“I didn’t want to be a part of anything that would allow Randy to die.” Torin gazed into the forest like he was watching a movie played out in the distance, a movie I felt like I’d seen one too many times. “But then I saw how my parents used Randy’s choice to change others’ lives—how out of his death, they could somehow impact people that were in his same situation,” he continued, threading his fingers together at the back of his neck and craning his head upward. “It made me realize that maybe there was something out there that could take even the bad in our lives and somehow use it for good. I don’t think people are capable of doing that on their own. Something greater has to give us the strength to do that, right?”
I figured I was staring—probably gawking—and the fact that my jaw was unhinged made that pretty obvious. I didn’t really have a response, but I wasn’t sure he was looking for one. I was just amazed at this person standing before me; amazed in more ways than I could count. And that frustrated me, because in all honestly, I really wanted to dislike him. He was doing such a good job helping me get to that point with the ropes course and the swimsuit debacle. But now I really couldn’t. He sort of ensured my admiration. It was hard not to admire someone who believed so strongly in something, even if you didn’t necessarily agree. Conviction was attractive, because it hinted at a passion not all of us had.
“Anyway,” Torin continued, swiftly waggling his head, “to answer your original question, I did have the chance to get an education. I just don’t necessarily think higher learning occurs exclusively on a college campus.”
Before yesterday, I probably would have disagreed with that statement, but the more time I spent out here in the woods, and the more time I spent with Torin, the more I learned about myself. But unfortunately, I didn’t really like the assignment I had been given, or my current performance. And I figured I was getting a little too friendly with the teacher. Either way, I was pretty sure I was getting a big, fat F.
Oh, I was learning, all right. I was learning that coming to Quarry Summit just might be my biggest regret yet.
CHAPTER TEN
“Take my hand.”
There was no way I was touching his hand again. I didn’t even like standing this close to him because I was sure he could hear my heart ramming loudly against my chest. It rang in my own ears like the methodic rumble of a freight train barreling toward me. He had to be able to hear it—it roared down the rickety tracks at breakneck speed. Chugga chugga, chugga chugga.
“Darby,” Torin instructed, impatiently fluttering his hand my direction. “Take it.”
“I feel like this is one of those ‘been there, done that’ scenarios.”
“And that’s a problem how? Because in the past girls really haven’t complained about doing me more than once.”
“Yuck, Torin.” I grimaced and Torin laughed outright.
“I’m completely kidding, Darby. Just take my damn hand, will you?”
Reluctantly, I grabbed onto his fingers, and they immediately tightened around mine, yanking me with him without a second’s hesitation.
We slid down the ravine.
Well, Torin slid, the tread of his shoes somewhat gripping the dirt underneath, while mine more like skated over the surface. I felt as though I was hydroplaning down the dusty embankment as my weight pushed forward onto Torin and he leaned back into me with the pressure necessary to keep us both upright. So much for walking the trails. This was definitely off the beaten path.
What felt like our equivalent of skiing down the hillside suddenly came to a halt when Torin hooked his arm around a nearby tree.
I slammed into his back, ramming into him with full force.
“Hey now,” he teased. “It’s really not necessary to throw yourself at me.”
“Sorry Torin, but you’re not my type.” I stole his words from yesterday and righted myself, dusting off my palms, flashing one of the widest grins I’d ever smiled. “I prefer guys that are much more civilized.”
“Ouch,” Torin said, clutching his chest with his one free hand. “Low blow.”
“And educated.”
Torin threw his head back like he’d been severely injured.
“And good looking.”
His eyes grew wide. “Hold up,” he interjected, hand raised. “I might not be as smart and sophisticated as your Lance is, but I haven’t heard any of the campers or counselors complaining about my looks.” A devious smirk broke across Torin’s lips. “Just the opposite, in fact.”
“I’m not into blonds.”
“Well, good thing I’m not blond.” Torin wove his arms over his chest, his shoulder pressed into the tree trunk, the only thing keeping us from slipping and sliding our way down the nearly vertical slope.
“You are definitely blond,” I retorted, my limbs shaking. Okay, maybe dirty blond, bordering on light brown, but still blond.
“My hair is as blond as yours is red.”
“So you’re totally a blond then. Now that explains a lot.”
“Do you honestly think I’m stupid, Darby? Because it’s starting to get a little insulting. First mountain man, now dumb blond.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” I said, just as Torin snagged an arm around my waist, noticing my body’s nervous tremble. I sucked in a breath, because his body this close felt amazing. “But I do think you’re amazing.”
Torin’s head whipped toward mine.
My face heated a thousand shades of red at my slip-up. It was like someone singed my cheeks with a lighter and then left it there, just inches from my face so I had to endure the burn. “Annoying,” I corrected, hurriedly, but it was too late. “I meant annoying.”
“You said amazing.”
My eyes rolled to the back of my head. I wished they would get stuck there just so I didn’t have to look at him. “Amazingly annoying.” I hated that I had to hang onto him—that I was literally clinging to him—in order keep from sliding to my humiliating death. And I hated that my mouth emitted words that my brain didn’t give it permission to. “It’s amazing how annoying you are.”
“Not what you said.” In one sudden swoop, Torin flipped around and swung me onto his back. “Hold on,” he instructed, forcing me to wrap my legs around his waist. But I was grateful for the help. Aside from Torin making me feel weak with those smirks he kept firing my way, my muscles were dangerously close to shutting down completely from trying to keep upright. I gripped him like it was a piggyback ride as he sort of jogged/slid down the steep mountainside. It was the pace that was fast enough to keep us from slipping, but slow enough that it wasn’t a full on run. I imagined him losing his footing and both of us tumbling snowball-style to the bottom of the ravine, our bones cracking and twisting the entire way down. I only had a small ounce of confidence that this wasn’t actually going to happen.
My shirt slipped over his bare back, and just the thin layer of fabric between us slid in a way that made me want to grip on tighter to avoid being so turned on by it. The gorge ahead crept closer with each movement he made.
He kept his hands tucked under my thighs until we safely reached the flat surface of the valley floor and I could slide off of him, my feet meeting the dirt.
“Wanna play a game?” He picked up the pack that he’d earlier launched down the hill. It no longer looked black; at least an inch of dirt coated its canvas surface. In an effort to shake some of the filth free, Torin thumped on it a couple of times with a balled up fist, punching it like he was a boxer during a workout session.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s called Ten from Now,” he continued, slinking his arms into his backpack, apparently satisfied with its appearance. Dirt clung to the rivulets of sweat on his chest and it looked a little like war paint, marking his body in an almost barbaric manner. “This way.” He nodded toward the carved out path. Apparently the hill sliding was some planned shortcut.
“I said I don’t know.”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “I’m sorry.
I thought you meant you really didn’t know if you wanted to play. I figured I’d make up your mind for you.”
“Saying, 'I don’t know’ is sometimes a polite way of declining.” I wiped my palms onto the thighs of my shorts. It was hot—sticky-hot—where everything on you perspired. I was pretty certain even my toes were sweating, the balmy temperatures affecting every crevice and patch of skin.
“No.” He shook his head at me. “A polite way of declining is to say, 'No, thank you.’ Saying, 'I don’t know,’ just makes you indecisive.”
“No, I don’t want to play a game with you.”
“Oh, I see. Completely drop the polite part altogether.” There was a clearing up ahead and I thought for a moment that we would stop to rest there, but we walked right through it, picking up the trail on the other side. Torin continued, “So, what do you hope to be doing ten hours from now?”
“Is this the game? Are we playing a game now?” I asked, chewing on the inside of my cheek and pinching my lips together. “I see how you did that, just barreled right into it.”
“I hope to be sleeping in my bunk, dreaming about hot girls in polka dot swimsuits and hiking boots.” He barreled right into his answer, too.
“I hope to be in my bed, dreaming about political galas and soirées.” Since there was absolutely nothing else to do, I joined in on the barreling.
“No one dreams about that.”
“Lance does.”
“So you guys dream the same things? Like some magical, synchronized dreaming?” He pulled his hair back into what I figured was going to be a ponytail, but the length of it just stopped a bit short and he tucked it behind his ear instead. “You don’t have your own dreams, Darby?”
“This is a silly game.”
“Ten months from now. What do you hope to be doing?”
“Ten months... “ I thought for a moment. What was on the calendar ten months from now? “Lance’s mom’s campaign will be in full swing. I’ll most likely be working on that. Pounding the pavement. Handing out flyers. You?”
“I hope to break ground on a new center we have in the works for the camp. So I’m hoping I’ll be putting my skill-saw and nail-gun expertise to work.” That sounded only slightly more exciting than my plans, but only because it hinted at danger, and dangerous things were, by default, more exciting than non-dangerous things. “Okay, ten years.”
“In ten years I’ll probably be married with at least two kids.” One boy and one girl, if Lance got his wish. “We’ll probably be living in the Bay Area, or D.C.”
“Ten years for me: I hope I’m still involved with the camp here. Probably running it since Mom and Dad will be close to retirement. Have a family. And a hot wife that walks around in bikinis.” His eyes glazed over in a far-off stare. “Yep, that’s my dream.”
“All of that sounds realistic, other than the wife in a bikini part. Good luck with that.” I delivered an audible snicker, just for the effect.
“Don’t need luck. I’ve got a twinge of Irish in me, too. Luck is in my blood.” Luck, as I’d discovered, wasn’t in mine. “By the way, Darby, you do realize that everything you said involved plans with Lance, right?”
“He’s pretty much my plan.” I couldn’t foresee a future that didn’t involve Lance in it. Even with our mistakes, it felt safer to keep him in my life than to let him fall out of it.
I realized that maybe made me seem pathetic to the outside world, but the outside world hadn’t seen how dark my inside had been. Lance was the light that I’d needed at a time in my life, and even if it had dwindled to the point of a dim flicker, it was still there. In the darkness, he still provided some guiding illumination that I really was afraid to snuff out completely. I didn’t want to be left alone in the dark.
“You must have missed the part where I said, 'what do you hope to be doing.’ If you were listening, all of mine were hopes, all of yours were plans,” Torin continued.
“I think it’s good to be prepared.”
“I think it’s foolish.”
“How so?” I questioned him, cocked brow and all. “It’s kinda foolish to be caught off-guard.”
“It’s kinda prideful to have a plan.”
“Once again, Torin, you’ve talked me into circles with your philosophical ramblings.”
I wasn’t trailing behind him anymore, but was at his side, and our hands did that awkward thing where they would nearly brush against one another, but not quite. That moment where it felt like maybe they should be holding, but not really. The inch of space between them buzzed like the air was alive.
“To have a plan is prideful because it’s saying we think we have some control.”
“If you’re trying to convince me of some greater power, I’m not sure you’ll be successful,” I warned.
“I’m saying it’s fruitless to plan. A waste of time. We can’t control our future any more than we can guarantee our next breath.”
Because his statement made me nervous, I took an extra long time inhaling, just to be sure to fill my lungs to full capacity, before I expelled, “That’s really depressing.”
“Maybe,” he lifted his shoulders in surrender. “Or maybe not. I think it’s nice not to have all that responsibility. All that planning takes work and life hardly ever turns out the way we plan.” He continued, saying, “I like adventure. Start each day as a new one. Keeps things exciting.”
“Then what’s the point of your Ten from Now game if you don’t plan?”
“I hope.”
“Plan. Hope. Isn’t that the same?”
“No, one involves expectancy. The other involves optimism.”
Though it was really all semantics, he was right. And it made me think for a bit and the quiet that fell between us should have made me uncomfortable, but apparently Torin and I had reached that point in our new relationship where we could be silent in the other’s presence without the awkwardness. That was about the only thing about us that didn’t feel awkward.
“I think maybe you should come up with a new game,” I said, finally.
“Come on. Has to be better than that mush game you played as a kid.”
“MASH,” I giggled, cupping my mouth with my hand. “And it’s seriously fun, but cootie catchers were better.” I pulled on the straps to my bag until they were so tight they almost cut off the circulation in my arms. Why did being around Torin make me do these awkward things where I practically inflicted pain on myself? “We’ll play once we get back to camp.”
He smiled his “okay” and then said, “You did really well, Darby,” nearly congratulating me, catching me off-guard. “You survived.” He slapped my shoulder and unbearable heat swept through my veins as his palm stayed there just a few moments longer than it needed to.
“Just barely,” I muttered, crumpling my shoulder straps between my tense, nervous fingers.
“Just barely is loads better than not at all.” He stood directly in front of me, and when he playfully brushed the tip of his finger across my nose, my legs dropped out from under me and I went all boneless. “Which is good, because you’re kinda growing on me. So I’m glad you’re still alive and well.”
Though I might physically have survived the overnighter, it sure didn’t feel like the Darby that came here two days ago was alive and well at all. She might not have been dead, but she was definitely lost. Total missing person’s status. Unfortunately, it seemed as though Torin had made it his mission to find her. I almost hoped he failed, because I couldn’t even begin to think what it would mean if he succeeded.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Now pick a color.”
“Yellow.” Torin tucked his legs up underneath him so they crisscrossed in a knot. The mattress jumped a bit with his movement and I almost wanted to duck to avoid cracking my head against the rails overhead like yesterday.
“Y-E-L-L-O-W,” I said, opening and closing the cootie catcher, alternating back and forth with each letter. “Now pick a number.”
“Six.”
“One, two, three, four, five, six.” My fingers opened and closed along with my mouth. “Another number.”
Torin scrunched up his face playfully like he was deliberating, wobbled his head back and forth and after a long, overstated pause—the ones that aren’t necessary for anything other than dramatization—he said, “Four.”
I peeled back the tab with the 4 scribbled across it in black ink. “You will do something that terrifies you.”
“False!” Torin blurted loudly. His voice cracked, and though it probably embarrassed him, as it rightfully should, I found it quite endearing.
“It’s not true or false. And it’s not even a question. It’s a fortune.”
He pulled his shoulders up to his ears, his blond—definitely blond—hair coiling around the curve of them. “I’m not afraid of anything, so it’s not doing a very good job predicting my future.”
“Oh come on!” I leaned closer and wagged a finger in his face. “You’re seriously not afraid of anything? Everyone’s afraid of something.”
“Try me.”
The cocky quality in his tone challenged me, so I took him up on it. “Alright.” I thumbed my chin and tightened my brow, scrunching my lips as I racked my brain. “Snakes.”
“Kill an average of six a summer.”
“Okay,” I said, running down a list of common fears in my brain. “Bears.”
Torin chuckled and buckled at the waist in an exaggerated fit of laughter, wicked witch cackle style. “Oh please, Darby. At least try to be serious.”
“Falling.”
“Have you completely given up?” He was right. That was a stupid one. Obviously.
“Flying.” No readied comeback sailed from Torin’s lips and I thought for a moment I might have touched on something with that last one. “You’re afraid of flying?” I held my eyes wide open, awestruck.
The Rules of Regret Page 10