Page 10 of Dove
A man.
A second after that, I realize that the man in question is laying on top of me, still breathing heavily from having tackled me, and that my legs are around his and that he...
God, that with one move, he could change everything.
What the fuck am Idoing?
His eyes register the change, going several shades darker in a split second, and his eyes dip down to my mouth and then back up to my gaze.
Electricity shoots through me at the look, white-hot heat running from the tip of my head down to my toes, and I change my earlier thought. He doesn't have to move to change everything. He just has to look at me like that, his eyes dark enough that I could fall into them without a second thought.
That realization douses whatever heat I might have been feeling, though, because this is my best friend I'm talking about. My stepbrother.
And just like that, the script flips in my head. Just like it always does.
I jerk, suddenly panicked at the need to get away.
"We're definitely too old for this, because you've gotten way too heavy. Get off me before you crush me, Cameron."
I look up long enough to see his eyes go from soft and smoldering to wounded, and then to closed off, and he rolls off without another word, coming to a rest on his back and staring up at the canopy.
And of course I immediately regret my harsh words.
"You don't have to always chase after me," I say quietly. "I'll be okay if you don't."
He purses is lips and shakes his head slowly. "You might. But what would I do if you disappeared one day and I didn't find you in time? What would I do if you..."
He trails off, not finishing the thought, but he doesn't have to, because the same thought has occurred to me.
What would he do if I left him?
And would I ever be able to do that to him?
I don't answer him, since he didn't ask that question expecting an answer.
And even if he had, I wouldn't be able to tell him the truth.
Because I already know that at some point, I will be leaving the mountain–which will mean leaving him behind.
But I have plans to make sure he'll be okay when I do it. And I've spent the last two years promising myself that my plans will work, and that when I go, Cameron will only spend about a day missing me before he moves on with his life.
After all, I don't offer him much.
I'm just the girl he's spent most of his life having to chase after.
Cameron
The sun is rising above the tops of the trees as we head back down the mountain, and I use the excuse of its glare to avoid looking at the girl in the seat next to me. She's in the passenger side now, having decided that she's too tired to drive us back down to town, and though I spent about ten seconds teasing her about needing to get more sleep, I didn't do it for long.
After what happened in the forest, my heart isn't really in it.
The truck is old, a gift from Aunt Sue–the woman we moved in with when Sammy's mother (my stepmother) killed herself–and has a single bench seat instead of individual seats in the front. The upholstery is old and cracked, the windows permanently dirty and the transmission bad enough that I have to rebuild it once a year, but none of that matters to me right now.
All that matters is that Sammy is sitting as far from me as she can get, her face practically pressed against the window on her side, her back to me.
Evidently I'm not the only one upset about that little scene in the forest.
Usually I'd make a joke about it. Something snappy and clever about how I was going to sue her for all the times I've hit the ground trying to protect her, followed up by a note about how I've kept track of every single time and know exactly what she owes me.
