If I fall quiet, it’s because I have to concentrate. The park is on the other side of the campsite and when clouds blow in front of the moon, which they do every few seconds, we might as well be stumbling around with clay pasted over our eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Brad asks.
“I’m trying not to smack into the side of someone’s caravan.”
“I mean lately. With you. You seemed off today.”
There he goes again, noticing things. “It’s nothing.”
The moon reappears, and we’re here at the park, which is a convenient distraction. Brad slooowwwly eases the gate open but it still squeaks. We both freeze.
Neither Holly, Rebecca, nor Zion pop out of their tents and start waving red flags of Disqualification and Doom in our direction, so we slip into the park. I thought we’d head for the swings, but instead, Brad tugs me toward a little castle on wooden stilts.
“Why are we even doing this?” I grumble. “Breaking curfew. I must’ve lost my mind.”
“We did it before, remember?”
“Yes, and almost got caught, and clearly failed to learn our lesson.”
“I guess you can’t resist me.” He winks, and, God, the truth rips right through my heart. We clamber into this tiny starlit fairy-tale castle, and I ache. The wood floor is hard and freezing cold under my bum, but Brad pulls me backward until I’m leaning against his chest and this is more than worth it. His thighs bracket mine. He breathes in deep and I feel his lungs expand, feel the heat of his breath rush past my neck as he wraps his arms around me and laces his fingers together over my stomach.
“Well, this is cozy,” I say dryly, because it’s either that or I faint with happiness.
“Shut up,” he replies, and noses my hair out of the way to kiss a spot just beneath my left ear.
Okay, my options have been exhausted: fainting is all I have now.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he murmurs.
I love you. “Nothing.”
“You seem distracted.”
“I’m always distracted. It’s an unfortunate side effect of being intelligent. You wouldn’t know.”
He laughs and I feel warm and fuzzy inside. I even let myself enjoy it. Then he softly quiets down, and there’s a long pause before he murmurs, sounding only a little sad: “I wish you’d trust me, Celine. I really, really do.”
The thing is, I trust Brad an impossible amount. Like, if the world was ending—if the aliens came or an asteroid hit or a hungry god burst out of the earth and demanded retribution—and I couldn’t save the day because I happened to be in a coma or, like, waiting for my pedicure to dry, I think Brad could save the world instead. I would trust him to do it without a second thought.
So tell him.
But I can’t. Because what I really want is to spill all my feelings, to say I trust you, yeah, but also I love you and I think I always will, even if one day you leave me behind. And when it comes down to it, I’m still not brave enough for that. I’m still not brave enough to risk being left.
But maybe one day I could be? If I tried really hard? That’s not impossible, right?
For now, I tell him a truth, if not the truth. “We finish the expedition in two more days. Then we have a day or so to rest, and then…”
He follows my drift, because when doesn’t he? “Then it’s time for the Explorers’ Ball.”
My heart is heavy like a stone at the thought. “I bet he’ll be there.”
Brad doesn’t ask who.
“You were right,” I admit. “I need to tell my mum.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
I exhale all my frustration （don’t worry, it regrows like mold） and let my head fall back against his shoulder. He kisses my cheek, almost absentmindedly, and in that moment, I want want want so bad I could eat the world.
“I get it,” Brad says. “You know I still haven’t talked to my parents about my writing yet.”
Yes, just like I know how happy Trev is to have one of his children follow in his footsteps. Still, I fumble for Brad’s hand in the dark and say, “Your dad loves you. He’s always going to love you.”
“I know. I’m just a coward. We all are, a little bit, sometimes. It’s not as terrible as people make it out to be.” He pauses. “Still pretty terrible, though.”
“Hey!”
“Hey yourself. I’m slagging both of us off, so it’s fine.”
I consider this for a moment. “Fair enough. We don’t have to stay cowards, though. That’s not who I want to be.”
There’s a long pause before he says slowly, softly, “No. Me neither.”
Brad falls silent again, and I start to worry he’s gotten lost in his own head. “Hey.” I squeeze his hand and search for a lighter topic. “When did you become a Golden Compass bloodhound, by the way?”
I feel his chest puff out behind me. “Don’t hate me ’cause you ain’t me.”
“That scholarship is yours.” I’m serious: he’s good. In fact, annoyingly, he’s better than me—but if there’s anyone I’d accept being second best to, it’s him.
“You didn’t hear that girl Vanessa got back hours before anyone else?” He huffs. “And she got three compasses on her own. She’s like the Terminator.”
“She’s like Sarah Connor.”
“Ce-line. Yes. Have you ever seen the TV show?”
“Why would you even ask me that? Of course, I’ve seen the show.”
From then on everything is easy and light, just like it should be, just like I need it. We spend too many hours in our castle under the stars, and when we finally stumble back to the tents, Brad kisses the life out of me.
“Try to sleep,” I whisper against his mouth.
“Celine,” he says, “did you know tents get condensation?”
My lips twitch. “Yes?”
“Disgusting,” he mutters. “Outside and inside are two separate places.” Then he kisses me some more. His mouth feathers across the corner of mine, eases my lips apart, tastes me softly. His hands cradle my face, thumbs sweeping hypnotic arcs over my cheeks. I know Brad is into me because he touches me anywhere I’ll let him, but when he kisses me like this—like the rest of my body doesn’t exactly matter or isn’t what he wants—that’s when I start to get unwise ideas like, maybe he loves me too.
I mean, I know he likes me. It could happen, right?
“Good night, Cel,” he whispers, and sends me to bed.
Sophie’s snoring （how the tables have turned） but Aurora’s still awake. She whispers to me like air from a party balloon. “I ship this so hard.”
I struggle back into my sleeping bag and thank God she can’t see me smiling. “That’s not— We’re not like that.”
She ignores me. “I knew you were into him. I knew it the first day at the cabin in Sherwood Forest, when he stopped to talk to you—”
“What?” My eyes are so wide they could pop out of my head at any moment. “But I didn’t—” Did I?
“And now you’re in love—”
I bite the side of my tongue, force myself to say it calmly. “I am not in love.”