop the laugh so I don’t give him motion sickness, but I can’t help it. I cover my face with my hands, like that’ll block out the embarrassment. “I swear I’m not this much of a disaster normally. You make me nervous; I think. It comes out and I can’t even stop it. Sometimes I lie in bed awake at night cringing. Emilia has done nothing but bully me about it since we got here.”
“I love it, Aurora.” He rolls onto his stomach, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. I peak at him through my fingers. “You make it easier for me to be myself because you’re so . . . you. I overthink everything I say and do and you just—”
“Don’t think before I speak?”
“–you say what’s in your head.” He brushes my hands away from my face, so I have nowhere to hide. “It’s great. You’re great.”
“You really know how to make a girl feel special, Callaghan.” I might be about to combust. “Remember, you enabled me next time I start rambling.”
He laughs, shaking his head as he lays back down, this time placing his cheek on my bare stomach. “Is this okay?” he asks cautiously.
“Yup.” My hand settles against the nape of his neck, drawing patterns and trailing my fingers up and down the hard muscles of his shoulders. “Is this okay?”
“Yup.”
And I’m not sure exactly which animal I’m doodling against his skin when it happens, but somewhere between a hippo and a penguin, he falls asleep. So I keep doodling, until eventually my hand slows and I fall asleep too.
Chapter Eighteen
AURORA
“Rory, the smell. I can’t do it.”
Emilia’s hands cover her mouth has she tries to smother the sound of her retching. I can’t help but roll my eyes at her as she takes a cautious step back from the vomit-soaked bedding I’m bundling into a laundry bag. “You’re such a baby. It isn’t that bad.”
“You can’t make me do this during Pride. It’s a hate crime, Aurora.”
We started sneaking alcohol from our parents when we were freshmen in high school. I’ve personally held Emilia’s hair back while she vomits more times than I care to remember, but the idea of dealing with someone else’s sick is apparently abhorrent to her.
I tie the laundry bag tight at the top and hold it out to her. “Can you please get rid of this and send the nurse over?”
Snatching the bag from my hands, she nods and runs out of the cabin, shouting, “love you,” over her shoulder.
“Auroraaaaaa!” The sound of my name echoes from inside the bathroom block attached to the kids sleeping area, but is immediately followed by the sound of barfing.
My name being called in that exact way was how I was first alerted to vomit-gate.
We’ve spent the day celebrating Pride. I have glitter in places no woman should have glitter, which isn’t a surprise after Xander was put in charge of it and he put it on every surface. When we did our diversity and inclusion training, Orla explained we wouldn’t be doing our Pride event until after the fourth of July. One of the campers’ moms manages up-and-coming singers and they were going to do a performance for the kids but wouldn’t be available until today.
You lose all track of days in this place anyway, so they could have told me it was still June and I’d have believed them.
I thought I had an easy night ahead of me when Jasmine told me she didn’t feel well and wanted to go to bed straight after dinner. Maya and Clay are on night duty, but I said I didn’t mind hanging out with Jasmine until they brought all the other kids to bed this evening.
Her temperature was fine when I checked it, so I told her to sit on her bed while I retrieved some face wash to get the glitter and rainbows off her cheeks and that’s when I heard my name.
I don’t know how she managed to cover her bed and herself, but she did. I sent her for a shower while I stripped her bedding, which is when Emilia swung by to see if I wanted a soda.
Poking my head into the cubicle, I find Jasmine sitting on the floor looking sorry for herself. Her eyes fill with tears as soon as she spots me and her bottom lip begins to wobble. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, sweet girl.” Crouching behind her, I pull her now wet hair out of her way as she puts her head over the toilet again. “You’ll feel better when you’re done.”
“I think I had too much candy,” she mumbles.
“I think you did too.”
“I want my mom.”
“I know, sweetie. But let’s get you cleaned up and then we can get your mom on the phone.”
Eventually, her body has had enough and I help her from the floor just in time for Kelly, the camp nurse, to show up and check her over. As suspected, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with Jasmine other than overindulgence and overexcitement. When it’s the two of us again, I sit Jasmine on the counter while I head to grab her wash bag.
It doesn’t take me long to spot him considering how hard he is to miss, but I’m still surprised. “You stealing teddy bears now, Callaghan?”
Russ looks up from his position bent over Jasmine’s bunk, bedsheet in hand. “Yeah.” He points toward a laundry bag behind him. “I particularly like the ones that smell like death.”