Proof of Forever (17 page)

All around Tali, kids are shouting to one another. Laughter fills the cafeteria. People race past her, through the giant dining hall doors, and out into the misty, muggy air. The great lawn's parched late-summer grass looks greener in the gray light of the coming storm, and Tali feels like she's at the center of an ever-moving kaleidoscope, beautiful but hectic, impossible to follow, impossible to find a pattern.

She can't keep reliving last night's fight over and over again. There's nothing to be done about it now. Her friends don't get her, and maybe she doesn't get them, either. She's scheduled for an afternoon session doing
something
—sailing, maybe?—but she can't think straight. Her head has been full of cotton all morning, and not just from last night's vodka shots.

All she wants to do is dive into the lake. She knows she's not allowed, but maybe a swim will wake her up, revive her, and she'll be able to come up with a new plan. There's more than one
way to skin a cat, and there's got to be more than one way to de-pants a boy. Even a boy who botched her name and tried to bang her friend.
Ugh
. How could she have been so
wrong
? Sure, he apologized about the Tanya thing at the party—apparently that's his cousin's name. (Gross.) But then to turn around and immediately go after Zoe? She can't believe she didn't see his true colors sooner. She must've been blinded by his smile.

No, she was blinded by the idea of winning. Of proving something.

All those summers of returning to Okahatchee over and over again, she never once felt such intense, irreparable
aloneness
. Some of the campers pushing past her and jostling one another in the field have been attending Camp OK for just as long as she has, and yet, aside from her tight circle of friends, she hasn't gotten to know them. Not really. She doesn't know what their favorite candy is, or their greatest fears, or what their parents do, or whether their parents are even around. If they come from good families, ones who care. If they're happy. They may as well be strangers.

Maybe you can never really know another person. First her father. And then her friends. All of the constants in her life, erased.

She turns around and pushes herself back out into the thick gray air. In a state of numbness she cuts across the damp grass toward her cabin.
Where is Joy?
Even though she doesn't want to speak to her friends, she can't help the thought. Joy is the only person she's ever known who could fix this feeling, who could make her centered again.

She just wants life to go back to normal. Back to the present. But even if she did make it back, what would she be coming back
to
? What she needs is a clean slate. Her dad may have lost his job, or worse—they may lose all of their money. But even if the present is going to be a horror show, at least it's a chance to start over. She's done it before—remade herself completely—and she can do it again.

Or can she?

Inside Bunk Blue Heron, it's sweltering and dim. She has the urge to call her mom, to warn her about what the future is going to bring for them. She fishes out her cell and the number for their hotel. But something stops her from dialing.

Instead, she peels out of her clothes in the quiet of the bunk and slips into a bathing suit. To avoid getting caught for swimming when she's on the forbidden list, Tali heads straight to the little spit of beach outside the prescribed swimming area, near the staff cabins, which look more like row houses. At this hour, the counselors should all be busy running afternoon activity sessions, and the lake should be empty. The idea of plunging in, eyes closed, letting the soft water wrap itself around her and drown out the rest of the world, propels her forward.

She steps out of her flip-flops when she gets to the sandy portion of beach around the side of the last row house cabin, cabin 43—the empty one—and approaches the lip of the water, wading in to her ankles.

And then someone surfaces from the lake in a loud whoosh, and she gasps.

Great. Not again.

Tow Boy.

She feels her whole body flush with embarrassment, and she freezes—but it's too late to turn around. He's already seen her.

Water drips from his broad shoulders as he stands to his full height. His chest glimmers with water droplets, like his body is made out of crystal. A slow grin spreads across his face.

“Looks like you walked straight into the hands of the enemy,” he says, coming toward her.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“You aren't supposed to have lake privileges,” he says matter-of-factly.

Tali's baffled. She wants to reprimand him, but she's so
tired
and she can feel the stockpile of tears just waiting to spill out at the slightest trigger. “Why?” she asks finally. “Why me?”

He shrugs his big, muscular shoulders. “As I recall, you were the one caught drinking on the cruise and fell overboard, so . . .”

“No, I mean why do you keep
picking
on me? I don't even
know
you,” she says, her voice shakier than she expected, “and yet everywhere I go, there you are, scolding me, teasing me, laughing at me, giving me a hard time, treating me like I'm a child. I wish everyone would just leave me
alone
already.” She swivels away from him and starts marching back across the sand, fast, feeling her face about to give, her voice about to crack. She's not about to have a breakdown in front of Mister Pick-up.

She's almost at the first row house when she hears splashing
behind her and then the sound of breathing as Tow Boy catches up to her and grabs her arm.

She gasps and turns back around. “Let
go
of me!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, dropping her arm. “I just . . . you're right. You don't know me. I'm Shane,” he says. “And look, I'm sorry if I've given you a hard time. I don't think you're a child. At all. I just figure—you know.” He shrugs, and to Tali's surprise, red begins to creep over his cheeks. “It's always better to keep girls like you at bay.”

“Girls like me?” Tali raises an eyebrow. He better not be on the brink of launching into another tirade about how she's a spoiled brat. Not now. Not when her entire world is lying around her feet in shards.

“You know you're a complete red flag,” he says, almost sheepish.

“A
red flag
?” Tali repeats, crossing her arms. Even when he's apologizing, he's a total dick.

“Oh, come on. Look at you,” he says, gesturing helplessly. And as he does, something in her stomach somersaults. “You're gorgeous,” he mutters. “Totally the kind of girl I could go crazy for. And I'm not about to lose my head. Or my job.”

The last part of what he has said fades out, and all Tali hears, on repeat, is “the kind of girl I could go crazy for.”
Go crazy for. Go crazy for. Go crazy for.

Oh, holy
everything
. Tali feels like she's been socked in the gut. Completely winded. This tall, incredibly hot, chiseled, often maddening guy who listens to the Lost Tigers and notices when she's crying even when no one else notices, standing in front of
her with his bare chest dripping with lake water, just told her she's gorgeous.

That he could go crazy over her.

Shane clears his throat. “However, now that you've made it clear you detest me, it should be
slightly
easier for me to keep my hands off you.”

Tali's jaw flops open. “I . . . I . . . I don't detest you,” she finally manages. Inside, her brain is screaming.
Does
she detest him? Of course not.
Of course
not. It's the opposite. She has been so determined to prove she can get with Blake, prove she can change the past, when
Shane
has been right in front of her, quite literally, all along.

“You don't?” He smiles, and it sends another wave of tingles down her chest and through her belly, making her knees wiggle imperceptibly.

“I don't detest you at all,” she says. The words come out as barely a whisper.

She feels
completely ridiculous. And stupid. And blind. Torn between laughing and crying.

He grabs her wrist again, but gently this time, pulling her closer to him.

“Good,” he whispers. “Because I don't detest you at all either.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She steps back just slightly. “But you should. You should hate me. I've been nothing but bitchy toward you. I was preoccupied, I was—”

“Lucky for you, I can take a lot of flack. I have four older sisters, so . . .” Shane shrugs, and suddenly he doesn't seem arrogant at all anymore. He seems . . . cute. Sweet. Maybe even a little innocent. “Besides . . . ,” he adds, trailing off.

“What?” she asks, feeling like her voice has fallen down a well and she can barely pull out the word.

They lock eyes, and his are the exact shade of green the pines around the lake turn before a storm. “Nothing, it's just—I can tell you're more than some crazy bike-stealing nudist.”

She can't help it. She bursts out laughing.

“Seriously. It takes a certain kind of confidence to start a revolution, and that's kind of what you did yesterday.”

“Well, I'm glad you see me as more of a revolutionary than an escapee from the local asylum.”

“How do you see
me
?” he asks, and the
way
he asks her sends tingles all across her skin.

“You're kind,” she says, surprising herself. “Clever. Brave. Thoughtful. You have good taste in music. Good taste in girls, too.” He smiles. “Also you're a tiny bit obnoxious.” His eyebrows shoot up. “But only enough to match
me
,” she adds with a grin.

He pulls her even closer and she lets herself fall into the magnetic energy between them, tilting her head up the tiniest bit without even realizing she's doing it. His lips touch hers, brushing softly against them like he's uncertain. She parts her lips slightly, and they begin kissing, slow and long, and he moans softly, pulling her tighter against him. She gives in helplessly, feeling waves of
vertigo wash through her as he kisses her again, deeper this time.

When he moves back for a breath, she gasps.

“Hold on,” he says, his jaw twitching slightly, his lips wet in the misty air. His chest is heaving, as though from effort. “We . . . I shouldn't. I really
could
get fired, Tali. I never meant for this to happen. We need to wait, we need to—”

“Shane,” she says. “Just give it up, okay? I never meant for
any
of this to happen either, but guess what?”

“What?” he asks, his green eyes twinkling like splashed water as he looks into hers.

“It's happening,” she says, no longer nervous or embarrassed. She just feels . . . relaxed. Comfortable. Right.

She takes his hand and leads him around the corner of Cabin 43, pushing open the front door. To her surprise, it gives easily, and then they're inside, falling onto the standard-issue, cot-sized bed, which doesn't even have sheets on it, but she doesn't care. He rolls onto his back, pulling her on top of him.

Out of nowhere, he laughs.

“What? What is it?” she asks, painfully self-conscious all over again now, basically straddling this boy she's fallen for so fast, wearing only her black bikini, her hair probably frizzing out like crazy from the humidity.

“It's just . . . I was thinking about how I saw you in that shed in your . . .
you
know.”

Ah, yes
. The bright green bra and thong. As if she could ever forget. She blushes, praying he doesn't demand to know what she was doing in there, dressed that way.

“I assumed that was about as lucky as I was going to get this summer.”

She laughs but feels a flicker of concern. “So you're saying you think you're about to
get lucky
right now?”

His face gets serious as he reaches up to trace her jaw, then her shoulder and down her arm. “I'm saying I'm already lucky.”

Relief floods through her. “Me, too,” she says, kissing him again. “I didn't even know you
worked
here till a few days ago,” she says, truly baffled. There's so much she's been blind to.

He flips her over gently, so she's on her back, and leans next to her, propped on one elbow. “Well, it's my first summer here. I'm saving up for school.” In between kisses, he tells her about the community college where he finished his freshman year, and how he's hoping to transfer to a bigger university this January. He hadn't planned to come back, but now, he admits, he's fallen in love with Okahatchee. “It's beautiful here,” he says.

He traces his hand along her stomach, and she's shivery all over again.

“There's a lot to love about this place,” she responds, remembering that it's true—seeing Okahatchee from his eyes: The regal mountains surrounding the lake, whose surface is always changing depending on the weather. The lake that's always present even if you can't see it, its scent hovering in the air, its waves nodding like a deep pulse of nostalgia and memories and happiness. The people, too, coming together every summer and then pulling apart at the end, over and over and over again. She'd almost forgotten the magic of this place.

And strangely, even though she's lying right next to Shane, for a few minutes all she can think about are her friends: Joy, Luce, Zoe. How she should be with them right now. How she can't separate the idea of this place from their friendship. It's like the location and the emotion are locked together. She smiles to herself, already imagining the looks of surprise on their faces when she tells them about Shane. If she tells them. No, when. She knows, with certainty, that their fight isn't the end. They'll make up. The four of them will be together again, if Tali has anything to say about it.