The Camp Office

The camp knew where I was.

That was the problem.

Someone would come looking. Then someone else. A counselor with a condoms and daddy issues. Another hand gripping my shoulder asking me to pound them harder. Everyone claiming I was their piece of meat.

It could only get worse.

Worse than the bruises. Worse than the bandages wrapped around my neck. Worse than the blood that had dried where I couldn’t reach.

The body can only hurt in so many places. The mind is more ambitious.

Amanda kept coming back to me. Not the way memories are supposed to. Not gently. Not like photographs you can put back in a drawer.

She came back loud.

The first night she picked me up at the bar.

The BMW tearing down those Maine roads with the top down, cold air beating against our faces while John Denver screamed from the speakers and we screamed louder because neither of us knew yet that some nights are only borrowed.

Our first date.

The lake.

Walking beside her and pretending I wasn’t already falling.

The cabin hidden so far away from everything that for one stupid week I could pretend I had finally found somewhere I belonged.

And then I ruined it.

Of course I did.

I disappeared.

I ran from the thing I’d spent my whole life saying I wanted.

Love. Freedom.

Not the easy part. Not the kissing and the late nights and the feeling that somebody finally sees you.

The work.

The staying.

The uncomfortable conversations. The apologies you mean when you say them and have to prove when you don’t.

I ran from all of it.

And now I was standing in a barn waiting for another stranger to use me.

Before they could find me, I left.

I didn’t make a plan. I just followed the only thought that had survived the noise.

Amanda. Her loft.

The office was empty when I got there. Everyone was at dinner, which felt like the universe giving me one last stupid chance to make another stupid decision.

I let myself in. I showered until the dirt ran down the drain. The water found every cut.

Good. I let it. Maybe pain was the closest thing I had to an apology.

When I stepped out, a towel around my waist, Amanda walked into the loft.

There she was.

Perfect Amanda.

Brunette hair pulled tight into a bun. Black slacks. White button-down. Every inch of her looked like it belonged in a boardroom instead of a summer camp in the middle of Maine.

She didn’t belong here.

Her eyes found mine. Brown. Angry. Familiar.

“You.”

“Me.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.”

“Why are you here?”

I looked at her. “You.”

Her face changed. “Me?”

I nodded.

For a second I thought about getting on my knees. Mother always said to kneel when you ask for the Lord’s forgiveness.

“You disappeared.”

“I came back.”

“We have problems.”

“We’ll work on them.”

Her jaw tightened.

Amanda always needed the next step. A solution. An action plan.

I had none of those things. I had never had any of those things.

I lived like every second was an emergency and then wondered why my life was always on fire.

She was the part of me that measured twice. I was the part that cut anyway. Maybe that was why we fit. Maybe that was why we broke.

“It didn’t work out the first time,” she said.

“You taught me about experiments.”

She waited.

“So change the variable.”

“What variable?”

I swallowed. “Honest communication.”

She stared at me like she’d finally found the first sentence in a language she wasn’t sure I knew.

“I have a problem,” I said.

“What problem?”

“I don’t know how to fix it.”

I took a breath. The words came out smaller than I’d imagined them.

“I love you.”

Nothing.

“I love you so much it scares me.”

Still nothing.

Her eyes dropped. “You don’t love me.” Then came back to mine. “You just love sex.”

“It’s an addiction.” I stepped closer, but not close enough to touch her. “I don’t know how to beat it.”

My voice broke, “But I know I don’t want to have it with anyone but you. You’re the only one I cared about, and the only one who cares about me.”

For the first time since I’d walked through the door, Amanda looked less angry.

Not forgiving.

Not yet.

Just there.

And somehow that was enough.

Because the engine was still dead.

But for the first time, I was finally willing to admit that I would put my dick in anything that walked.