“I saw you kiss him.” His lips tilt in a side smile, and for one moment I consider what it would be like to confide in him again. Maybe it would be easy to slip back into that place where we talked about everything. There’s a very real possibility he knows Reed better than I do at this point—what his favorite color is, where he’s from, if this casual thing between us involves anything more than a physical connection. But asking Dean any of those questions would be the very definition of opening up. We’re working together, and that’s it. I need to keep it strictly professional if I want to protect myself.
“You can tell me the real reason you’re waiting in my medic tent,” I finally answer.
He sighs and hikes up his pant leg, exposing a rash of blistered skin that spreads upward from his ankle.
“Poison oak.”
“I’m not the only one,” he says as five other guys waltz into the tent.
“Ben?” I holler, and he materializes. “We need hydrocortisone and Benadryl.”
We treat them with antihistamine by mouth, swelling and itch relief by topical cream, and an empathetic pat to the shoulder before sending them on their less-than-merry way. I feel relieved when Dean finally leaves the tent. It felt like stripping the bandage from a fresh wound having that conversation with him, and it’s a welcome distraction to focus on cleaning up the scattered supplies that litter the table instead.
“Poison oak, huh?” a gravelly voice asks from the doorway.
Jack.
I drop everything but the half-empty bottle of calamine lotion clutched in my fist, giving him my full attention.
Is he favoring one leg or is it my imagination?
“You too?” I ask. “I can help!”
He shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
I rock back and forth, unscrewing and re-screwing the lid.
“Your crew will need cold compresses off and on for the next two weeks. It’ll help with the itching while they wait for the rash to clear.”
He backs up. Tucks his helmet beneath his arm and bobs his head. “I’ll send them here when they need it.” Then he turns on his heels.
“Wait—”
Is that all he came here for?A status update?I thought we shared a moment the last time I saw him. But he’s still acting just as distant.
I straighten, forcing back the building tension. “I can walk you out,” I offer. It’s to the back of his shirt, but I don’t wait to see if he heard me. I follow him. Maybe he doesn’t want to haveour conversation in an enclosed space where anyone can walk in. I don’t either.
When he holds open the tent flap, I smile.
As it swings closed with a thwap, he blurts out, “You don’t belong here,” and I drop the open bottle of calamine lotion. It splatters all over the ground, along with my faith in us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HAILEY
“What?” A mousy voice I hardly recognize squeaks out of me.
Am I really asking for him to repeat what he said?I don’t think I need to hear it again for as long as I live.
“You don’t belong here,” he says again. I focus on his voice this time rather than the words coming out of his mouth. It sounds so withdrawn. As if I’m a statue he’s having a one-sided conversation with, not his own livingbreathingdaughter.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, clutch the sleeve of my shirt, fight the moisture in my eyes. None of it is making me feel any better. Neither is the empty pink bottle helicoptering at my feet. I bend over, pick it up, and pitch it in the tin trash can a foot from me.
Pain splinters in the center of my chest and spiders throughout my bloodstream until everything feels unbearable. My skin, the air, his presence, it’s all too much. I can’t stay here trapped in this silent prison.
For once, I disappear first.
I sprint in the opposite direction of camp, my lungs fighting for clean air. A wooden bench stakes the end of a gravel road,and I collapse onto the seat. Something sharp digs into my back.What on earth…
