All they had to do was listen.
Listen and try to understand.
Instead, they wrote her off like she was the problem.
Daphne stirs beside me, pulling her marshmallow off the fire and sliding it onto a graham cracker already loaded up with a Reese’s peanut butter cup. “I know enough about fundraising at this point that I know Beeslieve will be fine. And I’m good at it. I could shift to fundraising full-time. But when you can put your efforts into the work itself instead of into asking for donations—it makes such a difference on what you can accomplish for the animals and the environment. And I’d—I’d miss being outside and seeing the work as much as I do now too.”
“Is a million enough?”
“I could ask Margot for funding too. I’ve been letting my pride stand in my way, and I need to stop that. I’ve made my point, you know?”
“Daphne.”
“The world doesn’t work the way we’re raised to think it works. But the world I’m in now—I like it better. Even if it’s harder. It’s worth it.”
“Daphne.”
“I’m telling you that I don’t need your money, okay? This trip—this adventure—it’s been reward enough, and I’ve learned enough the past few years to appreciate it for what it is.”
I grip her wrist, noticing for the first time how small it is.
Delicate.
Nothing about Daphne has ever struck me as delicate, but I think I never looked closely enough.
“Are we friends?” I ask her.
She eyes me while she takes a giant bite of her s’more.
“Because I think we’re friends.” At least. At the very, very least.
Regardless of where I end up and how long she’s with me on this road trip, she’s become my friend.
Something more than my friend.
Something much, much more.
She licks at the marshmallow oozing out of her s’more and continues to not answer me.
I’m still holding her other wrist. “Daph, friends don’t abandon friends.”
That gets me a lot of blinks that come with quivering nostrils and an uneven inhale. “I don’t use my friends for money either.”
“You’re not using if it’s being offered.”
“You offered it before we were friends. If we’re…staying friends…then I don’t want it anymore.”
“What about your coworkers? The whole organization? Can I help them?”
She shoves the last bite of s’more into her mouth without answering me.
I let her wrist go and take another sip of wine.
Contemplate roasting another marshmallow.
Eye Daphne while she actively avoids looking at me.
Enjoy the crackle of the fire.
