Return to You (Letters to Nowhere #3)
Julie Cross
chapter one
~jordan~
“Liberty!” I jog down the path, trying to catch her.
She finally stops when I’m right beside her, in front of her cabin. She turns to face me. “Hey.”
“Can we… you know, talk for a minute?” I take a swig from the Gatorade I’ve been carting around all day, hoping to keep my energy up.
Liberty tosses her hair over one shoulder, glances around, and nods for me to come inside. She’s in charge of eight campers in her cabin when they’re not in the gym working out—eight little girls and their exploding suitcases. I step over stuffed animals, pillows, leotards, just to get to a clear space in the center of the room.
I rub the back of my neck with one hand, avoiding eye contact with her. “I’m sorry about everything… not talking to you and all that. I mean, maybe you didn’t even want to talk to me, but still, I should have handled it differently.”
She sits down on one of the bottom bunks. “It’s fine, Jordan.”
“Look,” I say, because my small knowledge of the female mind is telling me that it’s not fine. “Honestly, I felt extremely inferior to you and hanging on to that relationship was setting myself up to get burned.”
“I get it.” She shrugs. “You weren’t ready for the real thing yet. You think I didn’t know that?”
“I don’t think I knew that.”
She cracks a smile. “I was kind of a bitch last summer. I don’t know how you put up with me. Things just got out of control.”
I’m too stunned at first that she actually admitted to being bitchy, so it takes me a while to process the rest of what she said. “Are you like… okay now?”
There’s a moment’s hesitation where I think she’s truly considering her answer. “Yeah, I think I am. I had a pretty good year. College has been great.”
I lean against the bed across from her. “I’ve had some eye-opening moments over the past year too.” I think I just had another one of those moments out on the lake with Karen.
“You seem different,” she says. “And then there’s Karen…”
“Right. Karen.” I don’t know what she meant by, and then there’s Karen, but I’m too relieved by the fact that this chat is very civilized thus far to ask for specifics.
She laughs and shakes her head. “I think we should both admit that we pretty much know nothing about each other.”
This is very true. I never dished out any personal shit to her. She doesn’t know about my mom and my sister and my grandparents being gone. She doesn’t know how much I struggle daily to connect with my dad, to even decide if I’m angry or hurt by him. Or both. She’s just a girl I shared summer stories with, made out with a lot, and had sex with once.
And that’s exactly why I’m not in any hurry to go farther with Karen. We have everything else. We have all the things that make you want to hold on rather than let go.
“With Karen, it’s kind of the opposite for us,” I admit, hoping she doesn’t take it the wrong way. Or take it personally.
“Then I’m happy for you.” She smiles again, glances at her cell phone and says, “The exhibition starts in twenty minutes, don’t you need to be there?”
“Shit.” I pull out my phone checking the schedule. “I should probably get over there early and try to coerce some painkillers out of one of the coaches. I have the worst sore throat and I’m maxed out on Advil for the day.”
“I have some leftover Vicodin from getting my wisdom teeth out,” Liberty says, yanking out a big suitcase from under her bed and flinging it open, “Will that work?”
I accept the pill from her hand and down it with some Gatorade. “Thanks. Seriously. I was about to go to desperate measures.”
“Aren’t you worried about getting your girlfriend sick? She’s in training, isn’t she?”
I pause, holding the bottle at my lips. I’ve taken way too many antibiotics to be contagious, right?
***
“We totally kicked ass tonight,” TJ says, thumping me on the back.
The pain pill from earlier is already wearing off and that thump causes aches to spread everywhere, all the way to my bones.
But he’s right. We kicked ass. TJ did a double back flip off my hands and I managed a double front over him and another guy. The kids went nuts. I think I saw Karen’s mouth hang open when we were performing Irina’s choreography. I haven’t exactly hidden the fact that I’m not a terrible dancer, but the opportunity to pass this knowledge on to her hasn’t presented itself before tonight.
“Maybe we’ll be exempt from leotard wearing for the rest of the summer.” I’m trying to match TJ’s energy, probably to deny the whole “I’m sick again” issue.
“We better.” He shakes his head, aiming his flashlight a few feet in front of us so we can see the path back to the cabin. “What’s the deal with that Stevie chick? She’s not underaged, is she?”
I snort out a laugh. “Did you not see the death glare she was giving you during the whole show tonight?”
Stevie and Karen are still back in the gym signing autographs for campers. They’re so popular after the Pan Am games I won’t be surprised if they get hand cramps tonight from all the signing.