*angst and fluff: a karmy summer camp story*
*a few song references in here, i definitely wrote this story because of the song She's Like the Wind from Dirty Dancing. but there's also a reference to Carole King's: It Might as Well Rain Until September, James Blake's: Retrograde, and Tori Amos's: Carry*
She's Like the Wind
Part I
It wasn't supposed to be like this. We weren't supposed to end up in the same place. Ever since she found out about Liam and I, Karma had been so angry with me that I decided to just let her go. She was right. It had been wrong. But she should've known that I didn't want him, not really. Who knows though, maybe that's what made it worse for her…
We had separate little cabins across the campground, as far apart as you could possibly get. I was with Lauren by the woods and she was with Shane by the lake and the last dock. Penelope let her stay with him since he was the least likely to upset her somehow.
When we talked I tried not to ask him about her. But he always talked and I always listened. Every tiny sliver of information upset and buried me further inside of myself. If there was one thing I knew for certain it was that I had been a horrible friend.
The mornings were dewy. I'd wake early and sit outside on the porch since I couldn't much sleep anyway, not after all that had happened, all that I had done. I got into reading alone. I couldn't stop myself thinking. It was the easiest way to try and bury myself.
"Hey…" Lauren swung around the doorframe carefully. She'd been watching me ever since Karma found out. Who knows, maybe she was even watching me before that.
"Hi…"
"I'm gonna go grab some coffee from the cafeteria, wanna come?" She asked sweetly and I knew she was worried about me. Always worried. Maybe she knew more about me than I knew about myself...
"No. Thanks…"
"You've gotta stop doing this to yourself," she sighed, walking over to stand near me and tap at my wrist. She moved to sit on the arm of my chair. I let her hang over me with her arm around my shoulders and her head leaning tight onto mine. She was hugging me. "You're freaking me out…" She confessed.
"I'm sorry," I whined. Admitting it hurt. She knew me too well. She cared too much about me. She knew exactly how broken I was. I had been so very wrong for so very long.
"Just… Stay here okay?" She inhaled deeply as if the air was too thick to take in. "I'll bring you something," she sat up.
"You don't have to."
"I know you want me to," she confessed. "I know you're trying to stay up here, out of the way, as much as you possibly can. I haven't said anything about it because I get it." She paused for a moment and leaned away from me to stand. "We don't have to talk about it. I get it though."
"Fine," I sighed after a moment. The more time I could spend in the cabin, the less time I would spend elsewhere trying to hide everything I was feeling. I hated to act. I didn't want to do it. Seeing Karma hurt the most. She was just as fucked up as I was. We ruined each other. Neither of us were happy.
I'd cry on and off throughout the day. It wasn't hard tears or gasps. It was almost worse. It was a silent thing that I couldn't stop. Sometimes all I had to do was look up and bat my eyes and the tears would start. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't breathe calmly. What was the point of it all?!
Lauren must've seen. Perhaps it was something in my face. I hadn't been good at smiling. I hadn't been good at anything.
Luckily, Penelope hadn't demanded much of us this summer. I could easily hideaway for most of the week. We had already been out in the woods for three weeks. It had been at least two months since Karma and I last spoke.
When Lauren left I moved back into the room and played one of the old vinyl records in the cabin...
It might as well rain until September…
Part II
It rained in the night. I stayed up and drank the wine I stole from the cafeteria after the dance. Lauren dragged me out. She was sick of watching me mope.
Karma wasn't there. Neither was Shane.
Liam and Theo sat with Lauren and I and we all drank and laughed. It might've been the first real good night I had since summer started. But the whole time I was sad underneath.
Liam pulled me aside later and asked if I was okay. He told me that things with Karma hadn't worked. I told him that Karma hadn't talked to me since she found out…
Lauren thinks I should talk to her. Liam thinks I should talk to her. Shane definitely thinks I should talk to her. But what could I possibly say that she doesn't already know?
I tried to walk back to the cabin but when the rain started I just ran.
It felt so good to breathe like that. I wished Lauren was there but she went off somewhere with Theo. She was happy.
I put some more records on and listened. There were so many great ones. Stuff my mom used to listen to with me. Stuff Karma loved. Stuff I only knew because of Karma. I cried and listened and drank. But I smiled.
Somehow they were getting to me.
Somehow I was starting to see that avoiding her was impossible.
Part III
The blinky old digital clock flashed 3:33 and I stared. I had been moping all night. Trying to keep myself from doing the thing I wanted to do. At one point I laughed without reason.
It was that thought dancing in my head...
I wanted to go to her. That's all I wanted.
The record ended and I let the needle spin for a while, I let the static fill me up.
My bottle was empty.
I rolled it across the floor until it hit the closet door. Lauren still wasn't back.
At some point the static really got to me. It was like a switch flipping in my brain. I knew I could go to her. I knew that she was just steps away from where I was. I knew that I could go there and see her. I didn't care anymore what would happen. I didn't care anymore that all of this was fucked, every last bit.
I stood up fast. Too fast.
The alcohol hit my head and I held at it, catching myself on the bed frame and stabling myself.
I only stopped briefly before rushing to grab my hoodie and shove it on. If it was still raining I didn't fucking care.
I tripped out the door and slipped my way down the wooden steps, running out into the mist.
There was fog now and the night was so quiet. There were criquets and I ran towards the water. I could hear that no one was awake. Unlike before, there wasn't laughter coming from the auditorium. There weren't people out on their porches. Wherever Lauren was she was inside being quiet. Almost everyone was asleep. It was that still.
When I hit the sand I began to walk. It was cold and I was damp but it wasn't pouring like before. That familiar moon on that unfamiliar water made the night eerie and strange. I smelt the moisture and the wind. It filled me up inside. Such a strange feeling.
Karma's cabin was the very last at the very end. When I finally reached it I stood outside and waited. There was some part of me that just wished she could feel me. That'd be ridiculous though. I was breathing hard. Drunk but not too drunk. Awake but not too put together.
I tip-toed up the steps and opened the door, slipping myself inside. Shane wasn't there. His bunk was empty.
Karma was there but she was asleep.
I walked near her and slowly sat down by her bed. My breathing was the worst. Inside the cabin it was so quiet. I didn't want to breathe but I was panicking because I was finally with her. Trying not to hesitate I moved my cold hand into hers and held it, letting out a deep sigh once it was done.
When she didn't wake I leaned my head down on the side of the mattress and let myself relax there on the floor beside her with her hand safe in mine. If I hadn't been drunk and tired I might've burst into tears. Instead, I fell asleep.
Part IV
When I woke the cabin was empty. The sun was back. Karma was gone.
Slowly and with a searing headache, I walked back to my cabin in silence.
Lauren was there with Theo. They were cuddling on her bed.
"Hey you," she said with a smile.
"Hey," I said, noticing Theo's subtle head-nod and Lauren's shallow breath.
"Karma came by. She left this." Lauren held up a white envelope. It was sealed shut. I leaned forward and grabbed it. "She said she'd be up at the look-out on the cliff." I waited for more of an explanation. "It's that trail to the left of our cabin." I hadn't gone up there yet. It wasn't marked. It was just a trail and not many people had taken it. At least not that I had seen.
I always figured it went to a huge dumpster or something. Our cabin was pretty much in the boonies.
"You should probably go… She left that a while ago… She might not wanna wait forever." There was a sparkle in her eye. As if she knew something I didn't.
"K," I said, nervously.
I stumbled back out of the cabin and felt again as that nervous anxiety returned. Outside, once my feet were firmly planted in the dirt, I rushed to open the card and pull it out. It was white on the outside, blank like the envelope. When I opened it though there were words.
Sorry I left early. I just needed some time to think. ~k
My legs were walking without me, trying to reach her. I walked in through the trees and noticed as the trail began to go up. There was a wooden staircase and I climbed it. It wasn't helping that I was already nervous.
I walked for a long time before reaching the cliff. At the top there was a slightly elevated wooden stage with minimal wooden railing to protect people from falling over. I could hear music. The wind was blowing and Karma was dancing up there all alone.
My eyes shifted to the source of the music. She had brought a battery operated boombox.
I walked close and paused. I knew the song. I loved the song…
For a second I just watched. With the wind and the music it was a beautiful dance. She was moving for herself, for the wind and the whim. I couldn't tell why but she was, she was dancing up there alone. And she had been dancing all morning.
Karma usually hated to be alone…
The instrumental Tori Amos song kept on playing. It was called Carry. I remembered it because when Karma first heard it she started crying. She had thought right away that it was the most beautiful song she had ever heard. The way the piano swept off into the background now and then when the woodwinds came in. The way the subtle strings swayed Tori's words up to the surface and drove home a feeling. And then those lyrics.
I knew exactly what they would say if they had been there now: you have touched my life, so that now, cathedrals of sound are singing… are singing…
I took a step closer and stumbled over a small rock, too slow to catch myself before my hands hit the dirt.
"Oh! Amy," Karma said, seeing and rushing to help me up.
She was in black leggings and a sports bra with her auburn hair tumbling free about her shoulders and her face. She rushed to help me up, grabbing me quick by the elbow and guiding me to stand.
"Sorry," I said.
It was like meeting her for the first time. Only, it wasn't like that at all. We hadn't talked in months but just like that, we started talking.
"Hi," she smiled, wiping her hair out of her face so that she could see me.
Her smile was contagious and beautiful. Looking at her now made me hurt in a good way. I'd missed seeing her, more than she'd probably ever know.
She walked me over to the stage and I followed. When she sat down at the edge of it with her legs dangling down over the side, I sat down too.
"Thanks," she said randomly.
"Hmm?" I asked, wanting not to ruin things.
"Last night…" She said. "I liked that you came."
"Oh," I said. I looked down at my hands and played with them nervously. She reached over and took my hand into hers and moved it over to her lap, until both of her hands were holding it and it belonged to her.
The music kept playing behind us. It was all instrumental. Beneath us the camp looked small.
"I know I haven't been trying to fix things," she sighed heavily, her eyes fixed somewhere off in the sky. All I could feel were her hands on mine. All I could feel was that we were together and she was touching me and talking to me. We were together again.
"It's okay," I said.
"No, it's not," she shook with the strong breeze and maybe the memory of something else.
"I hurt you," I said.
"Yeah but, I hurt you too Amy…" She looked at me with tears in her eyes. I didn't know what to say. "Living without you… It's been-"
A fleeting moment came and went. She couldn't finish her sentence and I couldn't just predict what it all felt like for her… It all made me nervous.
I could've said anything right then. I could've explained my dalliance with Liam. I could've run on and on about the feelings I had the night before. I could've launched into a speech on how she's the only thing that's ever been worth a damn in my life.
Instead the wind came and went. A loud breeze brushed past us both and we sighed together.
She turned to me, lifting one of her legs up onto the stage and facing me the best she could. I watched as she rose a hand to my face and brushed my skin. Seeing me. Waiting.
My lips parted with her touch just there and I could feel now that I was shaking.
Without so much as a word, she leaned in and placed her lips onto mine.
When she kissed me I closed my eyes.
It took me a second to notice that I was kissing her back.
This wasn't a friend kiss.
And we weren't faking anymore.
As I shook and pushed to taste her more, her lips smiled into mine and I felt her breathe into me and almost hum with pleasure.
Softly, she pushed me away. When I opened my eyes I realized that she had been watching me.
James Blake's Retrograde started up on the boombox and we both laughed.
"What was that?" I asked. I didn't mind it. She must've known I loved it.
"I just really wanted to kiss you," she said.
My cheeks flushed red and so did hers.
I didn't know what it meant but it was definitely a good thing.
THE END