“I’ll go with you,” Amber offers, grabbing her toiletry bag. “Fleur and I will go that way.” She points vaguely in the direction Julio indicated. “You boys can catch the creek over there,” she says, pointing a little farther east.
Julio’s laugh is brusque. “Dudes don’t go to the bathroom in groups. Jack and I can take turns.” Julio walks the opposite way, disappearing behind a tree to relieve himself. Jack takes his backpack and wanders east alone.
Amber and I follow Julio’s directions to the creek. The forest thickens around us, dense with the scent of conifers and ferns. We hear the murmur of the water before we see it. The fresh, cool scent of moss creeps from the edges of a bubbling stream, and we follow it to a shallow pool. The rocks are like ice against my knees as I kneel beside it to brush my teeth.
Amber strips down to her underwear. The pale pink scar on her leg is hardly noticeable this morning, and the cold doesn’t seem to faze her as she wades in thigh-deep. She splashes water under her arms and over her face. I test the water with a bare foot. My toes begin to sting and I quickly pull it out again.
“Aren’t you coming in?” she asks, her eyes lathered in soap. She rinses it off and looks surprised to see me still standing at the water’sedge. My teeth chatter. I give a noncommital shake of my head, mostly to clear the light-headed wooliness brought on by the cold.
“I don’t know if I can.”
She wades toward me, her arm outstretched. “You can hold on to me. It won’t be that bad.”
I think back to the night I skated with Jack on the frozen pond. When we kissed on the ground in the snow. And last night, even after the fire burned out. The cold didn’t bother me as long as we were touching. With a shudder, I peel off my clothes and let Amber lead me into the creek, yelping when the water climbs above my knees. I wash quickly with one hand, the other locked tightly around Amber’s. The rush of her power is almost dizzying.
“Julio’s a total baby about the cold, too. He made me hold his hand all night.” Amber rolls her eyes, but she’s not fooling anyone. She’s practically radiating magic after their night together. “It’s a good thing he didn’t share a tent with Jack. He might have frozen to death.”
I throw water over my neck, both of us wavering on the uneven stones as I pull her off balance.
“You didn’t stay with him last night, did you?” she asks.
I fight off a shiver. “How’d you know?”
“Because Jack looks terrible and you’re sucking up all my power.”
“Sorry,” I say, not sorry enough to let go of her hand.
“Are you and Jack okay?” she asks. “Is it because of what I said yesterday? About what happened at the cabin?”
“No,” I rush to say. “It was nothing like that. We’re fine.” I think. “His head was just in a weird place last night. And things between us felt a little... intense.” My cheeks warm at the memory. How his pulse raced where our hands touched. How my breaths were so shallow asevery inch of me listened to the taut silence between us, aching to close the gap. But he was so raw last night. So vulnerable and uncertain. It wouldn’t have felt right. “We all did and said things that felt wrong yesterday. I guess I didn’t think Jack and I needed one more regret.”
I bend forward to dunk my hair, but something about Amber’s stillness makes me lift my head. I brush the soap from my eyes. Her brow’s furrowed, and her full lips are turned down at the edges. “Would you? Regret sleeping with him?” she asks.
I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about it. Truth? I’ve thought about it almost constantly since that kiss at the pond. If we hadn’t been caught by the headmaster, if Lyon hadn’t called, then maybe we would have then.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Nerves, I guess.” I hadn’t realized how it would feel to just come out and say it. “That’s probably stupid. I mean, there is no perfect first time, right? No perfect moment or perfect place. If you know you’re with the right person and it’s what you both want, then—”
“Wait, you mean your first time, like... ever?” Amber looks surprised.
“Why?” I ask. “How many times have you...?” She raises an eyebrow. I can’t tell if she’s waiting for me to finish or daring me to.
“Enough to know thatlasttimes can come with their own set of regrets, too.” She looks away and I wonder if she’s thinking of Julio. If she’s scared of letting herself get too close to him, or if she’s afraid because she already has. “Do you love him?” she asks.
It feels strange to confide something so intimate to her when I haven’t even confessed it to Jack. “I do.”
“Do you trust him?”
“With my life.”
“What about your heart?” she asks, as if this is the only answer that matters. As if this one piece of me weighs more heavily than all the others.
“I trust him with everything.”
She nods, and a knot of self-doubt loosens inside me. “Then don’t sweat all that other stuff. You’ll know when you’re ready.”
