Chapter 20
Avoidance

There she goes
there she goes again
racin' through my brain
I just can't conta-ain
this feeling that rema-a-ains
~Sixpence None the Richer, There She Goes

I am happy to tell you I slept well that night. I didn't wake up, or have nightmares, or feel exhausted when I awoke.

The sun was gentle on my eyes – no perceived harsh glare, or muffled curses about the lack of curtains. I felt relaxed as I went to get breakfast. I had the feelings you get on those fine Sunday mornings, when you realize that people still have their faiths and go to mass loyally. It was the feeling that you will be fine because everyone else would be in high spirits.

I was inexplicably happy when I stood at the end of the cafeteria line and saw that Karin had saved me a seat. Our petty stoic silences and arguments had been left in the cycle of small accumulated daily events. Time could heal most everything.

When I got closer, though, I saw that Karin looked pensive, even preoccupied.

"Hey."

"Hey, Hinata."

"How are you?"

"Dandy," she said, not noting my expression. Words like that brought to mind cheerful bulging middleaged men in tweed coats and bowler hats.

"How'd you sleep?" I prodded.

"Mm-hmm fine," she said absentmindedly.

"Did you see the schedule yet?"

"Yes," she said, and didn't seem to realize that one-word replies weren't enough. She toyed with her breakfast sandwich. She put mustard on her eggs (I'm sure she thought it was ketchup).

"So where are you headed for today?" I asked. I was determined to push down exasperation. My mood trumped it.

"Mm hmm," she murmured.

"Full sentences would be nice," I supplied helpfully.

"What? I'm in swimming and diving today."

"What's with you? Are you all right?"

She blinked, directed her eyes on me. It was disconcerting, this sudden refocus, like watching a stranger for some time and having him turn around suddenly.

"Do you like Sasuke?" she asked.

"What?"

"You and Sasuke. Is there something between you guys?"

"What?" Now who could barely string together a response?

"You know." She seemed impatient. "You two. Chemistry?"

"Well yes…I mean no! I didn't mean to admit – I mean I didn't mean to say that!"

She ignored my stuttering. "That's a yes, then."

I could feel my good mood dissolving, replaced by unease. "Why are you so interested?"

She stopped and seemed to look at me, really look for emotions. "Hinata, I was interested in Sasuke for two years…"

"Oh…" It was only thing I could say.

"I didn't notice a single other boy in that time," she said.

"Oh." My spirits were plummeting.

She added, "And you are my friend."

"Oh. We…friends?"

"Friends," she said firmly. "One of my closest, in fact."

I couldn't be comforted yet. "But…"

"To answer your question why I am interested – like I said, I was obsessed with him for two years, and you're my close friend. That is why I'm interested."

"But you don't…"

"It depends on your answer," she said, albeit reluctantly. She saw the hurt flashing in my eyes. Abruptly she leaned over the table and gave me a quick hug. "I'm sorry, Hinata. I didn't mean to cause anxiety. It's cruel to wrest an answer from you. I already know it, anyhow."

"I guess it was obvious," I said, trying to get over my speechlessness, the whirling of emotions inside of me.

"You don't have to worry me and Sasuke," she assured me. "He and I are too much alike…like brother and sister, really." She sighed. "Besides, you and I are friends; I couldn't do that to you…"

"Thank you…" Warmth rushed in my heart.

"…but I can't deny that the only reason I signed up for this summer camp was to give the possibility of me and Sasuke one more go." She reached across the table, took one of my hands. "Look, Hinata. I have no intention of doing that now, like I said. That's a page of my history I wouldn't want to go back on. He rejected me quite hard, you know."

I nodded dumbly.

"So I want you guys to be together." It was taking her so much effort to say that, I could tell. Her eyes closed briefly behind her glasses, and when they open again, I saw her determination through her pain. "You two should be together. I forgot how much he moped around after you'd left."

I shook my head.

"You know it. I don't have to try to get you to believe it. Hell, everybody around this camp believes it. You're the only one who's in denial."

My mouth started a storm of protest. "I'm not in denial – I've accepted there's no way on earth – "

"On this earth there is a way," she said. "It's a ninety-nine percent chance of you two getting together. The other one percent is based on your stupidity."

I glared.

"Er, I mean denial."

"It's not possible," I repeated.

"Oh, but it is," she asserted. "And you might as well accept it. Theories that are ninety-nine percent accurate, you know, are largely held as scientific fact. Like evolution. There's doubt about it from some person, but everyone else accept it as a tenet of incontrovertible fact."

"You're trying to confuse the matter with a science analogy," I protested.

"It's an accurate analogy," she said, grinning. She hopped up, with both our plates in her hand, my breakfast largely uneaten. "But don't think I'm doing this just to be altruistic."

I had to wait until she got back from the trashcan to ask her about that comment.

"Oh come on," she said. "When Sasuke is impossibly happy after I've put you two together, I'll be in his good graces. Haven't you heard about his hot older brother?"

I stared at her blankly.

"He's the one I'm really after," she told me grinningly.

What good luck I had. After Karin had told me that she intended to play matchmaker, the schedule turned out to decree that the counselors for swimming and diving were Karin, Sasuke, Naruto, and I.

"It's not really that big of a coincidence , you know," Karin told me, as I waited at her cabin door while she packed her swimming suit. "I mean, I am one of the counselors who takes care of scheduling."

"Hodgepodge."

"Do you want to borrow a swimsuit?" she asked me, her voice lovely and floating. She was obviously in an impeccably good mood. (I wondered what happened to me. Oh wait.) "It's not too old," she continued. "I got it in Ocean City, off the boardwalk."

"Recidivism." I was reciting SAT words I knew, because I was being deliberately annoying. It wasn't working on Karin, though, whose face was serene as she examined the yellow vintage-y bathing suit. It really didn't look half-bad, I had to admit, but I wasn't making any concessions.

"It's a one-piece, you know, so it'll match with your personality…"

"Deference," I said. How much that was lacking right now.

"…because you're a prude."

I through my bag at her. It was one of those cheap canvas shoulder ones that didn't have a zipper or anything to keep its contents from spilling out. And out they did. A water bottle, a giant tube of sunscreen, another set of clothes in case my immediate clothes got wet, two beach towels.

"Honestly," she said critically, looking at it while I crouched down furiously punching them back in the bag, "your packing gear is practically screaming 'I want bathing suit.'"

"They're not saying anything of the sort," I said.

"Oh goodie. You've stopped your irritable vocabulary reciting."

"'Irritating,'" I corrected her. "'Irritable' is to describe people. You're looking for 'irritating.'"

"Whatever," she dismissed. "Just don't go around reciting vocabulary in front of Sasuke. I don't think he looks for nerdy aspects in girls."

"No one cares," I said to her, but it was to her back because she'd gone to the mirror to freshen up her makeup. Me, I had brought none to the camp, and I wasn't regretting my decision. Well, all right, I sort of was, because you looked much better with blushy-er cheeks and redder lips and longer lashes and brighter-looking skin and…

But bringing no makeup was still a good decision! I stand my ground. My skin looked healthier and clearer on its own, without thick foundation dragging it down daily. I had so much acting makeup at home that it felt like a burden to not bring it. It was annoying to check up on it every few hours. (Besides, I could always pinch my cheeks to fake a blush.)

I'd argued with myself for days before coming here that wearing no makeup was better.

So I was stunned when Karin emerged from the bathroom, looking like a completely different person. She had cheekbones. Her glasses accentuated her charcoal eyes. The small mole on her chin was gone, and her eyebrows (twins-not-sisters) framed her face to make it look narrower, more lovely.

"You, dear, are going to have a makeover pronounced by me, matchmaker," she said, sweeping me in front of the mirror, plunking me down. All my arguments about not wearing makeup kerfluffled and kaputed, vocabulary be damned. For once in my life, I didn't argue one bit. Not a single iota.

The boys had gone to the swimming site already, bringing the boy campers. They were to set up all the chairs and paraphernalia at the lake. Karin and I were the second tier, bringing the girls. It was understood that we'd arrive half an hour later. We helped the girls in their swimming suits (so much more complicated than boys') and handed out camp swimming gear to each girl – two swimming flippers each, a beach ball for every two, and those long floaty pole things for every four girls.

The swimming site wasn't far away, a ten minutes walk from the camp. It was technically in camp territory, but away from the main sites like the lodge and cabins.

When we saw the sign to the site up ahead, Karin said, "Go on ahead with eight of the girls; I'll take the other eight so I can make sure they've all been accounted for."

"But – "

"You look great," Karin reassured me.

"It's not that," I said. But of course it was. Karin could pick my emotions apart in a second. I guess I'd underestimated my own vulnerability.

"All right," I said. To the girls I said, "Forward, ho!" and was rewarded with smiles missing teeth. I could do this; I could be brave.

After we pashed the sign and the shrubs and trees that blocked our sight, we embarked on a hill and, at the top, looked down to see the shining waters of the lake. No one had told me the swimming site was so big, and so gorgeous. I stopped there and didn't bother to run after the girls who ran ahead eagerly.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" said Karin, catching up to me.

"Yes, it really is." We stood there a moment, looking at the lake. The water rippled and threw lightning bolts to my eyes, it was so bright. I could see ducks along the deeper end of it. The weathered beige dock looked inviting. I could already imagine how the warm wood felt under my fingers.

I could see the boys, too, some jumping in the shallow end, others in a little deeper, with their swimming fins. I didn't see the distinctive black hair, but it was hard to tell, at this distance. The path to the lake stretched sider and then thinner, winding like a ribbon, disappearing every now and then through trees.

"Let's go," said Karin, her voice sparkling. "The girls are going to be red as lobsters if we don't put sunscreen on them."

"Let's," I said. I ran without a care in the world, breathing in the shining air, feeling like a kid again.

Naruto was speechless when he saw us

"Who are you two and what have you done with Karin and Hinata?" he demanded, following us to the chairs.

"It's called makeup, sonny boy," said Karin disparagingly. She grinned at him, canines flashing against her red, red lips. (I wore only clear gloss; red lips don't suit me.) "Where's Sasuke, anyway?"

"He's in the deep end, with a few campers. God! He takes four of them and I have to take care of, like, sixteen! It's unjust!"

"A cruel and unusual punishment," joked Karin. She took off her glasses and squinted. "I can't even see him. This lake is huge."

"He's such a douche," said Naruto. "I don't know why you're so interested in him."

"Oh, I'm not the one interested," said Karin, turning to look at him, one eyebrow raised. "Believe me."

I elbowed her.

"Well, I'm not," she said. "Naruto, who likes Sasuke! Go on and guess."

I squinched my eyes shut. When I opened them, I'd be somewhere else. Like, Omaha.

"That bastard," Naruto fumed, pacing in a circle and not appearing to hear Karin's question. "He grabs his swimming gear and like, sprints off. He didn't even to bother to tell me…"

It's true, what they tell you about guys having one-track minds.

An hour passed, and I was getting as red as a tomato, despite the sunscreen. "This stuff just doesn't work," I growled.

Karin, sitting next to me on the beach chair and reading a racy romance novel, said, "Too bad the camp doesn't have big umbrellas." She was sun tanning, of course, without any sunscreen. And her skin had skipped the lobster phase and directly when to the tanning phase. She was lucky.

"I don't understand," I complained. "They should test these things first."

"They do," said Karin, quirking an eyebrow. "On animals."

"You're not helping."

"Live a little, Hinata," she said, hiding a giggle. "The sun is shining, the campers are safe, the water feels great – you should try it."

"I'm wearing a T-shirt."

"Well, I brought my extra swimming suit, you know." She looked at my knowingly.

"I'm not wearing it."

"What ya gotta hide?"

"Nothing!"

"Okay, okay," she said. "But really, I advise you to slip it on. At least underneath your T-shirt. Because lunch is in ten minutes and no doubt Naruto's going to swim to the deep side to call Sasuke over."

"Uh-huh."

"You know that, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Gosh, you're stubborn," she said mock-dismissively.

She's one to talk.

"That's it," Karin said, when we saw the blonde and black heads in the distance. "They are coming. You have one to three minutes – depending on how much they waste time arguing – to change. You do not want to appear like a frightfully frumpish nanny in front of him, do you, now?"

"This is hardly frumpy material," I muttering, pinching my shirt to show her. "It's thin cotton, jeez. And I'm wearing shorts."

"T-shirts are the old-fashioned frumpiness to a modern, un-frumpy bathing suit," she declared. Whatever that means. Sometimes she is quite the actress herself.

"I don't care," I sulked.

"Look!" she said. "They're racing! I guess all that arguing turned into competition. I have to say, Hinata, you better hurry if you're thinking of changing."

"I'm not," I said, but her attention was diverted by their bodies, I guess. I have to admit I took a peek myself. Then I thought of Karin matchmaking me and Sasuke together, and I turned a redder color than the lobster sheen, and decided to hightail it out of there, avoid the situation as long as I could.

"I'm going to the bathroom," I said to Karin, who was engrossed and didn't hear me.

Only after I was a good fifteen feet away did she turn and whisper-hiss, "Hi-na-ta, what are you do-ing, they are here."

I opened the bathroom door, prayed that the inside of passably clean, and stuck my tongue out at Karin. "I am taking a wee."

Sasuke and her matchmaking would just have to wait. I'd see how long I could be MIA.

I swear this is too fun to write.