“You can’t do this,” I yelled into Mum’s face.
I turned and I fled.
I was so used to the route in the pitch black, that my feet guided me along the forest path.
It took only seconds to lose their voices behind me.
I had to get to the cabin before he left. I had to. I had to.
What was I going to do when I got there? I didn’t know. All I knew was that he couldn’t leave. I wasn’t ready for this – whatever it was – to finish. So I ran and ran and ran.
I bumped into trees, rocketed off stray branches and turned my ankle in my stupid disco shoes. When I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand it came back dripping. Yet I hobbled on, coughing up all sorts of crap from my lungs. So confused. So angry. So annoyed. Why did we fall asleep? Why did we even leave the kids in the first place? My fault, all my fault. Everything is always my fault. I touch things and they crumple into shit, like the opposite of King Midas and his gold finger. If I was in a fairy tale, I would be called “PooFinger”, and everyone would shun me and make me go live in some naff shack under a bridge, telling scary stories to all the children in the kingdom about the wench who turns everything to shit, just by touching it.
Running. More running. Why are forests so big?
Would I catch him? I couldn’t miss him.
And then I was in the clearing…and the cabin light was on. He was there!
But soon…soon he wouldn’t be.
“Kyle!”
I burst through the door, and there, there he was. He looked pale, even with his deep tan. He wasn’t wearing camp uniform – just a baby blue long-sleeved T-shirt tucked into some belted jeans. The formality of how he looked… no baseball cap, no rolled-up T-shirt sleeves and baggy shorts. It made it real. This awfulness was happening.
“Amber!” He dropped the T-shirt he was folding in shock.
I leaned over on myself, huge ragged breaths heaving out of me.
“Amber? Are you okay?”
I held my hand up as I hacked up another cough.
“Just. A. Second. Ran. Here. From. The. Rec. Hall.”
Three deep breaths and I was ready to look up. He was totally shell-shocked. My eyes went from him, beautiful gorgeous him, to the suitcase on his bed. It was packed so immaculately – everything folded neatly, all the corners of his clothes folded with sharp creases. It was so Kyle…so him…
I started crying and Kyle was right at my side.
“Hey, oh no, Amber, don’t cry. It’s going to be okay.”
“They fired you,” I wailed.
“They did. But it’ll be okay. Kevin said if I leave quietly, he won’t tell anyone. I’ll still get a reference.”
“They can’t fire you.”
He hugged me like I was a scared child. “Amber, they can. I left the children overnight. It was so stupid. And it’s so illegal. What if something had happened? Like, if someone had come in? Or if there’d been a fire? They so have to fire me!”
“It’s all my fault.” I heaved another sob.
He cupped my face in his hands, not minding that snot and tears were rolling down onto them.
“Look, neither of us were thinking straight. It was stupid. Last night was so so stupid.”
He regretted it. He wished it had never happened… My heart – already a ball of dust – re-exploded…
Kyle hadn’t finished talking.
“But I wouldn’t change last night for anything. Amber…Amber? I can’t believe I’m leaving you.” He looked like he was going to cry too. We just stared into each other’s eyes, each in utter disbelief about the horror of the situation.
“When do you have to leave?”
“Within an hour.”
He let go of my face and drop-kicked a T-shirt across the floor. “Within a fucking hour.”
That was nothing. An hour was nothing.
I knew, when it started, we had no time. But this was too much no time.
I couldn’t. No. Not just an hour.
He was back in my arms, hugging me, kissing the tears off my face. I didn’t know I could feel pain like this, over someone I hardly knew. But all of me ached, all of me was broken. I grabbed at him, kissing his lips. Not believing his lips wouldn’t be mine within an hour. That they’d be gone…for ever…unless…
“I could leave with you?”
The moment I said it, I knew that was what I had to do.
Kyle’s eyebrows drew up in shock. “What? Amber? You can’t leave with me.”
“I can. I’ve got money! They paid me for my camp hours before I left the UK, just so America didn’t get all weird about me working here.”
“You can’t leave your mum.”
I nodded, realizing I could. I so could. There was the love in life you couldn’t choose. The love you just felt, that you couldn’t let go of, that tortured you and messed you up and made you sometimes too screwed up to let the other kind of love in. The other kind of love, was the love you did choose. The love you didn’t have to give, but you gave anyway. Since I’d met Evie and Lottie, I’d begun to learn I was capable of that love. That I had some left to give to them. And now, I realized, right in that moment, that I’d found a tiny bit left for Kyle too. I’d chosen to love him. And the great thing about the love you choose, is you don’t choose abusive alcoholic narcissists who leave you in fucking England, by yourself, without a fucking mother, without even an explanation or an apology.
“Kyle, why would I stay with her? You’ve seen her. There’s no point. There was no point in me coming here this summer…” As I said it, I knew it was true. My already-catatonic heart caved in from the pain of it. “But the reason why I’m here this summer has changed.” Could I say it? I hardly knew him, would it hurt if I said it? Yes, probably. But the girls had said, hadn’t they? It’s worth hurting if you’ve living, if you’re doing the right thing. And telling people you love that you love them is always the right thing. “You’ve changed everything, Kyle. I think… I think… You can’t not take me with you…because if you did you’d be leaving someone who might love you behind… Please don’t be someone else who l love who leaves me behind.”
He was quiet, and I thought: This is it. He’s going to freak out. He’s going to put his arms up and say “Woah, slow down, psycho lady. I don’t love you. I just touched you up on the pier and find your politics make for good conversation.”
Then Kyle drew me towards him and kissed me so deeply that it was like the roof of the cabin had collapsed so I could see the stars.
“I’m not going to leave you behind,” he said. “Come with me, Amber.”
I laughed into his mouth, with the sheer delight of it all.
“Where are you even going?”
We were hugging now, squeezing each other so hard that my ribs hurt.
“Back to Brown. My parents will flip when they find out I’ve lost my job. If I don’t sleep much, I can drive there in three or four days. It’s quiet on campus in summer, I’ll get a job in a coffee shop or something. Then when camp ends and they’re back from Florida, I’ll tell them what happened. They’ll go less crazy if I can say I’ve already got another job.”
“So you’re driving across the whole of America?”
He let go so he could cradle my face in his hands again.
“We’re driving across the whole of America.”
“America isn’t, like, big, or anything, is it?”
He proper laughed, and I did too. Despite everything, all the mess, this felt right.
“I have to go pack…” I said.
“You need to be quick. I promised Kevin I’d be gone by the time the dance is over.”
“I need to tell my mum…”
“You do,” he said quietly.
“She’s found out about Yosemite.”
“How did she take it?”
“She’s furious.”