Till Summer Do Us Part(71)

“No, it’s six,” she says.

“It’s fucking nine,” I shout back. “See this line under the foot of the number? That indicates it’s a nine.”

“What line?” She takes the pole from me and examines it. “Huh, I didn’t see that. Well, consider me wrong.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What are the odds of that happening?”

“I don’t know, fifty-fifty?”

“You can be so smug at times, you know that?”

“Scottie, just find the fucking six pole!”





“Do you see it right there?”

“Where?” Scottie asks as I point toward a branch on a tree.

“See that big branch that looks like a camel’s back? Three branches up, that spot of red. That’s it.”

She follows my direction and says, “That’s it?”

“Yup, that’s it. A scarlet tanager. Beautiful, right?”

“Stunning.”

“It’s a male.”

“How do you know?”

“The brightly colored ones are male. Females have olive backs and brown wings.”

She shakes her head. “Even Mother Nature represses women. How depressing.”





“Scottie, the pole. Hand me the fucking pole.”

“This is not the right pole.”

“It is. Just hand it to me.”

“It’s not going to work.”

I breathe out a heavy breath, count to five, and then say, “Just…hand…me…the…pole.”

She hands me the pole, and I attempt to insert it into another pole that’s supposed to hold up the tent. When it doesn’t fit, I scream bloody murder and chuck the pole like a javelin straight into the woods.





“You know, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be,” Scottie says as she places her hands on her hips and stares at the erected tent in front of us.

“I think once we found the right poles, it all worked out from there,” I say, feeling the delusion myself.

“And it doesn’t matter that we didn’t fully listen to the instructions, because they weren’t making sense anyway.”

“None of it made sense, yet look. It’s standing.”

“It is,” she agrees and tilts her head to the side. “It’s standing…standing slightly crooked.”

“I know.”

“One gust of wind might send it falling down.”

“Yup, we might die of asphyxiation tonight.”

“As long as you’re aware.”

“Well aware, Scottie. Well aware.”





Chapter Eighteen





SCOTTIE

“Thanks,” I say, taking a rolled-up cob of corn in foil from Wilder.

“Sure,” he says as he sits back against a rock, since there was only one chair provided in the bin. And even though I’m irritated with him, he’s still a gentleman and let me have the chair.

After we set up the tent, Wilder took a walk in the woods, sticking somewhat close to camp while I tried to adjust the tent and make it less crooked. Unfortunately for me, I knocked it down just as Wilder came back.

So we spent another half hour straightening it and making sure it wouldn’t tip over in the middle of the night. You’d think that the tent would be something that could easily pop up, but no, this is a tent from the seventies with rust and broken ties. I swear they provided this tent on purpose so couples have to work together to erect it. Well, job well done. Only problem is I think it made things worse.

After a few seconds of silence, I say, “How long do you think they’re going to leave us here? Like do you think they’re coming back tonight?”

“No.” He shakes his head and bites away at his corn. “We are here for the night.”

“They can do that?”

“I mean, if we really wanted to, we could try to hike back to camp, but I’m not really into the whole hiking-at-night thing.”

“Me either.” I sigh. “Does this mean we have to talk about our problems?”

“No,” he says. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”

I don’t like this side of him. And sure, I’ve only known him for a few days now, but I’ve gotten to know him well enough to see that when he’s free-spirited and having fun, he’s really great to be around. I feed off his energy, and he actually makes me feel better about everything. Not so uptight.

But this side of him. This indifferent side? It’s not fun. It’s not pleasant. And it’s very cold.

And I don’t think I can last another however many more days we have here together, so I decide to do something about it.

“About last night—”

“We don’t need to talk about it.”

“I think I need to,” I say softly, which of course pulls his attention. I’m learning that even though he might be irritated with the entire situation, he’s still a good guy at heart. He’s a guy who will sit and listen if he hears that someone needs that kind of attention.

“Okay.” He turns toward me. “Do you want to start?”