As someone who’s perpetually single, I think it’s probably more shocking that I like them to begin with. It’s a bit of a conundrum now I think about it, how I have such faith in fictional happy endings, but have never considered what my own might look like.
Another knock comes. Pulling back the door again, I find Orla on my doorstep. Now I definitely know the universe is fucking with me. I mentally recap everything I’ve done since I got here that could have landed me on Orla’s radar, but nothing stands out. I’ve only been slutty in my head, not in real life, and she can’t read my thoughts, so she has no idea I’m desperately pining after first base like an absolute loser.
“Hi, sweetie. I think I’m in the wrong place.” She pulls out her cellphone to check her messages. “There’s apparently a leaking roof and I need to take a picture for the repair records. I swear there are no perks to being an old lady these days. Getting sent out in the rain and all kinds of nonsense.”
She hands me the phone while she takes off her glasses, cleaning the fog and water with the collar of the jacket beneath her raincoat. “This says twenty-seven not twenty-two. Twenty-seven is next to the main lawn. I think it’s opposite the Hedgehog cabin.”
Orla tightens her hood around her face, accepting her cellphone back and putting it into her pocket. “Thank you, sweetie. Sorry to have bothered you, sleep tight.”
I’m staring at the ceiling listening to the rain slowing down, trying to fall asleep when the thunder booms, sounding like it’s happening right above my freaking cabin.
“Okay, we’re doing this. It’s happening,” I mutter to myself, rolling out of bed and reaching for my sneakers. Flicking on the lights, I search around my and Emilia’s things—Jenna was right, we are messy. Where the fuck is my raincoat?
Admitting defeat, I pull on my Brown Bear sweatshirt, which paired with my shorts, looks like I’m cosplaying as Russ from earlier.
This is probably a bad idea.
“Bad ideas are character building,” I say to myself out loud, just as the lights in my cabin go out. “Fuck my life. This is not a sign.”
I keep repeating that it’s not a sign in my head as I fumble around for the flashlight Jenna gave me earlier and slowly navigate my way to the door in the dark. As soon as I’m outside, I can see there are lights on in other buildings. It’s just my row of cabins that are out.
Of course it is.
The fact I’ve never googled the chances of someone being struck by lightning feels like a mistake as I run down the path toward in the direction of the lake.
There’s a real risk he’s going to turn me away.
There’s a real risk he’s going to turn me away.
What am I doing? Old Aurora would be booing and collapsing through sheer horror if she could see me now.
I’m thankful for my flashlight as I approach the row of cabins and count the numbers until I read the sign that says “33.” My heart is in my throat as I climb the porch steps to Russ’s door.
The worst he can say to me is to go back to my own bed. At least I think that’s the worst thing. I know I shouldn’t be here, so there’s no reason to be surprised if he doesn’t want my needy ass right now.
The lightning cracks in the sky, stunning but terrifying, and I knock on the wooden door. Light peaks through a gap between the curtains, but he doesn’t answer the door. I knock again and wait, rationalizing he might be in the bathroom or something, but he doesn’t answer.
Dejected and a little embarrassed, I admit defeat and exit the protection of the porch back into the rain. It was a silly thing to do anyway and I really shouldn’t have been doing it. Maybe I have been misreading things. I’m sure I’ll have a great time overthinking this night for the rest of my life. When I’m old and gray, I’ll wake up in a cold sweat thinking about how I went out in the rain in a sweater featuring a freaking bear and got ignored by the man I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Turning the first corner away from the cabin, I stop in my tracks abruptly when I spot Russ walking toward me. His head is down, but after a few more steps he looks up at me and stops too. “Hey,” he calls into the darkness. He’s as soaked as I am, wearing the same sweater and sweatpants as earlier, now darker from the rain.
“Hey.”
“I went to your cabin,” he says softly. “I thought you might be scared; I wanted to check you were okay.”
I don’t know how to respond to what he said with words, so I move toward him, he moves toward me, and I’m so mesmerized by him that I don’t even flinch when lightning lights up the skies over Honey Acres, because he finally closes those last few inches and kisses me.